Samsung’s latest handset : The S5150 Diva Folder

The root of the word Diva comes from the feminine version of Divus, and originally meant Divine One, or Goddess. Latterly the word evolved to be something used for female opera singers, relating to the Prima Donna, or First Woman, of the Opera. These days the word is more commonly associated with pampered celebrities, empty people with a glamorous exterior who expect people to answer to their every whim, responding to every demand. Samsung’s latest handset is the S5150 Diva Folder, and the Diva name for this phone is kind of apt, seeing as it is a fairly empty device in terms of features, but with a very glamorous exterior.

The flashy exterior design of the S5150 is created to capture attention, with an eye catching silver colour embossed square like pattern. As the Folder part of the name suggests, the Samsung S5150 is a clamshell device, and cleverly hidden in the exterior is an external display, which lights up for incoming calls or showing the clock, but otherwise stays switched off. The hinge of the device is one of the newer type clamshell hinges that has become fashionable recently, very similar to the recent Sony Ericsson W980i. When opened the device reveals an internal, non touch, 2.2 inch TFT display, with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels, supporting up to 16 million colours. The S5150 is very light, weighing in at just 84g, and measuring 94 x 47 x 18mm.

The S5150 is just a TriBand GSM device, and offers neither Mobile broadband nor even 3G connectivity. Any data usage for this device is going to work over GPRS or EDGE, only, as there isn’t even Wi-Fi included. Local connectivity is handled with a Micro USB connector to connect the handset to a PC with a data cable, plus there is also Bluetooth 2.1, which connects your device to a PC for backing and transfer of data, plus also supports A2DP for stereo wireless headset usage.

The camera on the S5150 is 3.2 Megapixel, and whilst image quality is nothing to shout about, captured images are good enough to be uploaded to the web to be hosted on your blog, or send to other handsets via Bluetooth, MMS or Email. The handset is also capable of recording video at QVGA resolution, specification that is in line with the whole ethos of this device.

There is a built in FM Stereo radio available, with RDS support, which will show certain information broadcast from the radio station on the display of the device. Alongside this the media player can handle the usual variety of music and video formats for a mid range mobile, namely MP3, eAAC+, WAV and WMV for music, plus MP4, H.263 and H.264 for video. Memory capacity on the S5150 is rather limited at just 40MB, but this can be enhanced with Micro SD Memory Cards, with the S5150 Diva able to support up to 8GB.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to find that this Diva does not include even GPS, but there are some nice touches. Multiple email accounts can be accessed on the device, and there is full java support, so our favourite applications such as Gmail and Opera Mini can be installed on the handset easily enough. There is also a photo editor on board, which allows you to manipulate various elements of images you have captured on the phone. Battery capacity on the S5150 Diva isn’t that high, just 800 mAh, but with no high speed data to drain the battery you can still achieve up to 7 hours talktime.

To conclude, the S5150, as the Diva name suggests, is all about the look rather than the substance. That said, the look is pretty impressive, and will certainly catch the attention of friends. The keypad on the device is flat, but keys are well spaced out. There is a large percentage of the market out there that just wants to make calls and send text, and don’t need all the bells and whistles of the top end smartphone. At the same time, these users want something that looks a bit different, whilst retaining an element of usability. If you fall into this category, then the Samsung S5150 Diva Folder is certainly something you should consider. The device is expected to market in Q1 2010.