Review of Samsung S5620 Monte

Reasonable touch phones are all over the set so the Samsung S5620 Monte will have to succeed the old fashioned way – by giving more & better specifications. Done deal with full-suit connectivity, the Monte aims to deliver huge touch experience & social networking specifications plus some obvious styling.

The Samsung S5620 Monte has both 3G including HSDPA & Wi-Fi for browsing & data, and a included GPS receiver for location services. The Monte has a proficient web browser (with Flash support) & a decently sized 3” screen. The GPS can also transform the Monte into a suitable SatNav unit thanks to the free NaviExpert app. But, the free license is available for phones sold in the Czech Republic.

For the impatient readers, here’s a rundown of the Samsung S5620 specs – the good & bad of it.

Key Specifications Samsung S5620 Monte

• Quad-band GSM/EDGE, UMTS 900/2100, HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
• 3" capacitive TFT touchscreen of WQVGA resolution, 256K colors
• TouchWiz 2.0 Plus user interface including multitasking support
• 200 MB onboard storage, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
• 3 megapixel camera with smile detection, QVGA video @ 15fps
• Secondary video-call camera
• Wi-Fi connectivity (b/g)
• GPS receiver with A-GPS; Free GPS navigation with NAVTEQ maps
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB v.2.0
• microUSB slot (with charging support)
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• DNSe sound improvements
• Find Music recognition service
• FM radio with RDS
• Office document viewer
• Smart unlock
• Social networking integration with direct file uploads
• Accelerometer for auto screen rotate, turn to mute

Main disadvantage Samsung S5620 Monte

• Free GPS navigation is for Czech Montes only
• No on-screen QWERTY keyboard
• Flash in browser eats too much RAM, can’t play YouTube videos
• No games preinstalled
• Task manager cannot be used for switching between apps

If you’ve read our preview you’d know the S5620 Monte was orange-on-grey back then. Samsung have clearly changed their mind since & put a tux on the Monte – it’s now grey on black – a bit more conventional.