Samsung Corby S3653 Full Touch Screen Phone review

Sporting a 2.8  inch capacitive touch screen, Samsung Corby definitely makes a strong statement in the Mobile market. With no real competition in the low end Touch Screen scenario, Samsung tries to strengthen its hold in the sub Rs 10,000 / $240  Touch screen market. After good success with Samsung STAR and STAR 3G, this phone is expected to consolidate its hold.

The phone has an unusual rounded shape rather than a typical bar shape of Nokia 5800 or Apple Iphone. Also the phone comes in funky colors like Caribbean Yellow,Pink etc. Lets look how it compares against other similar full touch screen phones in terms of dimensions and thickness

Samsung Corby S3653 Black and Yellow  Face book app
Samsung Corby S3653 Black and Yellow Face book app

Samsung Corby – 103 x 56.5 x 12 mm
LG Cookie KP500 -106.5 x 55.4 x 11.9 mm
Nokia 5800 – 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm
Nokia 5530 – 104 x 49 x 13 mm
Samsung STAR – 104 x 53 x 11.9 mm
Nokia X6 – 111 x 51 x 13.8 mm
Nokia X3 – 96 x 49 x 14 (Not a touch screen) mm
Nokia N97 – 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 (18.2 max) mm
Iphone 3Gs -115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm
Nokia E71 – 114 x 57 x 10 mm
Nokia N97 mini – 113 x 52.5 x14.2 mm

The phone is definitely a slim one in its league also very light weighing at 94 g. And its screen is bright and as you would expect from a capacitive touch screen, doesnt support multi touch etc.

But Samsung Corby comes preloaded with variety of Apps for the internet hungry youth, Orkut,MySpace,Facebook, Twitter,Yahoo messenger,Google Talk, Gmail , Youtube, Flickr,Picasa to name a few. It comes with 27 widgets preloaded and you can still download 75 more from samsung site for free.

Samsung Corby S3653  Home Screen
Samsung Corby S3653 Home Screen

It has a inbuilt memory of 64 MB and supports upto 8GB in External Memory Cards. The phone comes with 2MP camera without Autofocus, with One touch zoom. In connectivity Corby supports Bluetooth A2DP (streaming stereo music over bluetooth). There is no 3G and Wifi.

The phone comes with an office viewer, but strangely Samsung omitted On Screen QWERTY keyboard, which might be a turnoff for many considering this phone is targetted at social media fans. Also there is no accelerometer to Auto rotate the screen mode between Landscape and portrait.

Specifications
2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

Dimensions 103 x 56.5 x 12.4 mm
Weight 90 g
Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 256K colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches
Speakerphone Yes
Memory Phonebook 1000 contacts, Photocall
Internal 64 MB
Card slot microSD (TransFlash), up to 8 GB, buy memory
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD Yes
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0
Camera Primary 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels
Features Smile detection
Video Yes, QVGA@15fps
Secondary No
Features Messaging SMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games Yes + downloadable
Colors Jamaican Yellow, Cupid Pink, Minimal White, and Festival Orange; 2 Fashion Jackets
GPS No
Java Yes, MIDP 2.0
– MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player
– Find Music recognition service
– H.263/H.264/MP4/WMV player
– Organizer
– Voice memo
– T9

Well if you have sub 10k budget Samsung Corby S3653 is definitely a good buy. The price of Samsung Corby S3653 is Rs 8600 ($ 200 ) and you might end up getting more discounts during Diwali or New Year offers.

TCS gives its employees a Diwali surprise – 1.5 times the VA (Diwali Bonus ?)

TCS has been in the news for All bad reasons recently, for a change today the TCS Management has announced 50% increase in VA Quarterly component for the just concluded quarter. This is applicable only for this quarter and not future VA components.

Most of the employees are expected to receive the increased VA in october salary, this will  give a minimum bonus of Rs 4000 and upwards . This could be a way the company is trying to mend way with its employees and probably a Gift from the new CEO N Chandrasekharan.

Below is the excerpt fromVP & Head of Global HR , TCS

Congratulations and thanks to all of you for your tremendous effort. Considering the performance of the company in this quarter, I am pleased to announce the management decision to pay 1.5 times of the quarterly component of the variable pay for the quarter ended 30 September, 2009, applicable for eligible employees on India payroll.

Anyway Happy Diwali everyone..

TCS posts better than expected Q2 results

TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) beat the market outlook by posting decent Q2 numbers following in Infosys path.

The net profit was at Rs 1,640 crore vs Rs 1,533 crore QoQ (Quarter-on-Quarter). The results are up 3.2% QoQ and 6.9% YoY.

TCS is expected to announce Full VA for its employees  for the Q2 this month.

The positive results is expecte to boost IT stocks in the market despite Climbing Rupee.