This is a review after using the handset extensively for about 10 months. I purchased Samsung Chat 322 mainly because I wanted a dual-sim phone. But at the same time I did not want the cheap and unreliable boxes marketed by Karbons, Maxxs, Lemons and thousand other manufacturers. At the time of purchase, Samsung was the only mainstream dual-sim brand available on the market.
Now, let me first specify some important disclosures about dual sim phones:
Dual SIM makes life very easy. It is way better than juggling 2 handsets.
There is NO dual-sim “smartphone” in the market. Although there are many Qwerty phones having dual SIM facility, no handset in the world can be a ‘true’ dual-SIM smartphone. So do not expect BlackBerry or Galaxy-like features on any Dual SIM handset. It will put serious strain on the hardware and I don’t think that the technology is yet available to put the processing powers of 2 BlackBerries or Galaxies on a single chip.
Battery strength is very important to consider while buying a dual-SIM handset.
Call, SMS, camera and basic data connectivity are the basic functions that you can expect from a dual sim phone. Don’t expect high-end games, apps and graphics.
Review
The phone is decent and passes on most tests required for a dual sim handset. It looks good and is way better than the Chinese handsets. Camera is 1.3 Megapixel and pictures are of average to good quality depending on the light. It supports video recording. No flash. It is a Qwerty phone weighing 95 grams. Very light and the keypad is ok. It is built quite sturdily – I have dropped/thrown this phone some 8-10 times but it is still intact. The display is 2.2 inches, TFT, 256K colors and seems a bit small; but gets the work done. 2GB memory card is given free with the handset and it can be extended up to 8 GB. It has 55MB internal memory. Bluetooth and GPRS are good and work very well. It plays MP3/eAAC+ , MP4/H.264 files and the playback is decent. Especially the audio player is as good as any other phone. Li-Ion 1000 mAh battery is a stand-out feature of this phone and the battery works very well. It is powered by Samsung’s proprietary DUOS platform which is good and without any major glitches. The optical track pad is ok (of course, not as great as BlackBerry but then nothing is as good as the BlackBerry track pad) and makes the menu browsing easy. The huge relief is the network switch key located on the right edge of the handset. It makes switching networks very easy. In other phones, if you want to change the mobile service provider, you have to press at least 3-4 buttons before doing so. This key takes all that trouble away.
The browser is basic but loads the text very fast. The inbuilt apps for facebook and twitter are crap. It’s better to access these using the browser itself. The laptop/computer connect software – Samsung PC studio – is good and has pre-set internet configurations for most cellular operators in India. So, connecting this phone to your computer/laptop and surfing the net is very easy. In fact, I use it mostly as a modem to surf the net (because of the ridiculous data cards available in the Indian market; the GPRS networks are up most times and provide a speed of 6-10 KBPS depending upon your cellular operator.
Negatives
GPRS usage drains the battery much faster; I think that a download of 60-70 MB is enough to drain the battery completely.
The browser is basic; they could’ve provided a better browser at this price and platform.
The voice clarity is ok; but can be improved further
They say this phone has “push-mail”. It’s non-sense! The ONLY functioning push-mail service in the world is Blackberry! Anyone else (including the Galaxies, Nokias) advertising “push mails” is a technological lie.
I think now Nokia has also launched their dual SIM qwerty handsets. No one beats Nokia when it comes to durability so I guess a Nokia dual SIM would be a better choice than Samsung.
Final Verdict
At a price of around Rs. 4000/- this is a good Dual SIM handset in the market. Recommended if you know the limitations of the dual SIM technology mentioned above.
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Finno