Samsung SGH E490

Personally I'm not a big fan of the 'open and answer' flip or clamshell phone design. To each his own right. But I have to say, quite a few manufacturers have taken it to whole new level, with sleek and stylish designs and dual screens. Let's not leave out the colors. Well, not all of them may be as appealing as the next but most manage to pull it off without a hitch. A good example of fashion and elegance in a flip phone is the Samsung SGH – E490.

Form Factor
Like I said before, the design of the E490 is quite elegant with a smooth metallic color finish and the cool style is only accentuated with the silver linings. It's also rather slim and lightweight for a flip with dimensions like - 94 x 49 x 15.5 mm and it weighs 83g. On the front you'll see a monochrome screen (128 x 32 pixel resolution) that’s just 32 x 8 mm wide, but has a choice of 7 colors in case you'd like to go with one that matches the replaceable panels you may have chosen. Yes the panels are changeable too. Just above the screen is the 1.3 megapixel camera.

On the right hand side is the Hot-Swap microSD slot for external memory and the dedicated camera key is just underneath that. On the other side are the propriety USB/Charger/Earphone socket. Why oh why couldn't they just have another socket for the earphones? Anyways, moving along, underneath that are the volume keys that also double as the zoom keys. Flip her open and you have the clear 176 x 220 pixel, TFT screen with 65K colors. Just beneath the screen are 2 speakers that aren't great but they aren't so bad in speaker-phone mode.

I have to admit, I thought the keypad would pose a bit of a problem but thanks to the large keys and the 5 way nav-pad I had absolutely no issues. There are also 3 dedicated keys for the MP3 player, messaging and the browser.