Samsung SGH-E530: it's a girl

By Mary Lojkine on 11 July 2005, 10:01am

Mr and Mrs Samsung are pleased to announce the birth of a daughter, the SGH-E530. Weighing just 85g and measuring 86 by 43 by 26mm, she's small but in good health. Mum is also doing fine, but Dad is embarrassed by the girliness of the new arrival and promises to have another son soon.

After a week with the E530, Crave has to admit that it's rather sweet. Sure, it's lavender pink, but we love the satin finish and curved edges. It sits in our pockets like a polished pebble and we keep taking it out for a surreptitious stroke.

Despite the girlphone exterior, the E530 is well specified, with a megapixel camera, MP3 playback, Bluetooth, Java and 92MB of user memory. There's a 65K-colour OLED screen on the front and a 262K-colour TFT LCD inside. Both screens are bright, but we're most impressed by the external one. It displays the time and basic phone settings in turquoise blue characters that can be seen from several metres away, making it easy to check whether the phone is turned on. You can also add a photo to the external screen, although it's only displayed for a few seconds.

Girl features include a maroon suedette pouch and a purple wrist strap that clashes horribly with the pouch (you also get a stereo headset). Female-specific 'lifestyle' software helps you choose the perfect fragrance, track your biorhythms, check your height/weight ratio and count the number of calories you've expended. You can also get pregnant, by using the coyly named 'Pink schedule' to chart your menstrual cycle, and tot up your shopping. Gak.

Samsung is thinking about offering the E530 in gender-neutral and boy-friendly colours -- such as orange, steel grey and blue -- so there's still hope for tomboys, card-carrying feminists and people who hate pink. If you're a girly girl (or even a girly man) who'd like a pink phone, prices range from free with a £30 per month contract to £230 SIM-free. -ML