Samsung E250 Review

In a nutshell: The E250 is an entry-level slide phone and is one of the best phones in the entry-level price range. For less than 50 quid you get a cool-looking slide phone with a camera, music player, FM radio, Bluetooth and a memory card slot for storing loads of music. You can't go wrong with this one!
Best buy: *Free* with up to £345 cashback from Dialaphone (Black); or on Pay as you Go from the Carphone Warehouse for £29.95 (choice of black or lilac).

The E250 is Samsung's first slide phone in the entry-level market, and it's an impressive one. This is a phone that retails for less than £50 on Pay as you Go, but it shares the cool looks and design of Samsung's top-end slide phones that are currently all the rage. It's a very compact, slimline and lightweight phone, weighing just 81g. The keypad and slide are very similar to the top-of-the-range Samsung D900, and are a proven design - very easy to use. When closed, the navigation keys enable you to access most of the phone's functions and you just slide the phone open to make a call or send a text.

For an entry-level phone it's very well specified too. The VGA camera (0.3 megapixels) and video recorder are fairly basic, but the phone is also equipped with a good quality MP3 player and FM radio too. In this price range, only the Sony Ericsson W200i can offer the same. The MP3 player can also handle AAC and AAC+ formats too. You can also set MP3 tracks as your ringtone. The built-in memory of 13 Mbytes is enough to store 3 or 4 songs only, but you can expand the memory with a MicroSD memory card if you want to make more use of the music player.

Other handy features include a built-in speakerphone and a voice memo recorder. All kinds of messaging are supported, including MMS (multimedia messaging) and email. You can download Java games as well as the embedded games that come pre-installed. A full range of personal organiser functions are included. Flight mode lets you listen to music, play games, etc whilst the network connection is switched off.

Connectivity is outstanding, with support for both Bluetooth and USB. The Bluetooth connection lets you exchange games and ringtones wirelessly with other compatible phones, and can also be used to connect to a stereo Bluetooth headset. The USB connection is most useful for transferring music, pictures and videos to and from a computer. A fast internet connection is available too, via GPRS and EDGE.

All things considered, this is an extremely good value phone. It offers the benefits of a music player and FM radio with a memory card, plus everything you'd expect from an entry-level phone, and in a cool slide design. Battery life is the one area that could be better. At the time of writing (June 2007) this is our favourite phone in the sub-£50 market.