Samsung CorbyPRO
In an earlier edition of our weekly column, we reviewed the Samsung Corby. But more devices were released in this series. Consider the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO, released in 2009. This device was also supposed to be a hit among young people, and be an alternative to the BlackBerry, for example. In fact, the CorbyPRO featured a physical keyboard, which you could slide out from under the screen. That done, a four-row keyboard appeared. From the software interface, it was possible to link directly to social networks. The software was Samsung TouchWiz, where you could fill the home screens with widgets. The themes on the phone also allowed you to go either way in terms of styles.
Although we describe the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO as a smartphone in this section, the device was actually in between a smartphone and a phone. For instance, the device did have WiFi and offered things like various applications, and there was Bluetooth, an FM radio, GPS and various other things. Navigation could be done via Google Maps. However, by using its own software, it lacked choice of apps. However, the browser did offer support for both Flash and Java. Surfing could be done via the GSM, EDGE or UMTS (HSDPA) network.
The Samsung CorbyPRO featured a 2.8-inch resistive-touch screen, which offered a resolution of 320 x 280 pixels. In addition, there was a 3.2-megapixel camera for taking pictures and you could take selfies with a simple front camera. There was 150MB of storage, although you could expand this with a memory card. On board the CorbyPRO was a 960mAh battery, which you could also swap out yourself.
Samsung released the B5310 CorbyPRO in two colour variants: black and white and black and red. The price for the phone with slide-out keyboard came out around 200-250 euros. This made the phone slightly cheaper than the BlackBerry Curve.
Samsung CorbyPRO summarised in 3 points
- Slide-out keyboard
- TouchWiz
- Google Maps and full-fledged browser
