First impression of the Armani mobile
September 24, 2007

Touch screens are it these days, and in that class, Samsung is not alone. Yet the Armani phone differs from its competition when it comes to format and input.

Being a pronounced fashion mobile, the introduction sequence is given. When starting up the phone, an animation is displayed with Armani's name and brand, followed by the starting screen. It consists partly of an icon in the middle, bringing up the complete menu, partly of four shortcuts taking you directly to the selected function.

It is sometimes hard to get the right feel when using a touch screen mobile since it does not give the same kind of feedback as one gets from pressing regular buttons. Samsung has solved this design issue by (as has Neonode) letting the phone vibrate slightly, to confirm that something has been pressed. Figure keys appear on screen when it is time to punch in a number, and the same technique is used to enter text messages - i.e. you use the numerical keys, pressing repeatedly, just like using any other kind of phone. When I try it out, the phone is sluggish, making the letters appear slower than I actually punch them in, but with a little patience, they do appear on screen. All punches are registered correctly.

The phone does fit the palm quite well, and is considerably smaller than LG's corresponding Prada mobile. The camera in the Armani mobile handles three mega pixels and is equipped with auto focus. Shortcuts are shown on the right hand side of the screen and on the left hand side there are small icons showing the current settings. The image is taken by touching the screen. That might be a drawback since it tends to make the phone move and thereby causing a blurry image.

The menus are not as touch-friendly as on LG's Prada mobile, and the question really is to what extent the fashion companies have been involved at all. Samsung and Armani say that they are co-operating and that they will be doing that in the future, but fashion journalists say that this kind of co-operations usually only means that Samsung in this case is paying to use Armani's brand.

In the phone I have had the chance to try out, the screen does not have the best accuracy. It is possible to scroll by sliding one's finger across the screen, but most of the time it results in unintentional menu selections. Sometimes it is due to missing the right button. Despite the fact of pressing a specific menu choice, something is selected a few rows down from what I intended to activate. This could have something to do with this being an early test version of the phone.

By: Erik Mörner, Jonas Kämpe