The battle for smartphone marketshare is getting fiercer. And in this raging battle touchscreen seems to be increasingly becoming a must-have feature.
Recently, Korean giant Samsung launched a 3G touchscreen smartphone, Samsung Star 3G S5603, in the Indian market. Fresh from the success of Omnia in the country, Samsung offers users an affordable touchscreen substitute to high-end touchcreen phones from Nokia and LG's stable with its Star S5603.
Here's looking further into the Samsung's Star entry into the touchscreen smartphone market in the country.
Specifications and Features:
Samsung Star features a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen display. Measuring 102.8 x 54.8 x 12.9mm, the phone weighs 96 grams. Sporting a thin look at 13mm, the phone has 240320 resolution display.
Below the display, the phone sports three keys -- call, joystick and hang up. The phone has a standard keypad and doesn't include a QWERTY keyboard. The phone packs Samsung's TouchWiz User Interface (UI). It features a Gesture Control, which 
allows users to unlock the touchscreen or run an application by giving a command through gestures.
The phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with power LED flash that offers a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels.
The phone has a Photo slideshow app that lets users browse through photos. Users also have the option to edit these photos. Video recording is possible at 15 frames per second.
Some of the other features include Smile Detection and an Auto Stitch Panorama mode that works in all directions. The phone also offers White Balance and Exposure feature.
Samsung Star 3G model offers full internet browsing support with an accelerometer sensor for auto-rotation. The handset is 3G capable. Other connectivity options include EDGE/GPRS. Bluetooth with an A2DP is also available. The phone has USB via the universal micro USB slot. The phone can reportedly support up to 8 hours talktime.
The phone packs 50MB internal memory expandable upto 8GB via MicroSD card. The handset has a MP3 player, video player and FM radio with RDS. The phone comes with pre-installed applications including Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, Friendster and MySpace.
Available only in black colour, the phone is priced at Rs 14,499. This is half the price of touchscreen smartphone from Nokia, whose N97 is priced around Rs 35,000.
