Samsung Lucido S7220 review

There are a couple of innovative features on board, such as the fake call feature. If you hold down the shortcut key, which is set to the bottom of the five-way function key by default, you can receive a call from an unknown number. Handy in case of emergency -- like a blind date that's gone wrong, perhaps. But before the call starts, a huge message comes up that says 'fake call activated', along with a beep to confirm. Oops, the feature is rendered useless, and almost certain to land you in trouble if your date catches a look at the screen -- to be fair, it's a foolproof way to end things early.

The Lucido's 5-megapixel camera has an LED photo light and takes vibrant, if rather blurry, photos

Another feature we were eager to try was the etiquette pause, which was meant to mute the phone or mute the ringer, or something, when you flip the handset on to its face. But we couldn't make it mute anything, from the speaker to the microphone. In fact, the Lucido is one of the loudest, most annoying phones we've used. Every key beeps a different tone, and there are beeps to confirm the most trivial operation, too. Under threats of death from the rest of the team at CNET towers, we had to keep the phone on silent at all times. It's worth noting, however, that these beeps might be helpful for visually impaired users.

Good to get connected
Web browsing on the Lucido is good enough to be handy, especially with 7.2Mbs HSDPA keeping downloads quick over 3G. Even complex Web sites look great on the sharp, clear screen, but because it's only 56mm (2.2-inches) in size, it's not much use for anything more complicated than a little mobile Facebook or Twitter.

Conclusion
The Samsung Lucido S7220 didn't set our world on fire, but it has a solid range of features and a lovely AMOLED screen, so we're willing to forgive its dated user interface and annoying abundance of beeps. A couple of the features didn't live up to our expectations, such as the GPS with no maps app, and it wasn't as good-looking in real life as in its press photos. But it's easy to use, and not expensive, so if you like your phones traditional and fingerprint-proof, it could still be the choice for you.

Edited by Nick Hide