Pay as you go deal: Carphone Warehouse UK
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                             Unlocked for any network

Samsung christened its S5230 Star as a Tocco Lite. Capitalizing on the success of its full-featured Tocco line, the new Tocco Lite is positioned to compete with the LG Cookie in the middle markets for touch screen phones. The two are virtually similar in form and features. So what is there for the Tocco Lite to banner about? Let’s see.

Design

The phone’s design shadows just about every other touch screen phones out there of this size. The dominating 3” screen on its façade is a real joy to behold. You get 256k colors on a QVGA resolution screen giving vibrant colors we have come to expect from Samsung phones. True to other mobile phones from Samsung, you have to take out the battery to put in the microSD card, making hot swapping impossible.

Its slim form does make it among the few touch screen phones that have squeezed in the necessary electronics in such a form. Its pocket-sized dimensions at a lightweight 93.5g make the Tocco Lite an attractive alternate for sleek fashion mobile gadgets out there.

Camera

The Tocco Lite is not as camera-centric as its Pixon line, but it manages to take respectable photo quality from its 3.1 mpx camera. There is LED flash built-in enabling to shoot indoors at low light. An amazing camera feature over its face recognition is the SmileShot application that only takes a shot when the subject smiles. Moreover, QVGA video at 15 fps also available.

Entertainment Features and Memory

It comes with audio and video players supporting the popular formats in the market. Its DNS (Digital Natural Sound) can give virtual surround sound with equalizer support for a more engaging music playback. There’s also an FM radio with RDS. With 50mb of internal memory expandable to 16GB via microSD support, you can have all your music, images and video files to keep you busy for the week. Even a month.

Connectivity and Internet Capabilities

The Tocco Lite is a quad band GSM supporting Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and USB 2.0 as well. The web browser is quite capable with the large screen giving it great visibility for palm sized viewer. There are widgets to let you instantly access Google Search, Mail and Maps as well as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. The problem really is in the lack of support for high speed networks. Lacking in Wi-Fi and 3G, Internet access can be slow, as you have to settle with EDGE technology.

Conclusion

Don’t expect anything spectacular or remarkable from it. Nearly all its features can be found in the Samsung line and most in other brands of the same price range or lower. But let there be no mistake, sleek and beautiful in black, the Tocco Lite is a capable multimedia mobile phone that not only fits right in the fashion conscious crowd, but provides all the mobile experience you need at a very light price.

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