Samsung B2700 Bound review

The latest ruggedised mobile from Samsung, the B2700 is designed for outdoors active lifestyles, with toughened plastic bodywork that's water-and dust-resistant to the ICE IP54 standard.

While that doesn't mean protection from heavy-duty damage or total water immersion, it does offer more defence against the elements than the average handset - whether you prefer you're outdoors activities up a mountain or on a beach.

Samsung has certainly beefed up the specification from its earlier, relatively basic, Solid M110 active lifestyle handset. The B2700's features roster is mid-range 3G, with a few outdoorsy features – such as compass, altimeter, pedometer and flashlight – to go with familiar multimedia gadgetry such as music and video players, video calling, and online functionality. Shooting duties are taken care of by a run-of-the-mill 2-megapixel camera on the back panel.

Initially available on 3 in the UK for around £127 on pre-pay, or from free on contracts, it's an affordable way to toughen up your mobile act.

Design

The muscly build of the B2700's casing is part protective sealing, part rugged chic. Measuring 115(h) x 52(w) x 18(d) mm, and weighing 115g, it's hefty for a regular candybar phone but is pocketable and feels comfortable in-hand. The moulded rubber-feel casing is grooved for solid wet-weather holding and no-nonsense, solid button pressing. As well as side keys for camera and volume, there's a dedicated button for activating the flashlight – a powerful lamp built into the top edge of the phone.

A spoiler-alike loop is moulded into the top, too, which can be used with a supplied plastic snap-hook for fastening the phone to your clothing or other gear. Our review sample came in sober black with grey edging, though versions with red edging or blue with black trim are also made.

The number pad and D-pad navigation should be satisfactorily usable in the cold or wet, with the amply sized keys adequately defined for a one-piece panel. It's finger-friendly enough for pacey texting – unless you're an outdoors type who insists on gloves.

The D-pad is prominent enough for easy clickability, and various shortcuts are pre-defined and easily user swappable for a host more. On the 3 optimised version we tested, the regular standby softkey options are re-designated for Favourites (access to numerous online services and social network sites) and Planet 3 content and services.

Samsung hasn't gone overboard with the display; it's a modest 1.9-inch, 262k-colour 176x220 pixels resolution screen. This takes care of business for the standard-issue Samsung menu navigation system employed here, a fairly straightforward set-up with an initial grid-based main menu spreading into a familiar variety of sub menu lists.

Above the display is the phone's secondary front-facing camera, principally for video calling. The main shooter is on the back panel, without any cover to protect it.

Handling

While the B2700 is more robust and resilient to weather than most mobiles, it's designed to be water-resistant rather than fully waterproof. Still, we were able to submerge the phone briefly in water several times with no problems (though we'd advise against this in normal use, just in case).

Similarly, it passed the shower test, and just to test that tough-guy bodywork, we gave it a few short drops with no visible damage. It's not built to be smash-proof, so we didn't batter it as we would a hardcore industrial phone like the Sonim JCB phone.

Imaging

The camera is an ordinary 2-megapixel shooter that puts in an unexceptional performance. It's fired up by a dedicated side camera button, but by default it shoots in portrait mode rather than rotating to a landscape viewfinder. Full screen shooting means you'll miss what's being shot at the edges – so you get more in your pics than expected. You can choose a full picture 'standard ratio view' option, but that shows you the viewfinder image squashed into a letterbox view. It's not particularly satisfactory.

There's no autofocus or flash, and the settings adjustments are the usual array of phone standard options - white balance, colour effects, multi-shot options and so on. The phone produces limited results, lacking in finer detail but adequate for basic casual camera phone snapping. In decent light conditions, colour rendition looks pretty good. In low light indoors, image quality deteriorates significantly, looking soft and grainy, and with no flash you can forget about shooting in the dark.

Don't expect much from video capture either; the B2700 shoots at 176x144 pixels resolution, producing low quality footage at 15 frames per second.

Music player

The B2700 does up its game for music playback however. Its music player supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, and WMA file formats, and users can download tracks speedily over the air from suitable mobile network services, or copy over to the phone from a PC. Bluetooth transfer is also supported.