Why I bought this phone: At the time that this phone was introduced, the trend was for smaller and smaller phones. When 3G first came out, it was unpopular due to its size. This was smaller than some of the 2.5G handsets around and, as I mentioned earlier, it remains the smallest 3G phone I am aware of. This suffered from 3G’s natural evolvement which was opposite to the 2.5G market’s evolvement. 3G was developed with the intention of making and receiving video calls. For this purpose, the Z500 did its job; it had two cameras and two screens so that it didn’t matter whether the phone was open or closed. The main camera was on the outside and has a 1.3 mega pixel sensor. The external screen wasn’t too shabby as it was full colour and has a high enough refresh rate so that it’s usable for a video call. The second camera has only a 0.3 mega pixel sensor, again, suitable for video calling.

All this focus on video calling necessitated that the person at the other end of the call also had a 3G handset and was in a situation where a video call would be suitable. In order for a video call to be appropriate and suitable, there will be bright lights but not shining into the camera and unless you had a hands-free headset, the speaker phone feature needs to be used. Should a private call be required, both sides need to be in a position where they will not be either seen or heard. A standard phone call, on the other hand, only requires each end to pick up the handset and, if privacy is required, simply speak more softly. For these reasons, video calling never really took off. Even Apple with its FaceTime is struggling to make video calling popular on the move. 

3G evolved in a different path to 2.5G as briefly mentioned earlier. 2.5G and 2 G handsets (2.5G could handle photo messaging) were text orientated (even WAP - the predecessor to the modern mobile internet was text based and for pictured used what I can only describe as rather involved emoticons) with only the occasional photo so the screens did not have to be big, just clear enough to read. This led to them becoming smaller and smaller as technology allowed. 3G, however, developed from trying to introduce video calling to enabling the internet to be portable. As such, the screens have become larger so that they are easier to read and interact with. (I am not going to credit Apple with that and I’ll explain why when I discuss my Palm Pre.) This left the Z500 down a dead end.

Usability: This phone did not have a touch screen but bearing in mind the size of it, this was not a bad thing as if you used your thumb it would cover the entire screen! It had a similar operating system to the Nokia 7650 and the N93 however, Samsung also introduced shortcut buttons so that it was easy to access often used functions (app’s). I got this phone through Orange which I now consider a mistake as Orange decided to install its own shortcuts on the home screen. For this reason, I will not get another smart-phone from Orange. Samsung chose not to use a joystick but rather a D pad (up, left, right, down and middle buttons) which worked just as well. 

Negatives: The reason why I do not describe to operating system to be the same as the Nokias is because of my main gripe with this phone, it could not multitask! I got used to having solitaire running in the background of the Nokia 7650 - start a game, read a text then continue with the game. If I did that with the Samsung Z500 I would start the game, read a text then have to restart the game as it didn’t remember where I was up to. Or I would be looking at a web page and I receive a call or read a text and then I would have to re-find the page I was on. Other than the small screen, making web-sites close to unreadable, the lack of multitasking and the damage Orange did to it, it worked well and should still be held as an achievement or Samsung being the smallest 3G phone (that I’m aware of). A very quick Google search came up with the BenQ (formerly Siemens) S80 as being the smallest but this is fractionally larger than the Z500 as measured by gsmarena.com