The Shark series by Samsung is a line of three feature phones that focuses mainly on style and reliability. Neither of them is designed to offer great functionality, but all of them will be there when you need to make an urgent phone call. The most sophisticated of the three is the Samsung Shark 2 S5550, as it tries to cross the line between basic and multifunctional handsets, by featuring a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash. Even more, with its 2.2-inch AMOLED display, it takes some of the eye candy we normally see in high-end touchscreen phones and brings it to the mainstream market.
It is great that the Shark line hasn’t gotten its name on a random basis. Although you may have to get your imagination working in order to discover the similarities with the sweet little fish, all three handsets undeniably share the same design language with smooth curves and streamlined bodies. Once opened, the S5550 assumes the characteristic torpedo-like shape that sharks have.
The Samsung Shark 2 S5550 feels really nice in the hand; it can be comfortably operated in both closed and opened mode, which isn’t typical of every slider out there. Build quality is good on the whole, although the slider wobbles just a little, and the nicely-patterned back cover is plastic, instead of metal as on the Shark S5350.
The image quality of the Shark 2’s 2.2-inch screen is more than satisfying, thanks both to the AMOLED technology and the decent resolution of 240x320 pixels. While the diagonal of the panel is nothing spectacular, colors are saturated and the viewing angle is great, with no loss of quality. Still, we feel the relatively small size kind of takes the appeal away from it. You will also need to shield the display with your hand, if you want to read it outdoors in direct sunlight.
All the keys of the Samsung Shark 2 S5550 are more than usable. They have a pleasant click to them so you can never mistake it when you’ve pressed one. This, of course, applies to the numeric keypad as well, which is one of the best we have used. Its buttons are perfectly sized, so you don’t need to use your fingernails to press.
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