Refine search for Mobile Phones

  Leave a comment      Email this to a friend TrustedReviews Newsletters

The camera is not going to win any prizes. It shoots stills at resolutions up to just 640 x 480, which is probably by most people’s standards going to sound unacceptably poor. It doesn’t shoot video at all. Another turn-off for many will be that the absence of a memory card slot and Bluetooth means that to get photos off the handset they have to be sent over the air. The sample shots were sent to another handset via MMS, in fact.

The camera performs far better outdoors than inside. My standard reference shot of the coloured dish taken indoors under normal household lighting is fuzzy and dark. The colour reproduction on the flowers is pretty close to the whitey pink they are in real life, though the phone doesn’t capture the dark green leaves surrounding them in any kind of detail. In terms of overall quality then, shots taken with this phone are clearly not going be the kinds of photos you’ll want to keep for ever.

There are two plus points worth making. First, photos look fine on the handset itself. Second, the lens is on the outside of the flip. With the flip open the main screen acts as the viewfinder and you can take photos looking away from you. With it closed the outer screen is the viewfinder and you can take pictures that include yourself.

In terms of the remaining specifications it won’t surprise you to learn that things are pretty basic.

This is a Tri-band GSM phone with GPRS. There is a WAP browser but no full HTML support. As I’ve already indicated there is a calendar you can manage from within the handset but there is no data synchronisation facility.

The calendar sits within the Organiser group on the phone and this also offers a memo feature, to do list manager, the alarms I mentioned earlier, a voice recorder, calculator, timer, stopwatch and unit converters for currency, length, weight, volume, area and temperature. The handset supports Java and there are a couple of games built in.

There is just 2MB of built in memory, and no way of expanding on that. You can store 200 text messages and 500 contacts on the phone.
What the Lily lacks is a music player and the range of polyphonic ringtones is rather plinky too.

Without a music player I couldn’t perform my usual battery rundown test. However Samsung quotes up to 350 hours of standby time for this handset, which is way more than I obtained. Orange’s estimate of one day is far closer to what I got during testing. I wouldn’t want to have to survive for a weekend without a mains power adaptor.

Verdict

As an entry level mobile phone the Lily E420 has some features I rather like. I’m surprisingly drawn to the front light, and the number pad is very easy to use at speed. With no music player, no Bluetooth, no HTML and a woeful camera, though, this really is a handset that’s limited to making voice calls and texting.

Add your comment