Introduction

Exclusive pictures? Sensational video on you tube? Muhaha. Here is a review. We got the phone from the manufacturer on the day of announcement, I’ve been overusing it since then. I decided to get used to it whatever it costs. Success. Only one SMS I’ve written, but I haven’t brought out the SIM card anytime. It can be lived with or even it can be a pleasure sometimes but it’s mainly because of the appearance.

Let’s take a tour in the past first. The Bang & Olufsen brand – as I experienced again - is not as well known as I expected. However the Danish company have a really nice past in the history of entertainment electronics, they had started their operation at the turn of the century and soon reached the point when they distinguished themselves from the faceless manufacturer with the mixture of top quality and mellow design. When I met Gyula with the phone in my hand, he was overjoyed, because he is a B&O fanatic, although he only could afford a 17 year old TV but his biggest dream is a Maserati which has audio system delivered from Denmark. We agreed that the Bang & Olufsen brand can be really exclusive in Hungary until the muscle-necked mafia mademans discover it for themselves.

Once the manufacturer was asked why didn’t they have an advertising model as the illustrious companies usually had. The answer was simple: What for and who could be that? The joking questioner suggested Paris Hilton, when the agent of the B&O answered something like this: we don’t need celebrities to be successful. Although if you asked Paris Hilton whether she had Bang & Olufsen stuff at home or not, she’d answer yes.

The company made its first mobile with the co-operation of the Samsung, which was on the market with name “Serene”. Officially it wasn’t available in Hungary, but we managed to acquire a test phone and the motor-driven flip and the strange buttons were exclusive, the first phone of the B&O was not a really user-friendly one, technically it was behind the competitors. However they didn’t give up, the Serenata was also made with the co-operation of the Korean giant but it’s important to mention that the design the sound system and the GUI are the B&O’s own, the Samsung gave the mobile technology to the stuff.

The phone had Hungarian menu that’s why it presumably will be available in Hungary too, but not the Samsung will turn it over either the Bang & Olufsen. It’s price? Above 1000 euros.

Appearance

The phone was delivered in the usual white box of the proto phones, we got all needed parts. Besides the phone, it naturally included a charger, a special headset, a docking station, an USB cable and the CD. After packing out, I rotated the phone before turning it on, because it is much different from any else phone, I needed some time to recognize what is what, what is for what or whatever, what is this all for?

Clear up immediately: the all is upside-down. The display has to be under, above it the navigation part, which is a huge disc. Everyone sucks it who takes the Serenata for first. From front view, the phone is like a “U”, turned to the head, and it is black. The design cuttingly ends on the bottom added to which with a skew cut that makes so many associate to the electric shaver.

Many discovered that a metal plate can be turned out from the back, this is for holding the phone stable, it looks really spectacular in this case, mainly because of its impossibility to say what this is exactly, the only thing you see is that it’s high-tech stuff. Although few discovered that the back of the phone can be slid, naturally upwards in this case, but not the buttons appear, but an enormous woofer, which has it’s own reason.

The Serenata is a bit weighty, but this makes it good to be hold. The problem is that my hand could cover the display because of the rotated design never came up. The design is perfect ergonomically. The U-sized border and the back is black plastic, but it has pleasant touch, the pad around the display and the navi-disc was made of hairline brushed aluminum.

Handling, display

The navi disc and the handling of the phone are worth an earnest analysis. The metal, circle-sized navigation part can be rotated naturally, but its four side and middle can be pushed, too. There is no other button, so it started make me interested how it works. The right and left side of the disc has the functions of the red and green buttons that the usual phones have, on the bottom, the backwards function is available, and on the top, there is the cancel function. The middle button is the OK button, to move in the menu, the disc have to be rotated.

Qualitially the navi disc is the top of the tops. It is amazing that it have gotten a little bump in the middle, the finger is screaming in happiness when touches the metal, not slips although it rotates easily, gives soft software noises when it has gotten the input. The menu is fast, everything happens immediately, handling can cause problems neither for a baby.

Although any brilliant it can be, by itself, it is not enough. That’s why the four corners and the middle of the 240x240 pixels TFT screen is touch sensitive. This makes the options in the menu reachable and it was unambiguous to decide when the screen has to be touched. The numeric buttons are missed in everyday usage. Dialing is not a challenge, because touching the middle of the screen makes the also circle-sized graphics appeared, the typing of the numbers are not so difficult with it, but text entry is a fiddling job, although the designers made it good according to the possibilities, much better than at theNokia 7380 which has alike navigation part.

The menu’s graphics was made under the aegis of minimal design, for me, it’s too few, because the blue and red colored on the black background makes outstanding readability, but the graphics only uses a small piece of the display’s abilities. Naturally it has no problems with appearing the pictures, but I would appreciate something more spectacular for all that I know that the B&O used to makes the point to the Puritanity.

Basic functions

The contact list has space for 1000 contacts, the usual extra information can be attached to them, nothing special. Listing is more interesting, because the letters appear in ABC order after you start searching , first you have to navigate to the desired one, and after pushing OK, further rotating moves vertically down in the list. Getting used to it is not difficult, and I don’t thing it would be much slower than on normal phones added to which the first character in the ABC is a square, clicking it makes the list of recent used contacts appeared.

Writing messages is a harsher job. Without buttons, the way that designers found out: A group of buttons appear in ABC order on the display in normal mobile allotment. Then comes the rolling and the pushing as many times as which place the necessary takes on the button. Clearly it’s a slow solution, but it cannot have been solved better with these possibilities. MMS (max 295KB) and email client (max 300KB) is available but the B&O Serenata is typically the phone that the owner won’t use for writing messages. A video from handling below.

The calendar can be found in the organization functions, which can only appear in monthly view. You can move between the days by the discs, changing month can be done by touching the two bottom corners of the screen. Only meeting and anniversary can be added. The alarm can only store one time, but it can repeat. In the applications, graphical world-clock, basic calculator, currency converter, to-do list and notepad is available, and a Dictaphone which can record 60 minutes of voice in AMR format.

Before examining the audio functions, take a look at the ring tones. First: no profiles, but the phone can vibrate and ring at the same time and the vibration surprisingly shakes this sluggish stone. The ring volume is shatteringly loud but tones can only be selected from the default set. There are no tunes in it, but effects are. Glass, aluminum, ebony, sage, steel. This assortment is all right for a time, because it can be easily heard, but after a time, it becomes boring . The place of the woofer is interesting, because in closed stance, it’s under the disc. Sanyi called my attention to this; the title of the review is due to him.

Audio

Assuredly the musicality is the weapon of the Serenata besides the design. The quality of Bang & Olufsen doesn’t need to be introduced to the experts, and now the Danish really did the bests in comparison with their last model. First, the phone has 3.8GB built-in memory, it’s all for music. For everything else (MMS, pictures, email) a 17-megabyte separated storage is available, it’s enough. It can’t be extended, the files can by copied to the phone at USB 2.0 speed.

In speaker mode, the player with the red menu (instead of blue) only starts if the back of the phone is slid up. In this case, the speaker appears. The volume and the quality is amazing, I’ve never heard something like this from a phone, it has bass (ok, the windows weren’t got broken in the editorial office), and it’s loud enough. It’s possibly the best that can be made out from a small stuff like this. If you listen to the music in speaker mode, the player doesn’t run in the background, that’s why an excellent earphone is included.

The attached Bang & Olufsen headset has ear-clipper forming. It has a … button. Wearing is comfortable, the quality makes no cause for complaint: it meets high requirements. In this case, the player runs in the background, it can be wonderfully loud without blasting, it can be listened to on the underground. At the software area, we have seen more complex solution, but the service that the Serenata offers is enough for me.

The main menu of the player groups the tracks by the usual ID3 tags, the searching method between them is the same as in the contact list. Play list handling is included, it had no problems with 320 kbps bitrated music. If the player runs, the volume can be set by the disc, a red circle displays this (so spectacular), track skipping can be done by the two bottom corners of the touch screen, touching the top right corner makes the options appeared. Along with the usual, the bass enhancement worth mentioning, which can be set separated to the speaker and the headphone, it’s called SRS Trubass. If a picture is uploaded to the album, this is displayed in the background instead of the red-separated default one.

Communication, battery

The phone has an own-standard connector, this is for charging USB synchronizing and for using the headset too. The question evidently comes up: how can I charge and listen to music at the same time? This is why the manufacturer attached a mini docking station, which is a curved metal plate, the Serenata sits on this. A cable mender from this which has a really simple switch on the end with 3 connectors: one for the charger, and other for the USB cable, and the third for the earphone. These accessories can be connected to the phone directly, docking station is only needed if you want to use more than one of them, or if you wanna be cool, because the Serenata standing oblique on the table looks very good.

The USB is version 2.0, the mode of connection can be set in the menu. In storage mode, the whole, 3,8 GB memory is detected my the OS as USB storage, but the synchronizing of the contact list and messages requires the old Samsung PC Studio to be installed to the computer. The built-in Bluetooth is version 2.0, it has stereo voice transfer ability. It could synchronize itself with my pc without and problems, but it had a bit with my car-speaker: when I started the call, it transmitted the call, when I was called, it didn’t.

The communication with mobile networks can be any of GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA, so there is no cause to complaint, but it’s typically the phone that I wouldn’t criticized if it hadn’t have 3.5G. Anyway, it’s included, and browser belongs it, it has much to work with because it fragments the sites and gives no opportunity to overrule. It this case, we usually suggest Opera Mini, but this is cancelled now because the Serenata doesn’t support Java standard, so no further applications can be installed.

The battery worked two days for me, naturally I talked a lot on it (maybe I don’t have to mention that the sound quality is excellent in this case too), and my acquaintances nagged it a lot, it could stand 3 days it relent usage. When the battery is going low, the phone decreases brightness as every Samsung does, no music playing in this case, this is the "look for charger" message.

Totally I have to say that this model became much better after the Serene. Of course, I wouldn’t like to have it for everyday usage, too extreme (and the universal car holder can’t hold it, because this rounded whale simply falls from it) and the text entry is important for me. Cool, flash stuff with outstanding sound quality, materials, exclusivity and price. You won’t meet it on the street.