Mobile

Samsung Z560: first HSDPA phone in the Philippines?

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief November 7, 2006 · 1 min read

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Before, I didn’t know that 3G and HSDPA were different. The gals from Globe insists that HSDPA is better and calls it 3.5G. So, that’s why I’m getting better speeds with Globe Visibility than Smart 3G on 3G covered areas.

Then, the other night, they asked me to test a demo phone – the Samsung Z560. It really looks like a Motorola Razr to me. See pics below:

Samsung Z560

They claim it’s the 1st HSDPA phone in the country, and probably the rest of South East Asia.

The specs:

Built-in 2 megapixel camera
Allows Video telephony and streaming
MP3 ringtone capable
Bluetooth and USB connectivity
Card slot: MicroSD with 30MB shared memory
Triband

Haven’t completely tested the demo unit but all I can say is that I get free unlimited text messaging, voice calls and video calls. Anybody with a video calling phone out there I can try calling?

I also tried browsing the net with it whcih is actually fast — Google.com loads in less than 4 seconds. More on this once I finished using the phone.

Oh, before I forgot, it retails Php24k (a little expensive huh?). See more details on this at the Globe eShop.

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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31 Comments

Video Phone · 16 years ago

it’s a great product and i think it can really help people connect to each other from all over the world.

pj9vbw · 17 years ago

dsfsdfs67877 test test

tony · 19 years ago

any review on Nokia 6120 Classic? it’s HSDPA phone from Nokia and i guess the cheapest and lightest HSDPA phone.It’s only around 12K in Greenhills and 13.9K at Nokia Stores. The unit just arrived in the philippines couple days ago….

Shawn Tay · 19 years ago

For those who are interested to know about this phone, it is being used by the trialists of M1 Singapore, the 1st mobile phone operator in the country to roll out the 3.5G HSDPA there and Samsung had sponsored the Z560 for them to test it out.

There is this interesting and pretty comprehensive evaluation by one of their trialist who has blogged his experience on the Z560.

http://samsung.vintedge.com/z5…p?u=ultra135

He or she is even comparing with Nokia N70 and there are other interestings facts like Bluetooth, memory card, etc. Cool !

Seems that he or she is adding more before the trial ends in mid January.

dong perez · 20 years ago

did anybody try if this phone works with PLDT WeRoam sim card? I mean, using the phone as modem for your computer with the WeRoam sim card inserted into the phone?

Dean · 20 years ago

Do you know of a store that this can be purchased at a cheaper price? How much is it now?

Miguel · 20 years ago

If you like Samsung, the new slim Samsung Ultra’s look sweet.

Mike · 20 years ago

Would you recommend this phone? If i’m not going to use the hsdpa feature, just plain video calling, mms and sms. Or should I instead buy a motorola v3x for the intended use?
pls reply i’m really puzzled right now on what unit to buy.. tnx

Robert · 20 years ago

Hi Yuga thanks for testing it out. So it looks like something’s wrong with the phone’s Java implementation. Hopefully the Opera developers do something in their next release or this gets corrected in a firmware update.

Another thing I noticed, the battery when drained takes about 3 hrs to fully charge. & the battery life is only about 2 days. Network mode is auto though so the phone switches between GPRS, EDGE & HSDPA frequently depending on my present location.

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief · 20 years ago

Hi Robert,

Yes, I did try to download it Opera Mini and I got the same error as you did. Funny though that all installations are placed in the File Manager inside Games section.

The Gmail Mobile client I installed didn’t work either.

Robert · 20 years ago

have this fone as well. could you try to launch opera mini? please download it from http://mini.opera.com on the fone’s built-in browser. it’s way way better than netfront (the built-in browser) but a “java game error” shows up when i try to run it.