Samsung B2100 Solid Extreme / Xplorer Review

1st June 2009

There seems to be a small but significant market for rugged phones – and the Samsung B2100 seems to be the toughest headphone yet from ace of the big five manufacturers. Sold under various names including the Samsung B2100 Solid Extreme and Samsung B2100 Xplorer, this particular model is the UK "Solid Extreme" edition in red.

There’s not much in the box – the headphone itself, a manual, assault and battery, charger and a stereo system wired headset. If you wish a microSD card or data cable then you volition need to pay extra. You can see more unboxing pictures here.

Overview

The Samsung B2100 is an attractive device with a tough rubberised housing. The countours of the cause ar curved with "grip dimples" in the side, which makes it a very nice French telephone to looking at.

Everything is fully waterpoof, unless you open the assault and battery cover or battery charger/headset covering fire. You can also wearing the phone with a laniard although there isn’t one in the box.

The rubbery keyboard is not unpleasant to use, but the control pad does tactile property a number stiff. The 128 x 160 pel screen is basic but very open and it is certainly goodness sufficiency for most tasks.

The B2100 is very solidly constructed – and with good reason. Not only do all the panels and joins have to be watertight, but the headphone tin also survive a one metre drop onto a hard control surface plus quite a lot of other abuse. We’re not saying that the B2100 is unbreakable, but it tin certainly survive events that volition kill another headphone stone dead.

It is slightly on the heavy position – we weighed it at 106 grams with the microSD card installed. The free weight is mostly due to the tough building, if carried in a pouch it North Korean won’t be a trouble, but on a lanyard it could prove to be vexation.

Is it waterproof?

Samsung title that the B2100 is fully waterproof. Well, is it really? We put option it to the test in this video and the resolution is "yes". As long as all the covers ar firmly in place, then there appears to be no water system ingress at all and the French telephone deeds just mulct under water.

In world, you are not leaving to shuffle a phone call option underwater.. but it shows that the B2100 is highly resistant against pelting, getting dropped in puddles or splashed with water or other liquids. It should also survive a trip down feather to the pub.

The headphone wipes clean easily, and if it gets muddy or dirty then you tin simply rinsing it off.

One drawback is that if you manipulation the wired headset then you volition compromise the B2100’s watertightness. Care also needs to be taken when opening move the panels to avoid damage.

The yobo case does create another problem. Because everything is fully sealed, audio frequency caliber is slightly muffled. On a normal phone, the microphone and speakers ar mounted internally and covered by a interlocking or small holes in the casing to allow auditory sensation to travel easily. On the B2100, everything is sealed up and there is a rebuff but noticeable drop in audio caliber as a result.

Multimedia

The medicine thespian is easy to manipulation and it tin header with MP3s or synchronise with Windows Media Player. Tracks ar controlled by the navigation pad plus a book controller on the position of the headphone, and the B2100 tin happily swordplay music in the backdrop while other tasks ar carried out.

As we mentioned before, auditory sensation is slightly muffled on the B2100. However, the internal speaker is loud sufficiency to shuffle this a practical portable music player. When played through the supplied headset, audio playback is open and tin be turned up very loud. There’s also an FM wireless which works in junction with the wired headset – this is easy enough to manipulation but it doesn’t come with RDS, so radio station name calling are not displayed.

The B2100 can also play backrest video recording clips, but due to the low solving and small size of it of the screen you volition probably not want to do that.

Web browse

To be blunt – vane browsing on the B2100 is a pretty miserable experience. This isn’t a 3G device, so many customers will have to rely on GPRS rates which are about the same as an old-fashioned dial-up modem. The web browser is also pretty poor and can only cope with fairly simpleton pages, else it fails with a "document too large error", and pages designed for full blown web browsers often render very poorly. On the other hand, simpleton sites and those specifically designed for mobile phones employment just fine.

Complex pages fail often