Reviews and tests | Samsung La Fleur II: L310 and L320 in a spotlight

It should be noted that other companies also drew their attention to this relatively large segment, Nokia taking the most active position. The release of Art Deco Collection became their first step on this field. It consisted of the three models (7260, 7270, 7280). Two devices from this collection were great success, and the development of this conception didn’t keep waiting for a long while. The Finnish manufacturer presented a new L’Amour collection consisting of three phones as well. The handsets are targeted mostly at a female audience and become bestsellers too. At that Nokia has taken up the leading position; the L’Amour Collection phones are perfectly balanced, functionally rich, enjoy an interesting design and unusual materials of the casing.

In response to that Samsung released the La Fleur Collection. It was clear that we owed this release exclusively to the success of L’Amour by Nokia. But these devices (Е420, Е500 and Е570) were neither original nor functional; they were in stable but not too great demand. Developing on a line of female models, the manufacturer put them into a lower class. The La Fleur sequel also presents the three models (L310, L320 and F250), the latter being included into this collection by chance. The F250 is moderately priced, but high-quality music phone with excellent quality of sound and value of battery lifetime. We’ve already reviewed this model earlier, while as a part of La Fleur II the handset just lost mini-speakers and a memory card bundled.

Samsung L310 и L320 Specifications Sheet

The other two handsets are clamshells. The L310 is the E420 conception development in a bright but tasteless design and the L320 is a sequel to E570 or rather not a sequel but just a restyling. The situation repeats itself once again, one can fail to see any changes in E530-E570-L320 made over some years; as a matter of fact they are minimal. It’s not quite clear whom is the new model targeted at, since there are the same functions, moreover, implemented in the same design. There is no point in changing the Е570 for the novelty, for the functionality remains the same level and the appearance is considerably worse. The plastic is of somewhat inferior quality, the inexpressive colour scheme, greater thickness, average specifications and overpricing won’t let the phone sell in great numbers; it’s an assortment solution. There are lots of better variants for the fair sex even in the product range of Samsung, and one can make choice in favour of L310 or L320 only by chance, just because of a pleasant design. Though there are strong doubts here as well, since the design is so much ambiguous.

Samsung L310 and L320 utilize the clamshell form factor (traditional for the company); in the company model line they come to take places of Е420 and E570 correspondingly. However, they don’t actually offer any significant improvements. Thus, the female models of the company "go" to a lower price segment, their predecessors (the Е530 in particular) looked more interesting against the background of competing offers. The material of implementation is a textured glossy plastic that may suffer from fingerprints. They are more noticeable with L310 than with L320; both the handsets have to be wiped often so that they kept good appearance. The front and back surfaces of both devices sport an interlacing pattern, but it is almost imperceptible and only the bright light plays over it.

Let's dwell upon each device separately. Samsung L320 is implemented in black colouring with a narrow dark-violet insert on the edges. There is a dark-violet insert on the front panel too and the lens of the integrated 2-Mpix camera and the external screen are practically imperceptible against its background. On the whole the coloring is quite dark and not too expressive; against the background of bright colour scheme variety with E530 and E570 we expect the same to be presented for this handset too. The plastic of internal surfaces is matte, more practical, but looks not too interesting and fine; the same one is utilized in a number of budget models and doesn’t fit an elegant female handset.

The left edge hosts the sound volume buttons (they are chrome-coated and a little bit out of the general L320 style). The memory expansion slot (microSD) and the headset/charger slot covered with a plastic gag are put on the right edge as well as the ‘ear’ used to fasten the wrist band. The handset has a single speaker; it’s equally used for transmitting voice and polyphonic sound. Accordingly, the sound is not of the highest quality, yields to the models equipped with stereo speakers.

Samsung L310 is also implemented in black colouring with chrome-coated metal parts and an engraving on the back panel. The combination of black glossy plastic and golden elements is good-looking only in theory, but in our opinion the L310 appearance isn’t well-balanced. Its design looks more like that of cheap bijouterie because of the massive golden hinge, strasses around the camera unit and the side edging.

When open, the L310 looks quite nice, slightly reminding of Nokia 7390. The handset is very easily soiled not only outside, but also inside, the keypad glossy plastic and the framing around the screen easily get greased with the fingerprints.

«The handset is very easily soiled not only outside, but also inside»

The headset/charger slot and the sound volume buttons are available on the left edge. On the right edge there is a memory expansion slot (microSD) that keeps with the hot swapping support. All the slots are covered with plastic gags.

The L310 lacks an external screen; there is just a barely visible flower ornament on the surface blinking during charging or at short time intervals.

Samsung L310 sports a display with a 1.8” diagonal and the L320 utilizes a 1.9” display. Both the matrices are based off the TFT-technology and are able of displaying up to 262 thousand colors. But the resolution is only 176x220 pixels; due to this fact the picture is quite grainy and doesn’t look its best. One should add here the minimum view angles. The opening angle of Samsung L320 is small and if the device sits in hand in the usual way the colors on the screen tend to get much distorted, so you have to seek the optimal view angle. The competitors have already long since begun to offer greater size QVGA displays in this price segment while the L310 and L320 screens just don’t meet modern requirements.

Traditionally for the brand devices, the screen fonts are easily legible and optimized for the device’s display. The phone numbers are shown in large symbols, no problem arises here. The settings include the font style customization as well as (for the standard font) its size, color and background color.

Unlike Samsung L310, the senior model is equipped with the external display (OLED, 176x16 pixels). The resolution and the size are exactly the same as with the E570, the screen is invisible when inactive. The screen shows an incoming call number, a signal level and a battery charge level, the background color is black and the symbols are dark blue.

The extra controls with the both handsets include the two-position sound volume button on the left edge which is as well utilized for zooming and taking pictures. Besides, there are some more settings, for example while receiving an incoming call the button can be set to act either as Mute or Reject. The first function just mutes the ringtone while the second drops the call. The Reject function can be set for sending an SMS to the person whose call you rejected every time you do so. For example, if you’re busy at a meeting and can’t answer an important call, a text template set in advance will be sent to the person automatically after the call is rejected.

There are dedicated music player and camera launch buttons, they cannot be reassigned.

The Samsung L310 keypad is made of a plastic plate, flat, however due to their big size, the keys are easy to tap at and nice to type with. The L320 utilizes a standard keypad, more comfortable, the material of implementation being matte plastic, but it looks not so well, as with the L310.

The L320 backlighting has a pleasant violet tint, while with the L310 it’s white.

The models make use of a Li-Ion battery with a standard capacity of 800 mAh. There’s no support for any enhanced battery types for these devices. The handsets are able to survive for a bit less than two days of moderately extensive usage (about an hour of talktime, up to an hour and a half of listening to the music player and the radio and another hour of application and menu interaction); the result is quite up to the modern standards. Few users are going to be dissatisfied with it.

A full recharge cycle takes two hours and a half. The charge indicator has a peculiarity: the first two points tend to fade away rather quickly, but the last point stands for about a day.

Samsung L320 Battery

Samsung L310 and L320 are three-band devices (GSM900/1800/1900), have a full Class 10 EDGE support. In other words, as regards communications they quite meet all modern requirements.

Wireless communications support is represented by the Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR module. It gives raise to no reprimands, the data transfer rate coming up to 140 Kbps. The Bluetooth options include the activation status (whether it is turned on or off), the list of visible Bluetooth devices, the Bluetooth visibility status of the phone itself, the device name and other standard settings.

The wire connection is achieved through USB 2.0, but the data transfer speed is not the highest (in spite of the announced full speed USB support). On the other hand the phone sports full and correct support of Mass Storage, Media Player synchronization and Samsung PC Studio mode. The corresponding menu lets the user to set one of those as the default connection type or ask for choice every time a phone-to-PC connection is established.

Both the handsets are brainchildren of the Gumi R&D centre and the interface is practically an exact copy of what we’ve already seen with two-year-old models - the E530 or E570. The changes are insignificant; very few people will notice them. One might perhaps consider a different color scheme and icon design among such. The devices even don’t support a firmware Living World embedded interface plugin (a dynamic screensaver changing depending on various conditions). There are no interface themes, no sound profiles; the standby mode doesn’t feature an option granting quick access to the contacts filtering; an mp3 file cannot be used as the incoming message signal; there is practically nothing available with the Samsung handsets of the mid-end price segment for already more than a year.

The L310 and L320 models are maximally simple devices based off an outdated firmware platform, sporting no interesting features. In this price segment you won’t find any other model, employing so imperfect interface and minimal opportunities, moreover positioned as an image one. The step on the part of the Samsung Company isn’t at all clear: an out-of-date user interface coupled with an ambiguous design, small poor-quality screen, not the best materials of the casing, offered at a high price gives up for lost the company as a manufacturer of female phones. The L310 and L320 badly spoil the image of the company. The competing offers, namely SonyEricsson Z750i, Nokia 7390, 6555, Motorola U9 and others are many times better and more interesting.

Therefore there is no sense whatever to review the user interface in details, let’s just dwell upon some basic points and key features. Thankfully enough such are, nevertheless, available.

The sound profiles aren't supported, though the only difference in customization here is the possibility to engage the mute mode, just like in numerous other Samsung handsets. The audio settings allow you to select a ringtone and a signal type (from four possible presets, simultaneous ringtone plus vibro signal included), the keystroke signal, the power on and off sounds, the message signals. Each message type (text messages, MMS and others) can be associated with one of the two available signal types - vibration signal or audio signal, for instance you cannot set a custom mp3 file to act as such, just select one of the three preinstalled midi-tones. The mute mode is engaged by holding the # key pressed for a few seconds, the profile status icon being displayed in the status line.

During the standby mode a screen-size clock can be set to be shown, that’s large enough for the numbers to be easily seen from a distance. Up to two clocks corresponding to two different timezones can be shown on the screen simultaneously or the clock indicating the time of your city of residence of a larger size.

The status line displays all the indicators of the running processes and the activated modules - Bluetrooth, player, the profile selected, the web connection, the battery charge level, the network service indicator and so on. Is goes without saying you can pick any picture for wallpaper, almost anything like a photo taken with the camera. Also the calendar can be set to be used as wallpaper during the standby mode, it will show up as an overlay to the wallpaper, this option being native to all of the Samsung’s devices.

In the standby mode, the info shown on the screen (carrier name, currently playing track, event information) can be visually represented in a number of ways depending on the currently selected settings in the corresponding menu – it’s possible to customize the font color, the style (for example, with a shadow), the screen location - bottom, top or center.
The font style in the dialing mode is also customizable as well as size, color and numerical symbol style, the former two parameters being active only for the standard font presentation. My Menu is an addition to the main menu which is called by pressing the navigation button upwards. It looks like a quick shortcut menu with a number of icons which call the most frequently called functions. The menu is mostly analogous with a similar feature of Nokia and SonyEricsson phones.

It's possible to change the number and order of icons, the shortcuts themselves are selected from a list, but unfortunately, it's impossible to add a third-party application here. To the navigation button strokes sidewise you can bind different functions chosen from a rather extensive list (it’s the same list as the one used in customizing My Menu).

As we have already mentioned, no interface themes are available; there is only an opportunity to choose between the two basic color schemes - white and black. On the whole the number of settings is minimal, which by no means meets modern requirements.

The main menu can be either set to show as the traditional icons tab or as a list with each icon hosting a pop-up menu listing its sublevel functions. This option cannot be turned off as with other phones of the company. The navigation features the already traditional ‘user action memory’ function found in the latest Samsung models - the phone keeps track of user actions and opens every menu at the menu item that was last activated. Fast menu navigation is possible through numerical keys.

The main menu comprises nine items, it should be noted that those vary from model to model, and the order in which they follow varies as well:

• Call log
• Phonebook
• Applications
• Google search
• Messages
• My files
• Calendar
• Camera
• Settings

The contact book is called by pressing the right touch button or through the main menu. The list features phone numbers taken from the user memory and the SIM card alike, each number goes with an icon indicating the storage location to the left of the person's name. Navigating is done by pressing the left and right keys, which is a peculiarity of the Suwon platform. The call picture sits in the top left corner, and not right to the left of the person's name. The contact list features filtering the names by the initial seven symbols of the first name, no second name search is possible - some of the customers may find this a serious drawback. If several phone numbers are associated with a contact record, only the main one (mobile, by default) is shown in the list, each number going with a special icon.

The following fields are to be filled up on creating or editing a contact book record (each field limited to 20 symbols): five phone numbers (mobile, home, work, fax and a miscellaneous one), e-mail, a short note, a specific ringtone, a call picture or video. Any picture or photo can be set as a call picture, or any of the preset icons. There's no possibility to rename the phone number categories - a limitation not observed with G600. The total amount of phone numbers can't exceed five. There's no option to set a default phone number out of several assigned to a contact record. The call picture is rather large, approximately taking 2/3 of the screen.

Up to 1000 contact records containing all associated phone numbers can be stored in the user memory. Contact groups are supported; each group can be given a ringtone and a call icon of its own. Up to 20 persons can be assigned to a group. All the contacts, just like the biz card contents, can be sent over SMS, MMS, E-mail or Bluetooth. The speed dial list can contain up to 8 numbers - everything's quite typical on this side. Only the person's name and surname are displayed in the list (if that person is found in the contact book), which may be inconvenient if that person has several numbers, and the currently engaged one isn't shown.

Among the advantages there is a nice setting that automatically records the person's birthday into the calendar. The rest of the options include the possibility to select the default storage location for the contact records - the SIM card or the phone memory (or set it to be asked for each time the user saves a contact), sorting all the contacts by the Name+Surname template or vice versa.

The call log keeps track of all the recent received, dialed and missed calls. Up to 30 records of each call type are stored. The call log can be either displayed as a common list with each call type having an indication icon or three separate lists for each call type. Switching between the lists is done by pressing the navigation button left and right, this aspect sharing the same approach as we saw in Nokia and SonyEricsson phones. The number of times that the specified number has been dialed is shown in brackets next to it, though stats aren't available contrary to the Suwon-based phones.

There is a blacklist that supports adding undesirable contacts both one by one or even by a whole group. The latter function is a unique feature of the handsets (in the sense of a manufacturer-preset function), its usefulness can’t be underestimated. It was very nice of Samsung to include this function into the firmware as a standard one.

The devices traditionally utilize a combined messaging system - the phone automatically defines the message type depending on its content. The phone memory can store up to 200 SMS messages + the SIM card memory. Up to 20 recipients can be defined for every outgoing message; up to 12 messages can be glued together in a single one. Sound, vibration and backlighting signals are available for warning the user of an incoming message. EMS is supported. The MMS memory is limited to 300 messages / 3 Mb. Same with the contact book, the messaging interface supports a blacklist. The following settings are available: delivery notice, filtering messages by the read/unread status, by date, sender and so on.

There’s a separate recent contacts list for text messages storing every contact to which a text message was recently dispatched. Once you are about to send a text messages, the phone displays this list of recently contacted people so you can instantly choose on of them as the recipient of the current message. The other option is to use the phonebook to select the recipient. A message can be dispatched either to a single person or to a whole contacts group. The number of recipients is indicated near the icon to the left from the contact name in the contact line.

Upon starting a new message the user is free to set the font style (bold, underlined, italic, strikeout) and text alignment (center, left or right). The same settings can be applied exclusively to a selected piece of text within a message. Possible attachment types include an image, a video clip, a calendar note (up to four task types plus a phone card), a sound. Once a multimedia attachment is detected, the text message is automatically converted into an MMS. The photo and video attachments can be quickly selected from the gallery or instantly taken right from the camera without having to quit the image editor.

Besides the standard text messages, there’s the SOS message option. The user has to specify the list of recipients and specify whether the message should be sent once or repeatedly. The SOS message text cannot be edited; it’s the same for all kinds of situations.

The multimedia messaging system (OMA 1.2) limits the maximum size of a multimedia message to the usual 300 Kb. Up to 20 recipients can be specified per message; maximal text length is limited to 1000 symbols. Four types of MMS messages are available - Image basic and Image rich, Video basic and Video rich. A Basic-type message is limited to 100 Kb, while a Rich-type message - 300 Kb. This was done for the convenience of the user to control message size more easily. According to the settings, the message type can be set either freely depending on the size of the created message or strictly limited - should the image exceed the limit, it’s automatically modified to fit. When inserting an object, its actual size is specified, and an already composed MMS message can be previewed prior to sending.

Besides the listed options the MMS messages can have their font type - colour and style (bold, italic, etc), size (large, medium and small), adjusted in the same manner as with SMS messages. The same goes to background color and message viewing mode, the latter option is set to Fullscreen by default. The MMS messages lack the automatic delete function. SMIL is supported - the maximum number of pages and objects inside a message equals to 10 and 30 respectively.

No e-mail client is available.

The Personal information manager includes a standard set of applications like calendar, alarm clocks, quick notes as well as a thematic application for women to calculate menstrual cycles, known through other representatives of the line. Up to three alarm clocks can be set; the first one is named a Wake Up alarm. Each alarm clock can be flexibly tuned, schedule is fully supported (you can choose the weekdays on which the alarm clock is activated); the alarm signal can be replayed at a user-defined interval. The alarm turns on even if the phone is turned off (such capability is turned on by a corresponding option). Each alarm clock can be given a unique title and adjusted to play a unique song including a custom mp3 file. Much like the sound profiles, the alarm clocks support a variety of signal types - ringtone only, vibration and ringtone, vibration followed by a ringtone, fade-in ringtone with or without vibration and so one. Once an alarm clock is adjusted and activated, a short info on that alarm’s settings is instantly shown on the screen, everything is quite obvious.

There are three viewing modes available for the calendar: by month, by weak or by day. The schedule can contain up to 300 records (both on the whole and per day). Preliminary notices and recurring events are available. Sorting by event type is well-organized (meetings, anniversaries, tasks). A day that hosts a specified event is indicated with a colored corner. The default view mode is adjusted in the options, as well as the starting day of the week (Monday or Sunday). Memory manager is in its place, indicating the number of occupied and free event slots in the calendar memory.

All the necessary event parameters are specified on adding a new event - date, starting and ending time, the alarm activation time (if this is required). The overall number of tasks, as we’ve already mentioned, is 300 - 100 per event type. This is more than sufficient, considering that the expired events are automatically deleted after a period of time.

As it was mentioned in the description of the contact book, there's no auto synchronization here, so you'll have to type in all the birthdays manually.

Let's dwell on the set of applications that is one of the key features of female models in the designers’ opinion. The Life Cycle category contains 6 applications, some of them being quite amusing. So, let’s view them one after another:

A perfume matcher. Actually, the choice of aroma is made based upon your mode of life or a definite situation. You should specify your favorite meal, drinks, music, color as well as dress style, hobby, weather, a place of spending holidays and time of using perfume, and the program will give out an optimal combination for you in that situation. We won’t presume to judge about the usefulness of the application; some people may find it interesting.

Let’s go further. A biorhythm. Everything is much easier here; just enter the date and your birthday and you’ll get a diagram of three strips each corresponding to a physical, emotional and moral condition at the moment. You can get a monthly diagram in exactly the same way. The results can be at one stroke converted into a text file and sent via SMS. You may set it to Repeat and get the results via SMS every day. The feature is interesting, but not always accurate, for each person’s biorhythm is exceptionally individual.

The height to weight ratio allows you to calculate the ideal body mass, everything is simple here. However the specimens under testing have a localization mistake: the insufficient weight (Underweight) is translated as "Underwear". We hope the finalized commercial versions will get rid of it.

A calorie counter. The same way as choosing perfume, you should input your daily ration, occupation, duration of working time and the device will give out the amount of calories burnt. The calendar shows the amount of calories burnt a day, thus you may control your weight quite carefully. This function seems to be in great demand and of much use in the handset.

A menstrual cycle calculator. An average of the cycle times and a date when the latest one began should be input and the calendar displays in corresponding colors the periods of ovulation, menstruation and so on.

A shopping list - a small organizer where you input goods and price and in the upshot you get a purchase list and a sum of money planned to be spent.

These are all the "female" features; as a whole the application is interesting. It is not in popular demand, judging by accounts of the previous LaFleur line owners. Nevertheless, it may come in handy, especially a calorie counter.

The MP3 player and FM-radio interface with the models is rather out-of-date; it does not feature any special comfort, but there are no serious disadvantages either. During the playback the screen displays info including song title and the name of performer, visualization, the playbar (a progressive rewind mode is supported) and all sorts of indicators showing the on/off status of different player settings. Album covers aren’t supported.

Background mode is supported, the settings include:

• Playback settings (reshuffle, random song),
• Add to playlist (one, several or all created),
• Select visualization effects.

Any track can be sent via MMS, E-mail or Bluetooth. Flight Mode is supported (a phone radio section switching-off), which helps to save battery charge however you have to keep the SIM card in all the time.

During the background playback, the screen displays a small window with customizable color and style, showing the track name and the playback time indicator. The player supports sorting by performer name, track name, genre, the recently played list, the most frequently played tracks and so on. The settings also allow you to view functions bound to the keypad buttons (no way for remapping though).

As for the media format compatibility, the Korean novelty supports the following files:

MP3
WMA
Polyphonic, 64 voices
AMR (Voice Tag)
AAC
AAC+
e-AAC+
i-Melody
Midi (SMF)
SP-Midi

The FM-radio implementation is typical of Samsung products, all the standard functions like search and autosearch are in their places as well as manual tuning and things like that. The specified frequency can be added to the channels list and associate a name with the station. The saved stations can be further deleted, renamed or set to be activated as an alarm clock signal. The FM tuner as well as the MP3 player can stay fully functional during the standby mode. The reception quality is high and raises no objections.

On the whole the devices possess a minimum number of settings; as MP3 players they won’t suit exacting users. The quality of sound is average; the ICEPower Mobile technology is not employed here. The sales package includes no 3,5 mm jack adapter and continuous music cycle wastes the battery charge over about ten hours.

The handsets come with a standard set of preinstalled software. There is no Picsel File Viewer to view Office document files, no Smart Search; no TV-output is available either. The voice recorder found with the devices has very simple interface and is functionally simple. Maximum voice record length can be limited to fit the specified MMS size or to one hour, the recorded file can be saved either to the user memory or to the memory expansion card. The record volume and the record name are set by the user. Unfortunately the voice recorder is unable to record phone talks, but the exterior sound source records turn out fine and give rise to no reprimands.

The world clock function is quite standard and allows for displaying two timezones and corresponding cities on the world map.

The preinstalled calculator program is quite good, but only supports the basic math functions. Once in the application, the secondary screen displays symbols standing for these operations, which is handy. The measures converter is the standard tool for converting currencies and length, weight, volume, area and temperature units one into another.

The countdown timer and the stopwatch are quite typical of most phones, nothing to talk about.

There are a few preinstalled games, quite traditional for the company's products. This number comprises Cannonball, Paris Hilton's Diamonds, Freekick, Arch Angel, Mini Gold, Midnight Pool. The games aren't that interesting, yet sometimes they help to kill time. As we have already said, additional games can be loaded only via Bluetooth.

Google Search is a menu option that allows performing Google search, grants access to the Access v3.4 NetFront mobile browser, the same one is installed on the majority of the company's products, and the e-mail server. Everything is quite clear, the browser is properly functioning; the following options are available:

• The page (small, standard, large)
• Page Pilot (a minimap for navigating across larger pages)
• Copy page address
• Save a picture / save the whole page
• Cache and cookies options (cache size is 2 Mb)

Miscellaneous settings include options to allow Java scripts launching, play sounds and viewing images, as well as fast view mode - the Smart-Fit technology forces the text and images to fit the screen in a fashion that allows for more comfortable browsing. It’s possible to browse web pages using both portrait and landscape orientation, the latter variant retains the same options.

The browser supports a vast majority of modern data types and languages:

WML Ver. 1,3
WML Script Ver. 2.0
ECMA Script
xHTML
xHTML-MP Ver. 1.0
cHTML
HTML Ver. 4.0.1

The camera unit of these devices is not marked out with anything special - 2 Mpix without autofocusing. The module is rather cheap, its quality hardly being average. There's no separate button for launching the camera/shooting in L310 and it is located on the keypad with L320.

The two available scene settings are Auto and Night Portrait. The variety of effects does not rouse censure; there are more than enough of them:

• Gray
• Negative
• Sepia
• Emboss
• Aqua
• Green
• Fog
• Sketch
• Poster

At the same time we won't forget that the same features are available even in the simplest graphics editor, so the only advantage you can get from this is while being on a trip away from your home PC or if you're too lazy to fiddle with the PC right after taking the picture. The same goes to the Zoom function that is a 4X digital one. Traditionally for the Samsung company, a lot of photo frames come preinstalled to use with your photos: they're as many as 29! Your girlfriend can get an MMS with her photo inside a heart-shaped frame after the date is over, the very same photo that you took in the street an hour ago.

The viewfinder mode is selectable from Regular / Indicator / Guidelines; you can also configure the camera interface icons. The extra settings include the typical options:

• Quality (Super Fine, Fine, Normal),
• Exposure Meter (Matrix, Center-weighted, Spot),
• Shutter sound (either one selected from the preinstalled variety or no sound at all),
• Digital zoom sound (on or off),
• Brightness adjustment sound (on or off),
• White balance adjustment.

The following photo resolutions are available:

• 1600x1200
• 1280x960
• 1024x768
• 800x600
• 640x480
• 320x240
• 176x220

The phones allow you to shoot Video clips at a resolution of 176x144; the quality is low, suitable for viewing only on the phone screen.

The handsets offer communication quality standard for the company’s devices, no problems arise here. On the whole both the phones should be considered in the view of nothing but their design, the L310 and L320 functionality is pretty average, first of all the out-of-date screen is disappointing. The screen is a very important point of an image phone, against the background of other modern offers the La Fleur II novelties don’t look their best. And if Samsung F250 to a certain extent compensates for it by different positioning and excellent musical capabilities, L310 and L320 have none of them.

The result of the testing is quite ambiguous. The attributes of a stylish phone nowadays are quality materials of the body, a bright modern design, a rather high functionality. The excellent examples of high-quality image clamshells intended mostly for a female audience are Motorola U9, Nokia 6555, SonyEricsson Z750i. The former two employ excellent external screens, all the models enjoy much better inner screens and casing materials. As for devices implemented in other form factors, a larger number of them is available and one can find much more interesting variants in this price segment (250 euros).