Compare Samsung Genio Touch vs. Samsung C3300 Libre

Written on 12/03/2010 03:44:00 PM by poison_ivy

So we have two of Samsung's cheapest touchscreen mobile phones head to head. If you're looking for a cheap Pay as you go phone on Orange, chances are, you mostly narrowed down your choice between the Samsung Genio Touch and the Samsung Libre. Like many consumers, you might be confused as both phones seem to be very similar. Well, let me help you out of your confusion by comparing these two mobile phones.

Hardware


Design-wise, the Samsung Genio Touch is slightly bigger compared with the Samsung Libre although there's not that much difference. The Samsung Genio aka Corby also has the bigger screen, 2.8 inches compared with the 2.4 inch screen of the Libre. For those with bigger hands, you might prefer the Genio over the Libre but it all boils down to how you like your phone. It's best that you go to a brick and mortar store and try both phones out.

Both phones are solidly built but for fashionistas, they might prefer the fact that the Samsung Genio has interchangeable back covers so they can change colors on whim, the Samsung Libre doesn't have interchangeable covers though there are different colors to choose from.



The Samsung Genio has Samsung's proprietary port while the Samsung C3300 has microUSB port. Why do you have to consider this? Well, if you have someone in your household who has some newer smartphone models that supports MicroUSB, you can actually use their chargers which can be a great convenience. The Samsung Libre also has an onboard 3.5mm headset jack while the Genio only supports that through their proprietary port. People who want to use their own high end headsets might lean more towards the C3300 because of this.

Features


Feature wise because both mobile phones are cheap, there's really not much difference between the two phones save that the one thing the Samsung Genio has over the Samsung Libre is the former's bigger resolution camera, 2 megapixel compared with the latter's 1.3 megapixel camera. Of course, photo quality wise, there's also not a lot of difference between the two.

Both the Samsung Genio Touch and the Samsung Libre can function as an MP3 player. I prefer the music player on the Samsung Libre because the widget supports album art when playing in the background but for sound quality, well, I'm no audiophile, both phones sound good to my ears but according to GSMArena's more professional speaker and audio tests, the Samsung Genio Touch excels in audio quality compared with the Samsung Libre.

As for social networking, the Samsung Genio Touch has this covered. The widgets on the homescreen supports live updates from your Facebook and Twitter contacts while the Samsung Libre only gives you shortcut to the mobile version of these social networking websites. The native browser on the Genio Touch also trumps that of the Libre but you can easily work around this by using Opera Mini.

Both mobile phones support FM Radio, the Genio Touch supports FM radio with RDS while the Samsung Libre has FM Radio and a built in antenna so you don't have to plug in a headset in order for the radio to function.

As for the applications, both mobile phones have calendar, to do list, memos, calculator and voice recorder. The Samsung Libre has a built in photo editor though which can't be found on the Genio Touch but the Genio Touch has a built in document viewer. I'll leave it up to you to decide which app is more important.

Conclusion


The Samsung Genio Touch is priced by Orange at £59 while the Samsung Libre is priced at £49. For the £10 price difference, you get a better MP3 player, social network integration, better browser and a higher camera resolution on the Samsung Genio Touch. But if you prefer not to spend £10 more on a mobile phone, the Samsung Libre offers decent features at that price so the question to be answered in order to make your choice is whether the added features are really important to you. You can check out my separate reviews on both mobile phones:

Samsung Genio Touch Review
Samsung Libre C3300 Review

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