Samsung has been quick in launching the Samsung Genio, just a few weeks after the Pixon12. Even though both are touchscreen devices, Genio has its own style. Launched as the first fully touch mobile for the youth, Samsung S3650 Genio comes in very vibrant and cool colour combinations. The phone has loads of features but lacks Wi-Fi and 3G. The large 2.8-inch QVGA TFT-LCD full touchscreen gives users an excellent experience.

The device has a glossy black faceplate with three keys - call, back and end/power -- and a yellow back cover. The back cover also has a glossy finish with an embossed design for better grip. The back has a 2.0-megapixel camera on top and the speaker grill at the bottom. The left side has the volume rocker and the multi-purpose port for USB, charging and headphones. Since it is aimed at the youth, we expected a 3.5 mm jack for better compatibility with multiple headphones. On the right side of the phone are two keys: hold and camera. By pressing the hold key for few seconds the screen gets unlocked. The Samsung S3650 Genio offers the best of all social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Photo and video sharing are taken care of with direct uploads to YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket. Users can simply update their status on various social networking sites and receive updates from friends via the neat pop-up notification feature.

The sidebar offers quick menu for widgets. One can customise the sidebar by dragging and dropping the icons of the screen. The accelerometer based option to auto-align widgets by shaking the handset works smoothly. Samsung Genio comes with the smart unlock feature. Smart unlock allows users to simultaneously unlock the phone and open a menu item, applications and even dial a contact by just drawing a letter on the unlocked screen. Each letter from A to Z can be set as a lock. For instance, users can use this feature to start the music player, messaging menu, Web Browser, Java apps or the dialling keypad. The Genio sports a brand new theme called the Cartoon UI which gives a different look to the menu and make it more interesting to play around with.

The 2 megapixel camera gives pretty good results. The highest resolution can be set at 1600X1200 pixels and image quality can be set from normal to superfine. The camera comes with four shooting modes: single, smile shot, continuous shot of nine frames and a panoramic shot of six framers. There is a delay timer for self shooting.

The video recording can be done in MMS or unlimited mode where the memory decides the length of the video. The maximum resolution for videos can be set to 320X240 pixels. Users can experiment with settings like black and white, sepia, negative and water color effects. The video quality ranges from economy to normal and fine.

The music player is pretty good. Equaliser options include dynamic, surround, normal, rock, pop, dance, classic and Jazz. Users can also search for more details about the song on the Internet through the uniqure feature caled 'Find Music'. The FM radio comes with RDS and gives a good reception. The self tuning feature helps in detecting all available stations.

The Samsung Genio comes with pre-loaded with lots of applications like the mobile version of Collins dictionary, RSS feed and Google. The device doesn't have any office apps, Wi-Fi or 3G but support EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth and USB connectivity. The phone has 50 MB internal memory, which can be expanded upto 8 GB with a microSD card. The microSD card is under the back cover.

After a single charge, Genio lasts a day and a half with music on the go and normal calling.

The Samsung Genio is available in four different colours - white, amber, yellow and pink. It is available on Pay Monthly Contracts starting from £5.00.