Samsung's second Armani branded handset is something of a mixed bag. If you are a fan of Armani then we suppose its somewhat excessive branding will appeal, as everyone will know your preference.

The black chassis is emblazoned with the Emporio Armani logo in silver on the back and again on the front. On one side of the casing it appears again, lit up in blue, green or red depending on your choice. We find the branding a bit overpowering. It certainly isn't subtle.

If you do choose this phone it won't be because of a vast range of features. True, this is a quad-band GSM phone with HSDPA to 3.6Mbps, and it has a front camera for two-way video calling, a music player and an FM radio among its features. There is also a 3-megapixel main camera which performs acceptably enough outdoors, though the lack of flash means it suffers in lower light conditions.

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The camera has smile shot; it'll take a picture when your subject smiles. As ever you need to be fairly close in for this to work well. The ShoZu client lets you upload pictures directly to the Web.

This is a reasonably accommodating handset when it comes to the pocket and hand. At 114.9mm tall, 47.4mm wide and 12mm thick and weighing just 90.2g it isn't troublesome to carry. The flat number pad is easy to use, though you may find it a little tricky if you want to text really quickly as the keys aren't super-responsive. And the screen is clear, sharp and bright, if a little small at 2.2 inches.

When it comes to listening to music there's an oddity going on. The handset sports a 3.5mm headset connector, which seems like an absolutely super idea. Better, Samsung provides a two-piece headset with a 3.5mm connector past the microphone. So you can use this. But it is woefully short, and has no microphone for handsfree calling.

The solution is to use Samsung's two-piece headset in full, connecting the microphone-containing part to the microUSB connector on the phone. Then you can connect your own favourite 3.5mm headset past the microphone. The phone's 3.5mm headset connector is not used in this configuration, but possibly it is there should a friend want to share your music listening.

Audio quality is impressive and there are high quality hardware buttons for playback control on one side of the phone, so you can manage music easily. There is 120MB of built-in memory and you get a 1GB microSD card to boost this further.

This is a middle of the road handset in terms of features, and its very obvious Armani branding will limit its appeal to those who are keen on that company and making their affiliations known.