The i-mobile 520, seen in this photo, is a multimedia series cell phone from Samart i-mobile, a Thai telecommunications company. It has a talking dictionary, uses a Yamaha amplifier and speakers and has a plethora of high-end features.

Remember the cell phone with a TV tuner that I reviewed around two years ago? It was marketed by Samart i-mobile, which is based in Thailand.

It was jointly marketed by Samart Indonesia and XL: All Samart's cell phones sold in Indonesia carry the brand name i-mobile.

The TV tuner didn't really fill our appetites, because you had to reorient the antenna almost continuously to get the best broadcast signals. Change the channel, and you'd have to move the antenna around. It was just like using an indoor antenna for a home TV set. In most cases, it required the end of the antenna to be held high above your head.

But there were a couple of nice things about this flip cell phone; the i-mobile 901. It offered a lot of features, including a music player and a 1.3 megapixel camera placed on a rotatable tube between the hinges. The most impressive thing was the quality of the build: The keypad was very comfortable to use, and so was the navigation ring.

Today, Samart i-mobile has become more aggressive in its effort to grab a substantial share in the Indonesian market.

"We have four new models for Indonesian users, and the prices are quite competitive," said Sanit Sopitgirapast, head of Samart Indonesia's marketing department.

Still, it's no easy task for him, because the country is already flooded by very cheap products from China and our consumers are still very price-sensitive.

On its home turf, Samart i-mobile controls around 30 percent of the market share, making it the No. 2 cell phone vendor there. In addition to Thailand and Indonesia, the products are sold also in Malaysia and India.

"Our teams are exploring opportunities in Australia, South Africa and even Russia," said Sanit.

Courtesy of Samart Indonesia, I was able to test drive one of the new models; the i-mobile 520. It's a slim candybar model with a fairly conventional look. There's only one tiny blue light on the upper left corner of the casing that flickers to tell the user it's powered up. The transparent plastic covering the LCD screen is flush with the edges, creating the image of an expensive cell phone.

At Rp 1 million, the i-mobile 520 has one interesting feature: A multilanguage talking dictionary, which provides translations from English to Indonesian, Malay and Chinese. It is based on phrases rather than words. I would say that the application is not yet mature, but it is a good start in the right direction.

One of the problems I discovered was the accuracy of the spelling and, more troublesome, the translations. For example, the Indonesian word "jangkung" is spelled "jankung", and the English phrases are a bit uncommon -- "a long person", which I think is suppose to be "a tall person".

In addition, it would be better if the pronunciation function read the word aloud in the target language rather than the source language, as it is designed to work on i-mobile 520.

This reminds me of my wife's and my experience when we were in Beijing some years ago. We were in a restaurant, and we wanted to have some white rice. Neither of us knew then what the Chinese word was for white rice. If we had a talking dictionary, all we would have to do was to find the word "rice" and press OK twice to have the cell phone pronounce the word "mi fan" for us. A good talking dictionary would be a great help for travelers.

It's obvious that Samart needs to find a better source to improve the usefulness of its talking dictionary. The phrase "able to", in my demo unit translated as "bijaksana", which is a noun and has a completely different meaning.

"We are seriously working on the problem," said Sanit. "Every word in the dictionary must be certified."

Samart uses audio components from Yamaha in its current generation of music as well as multimedia series cell phones, and the sound quality is quite impressive. The cell phone also has a music-playing feature complete with an externally accessible MicroSD slot.

In addition to the talking dictionary, this model has a few other surprising features -- ones you'd expect to be available only in more expensive products. For example, the level of backlighting can be adjusted to conserve battery power. It can also be set to turn itself on and then off a couple of times a day.

A Digital Rights Management (DRM) is also embedded in the device. The phonebook has space for 1000 numbers. Samart has also made entering the phonebook data very easy, even when you need to use the Chinese characters. In fact, the menus are pretty intuitive.

You can also listen to and record radio programs. If you run out of space in your digital voice recorder, this good-looking cell phone can also function as a voice recorder. If you are concerned about your health, you can also find out the ideal weight for you height using the Body Mass Index feature. Couples who wish to have children can use the Pink Schedule. A globetrotter entering a different time zone can have a dual clock as the screen saver.

If you're in Bangkok, you can get the services from i-link. For example, you can check a movie schedule, find the nearest eatery and download games and music. The i-mobile 520 comes with a still and video camera, as well.

Another welcome feature is that this cell phone can read aloud the digits entered on the keypad. There is no voice command capability, though. The keypad is automatically locked when idle for some time, and to unlock it you just have to press the Menu key followed by the hash key.

There's one caveat, though: The automatic keypad locking works only in the home screen. If you leave your cell phone in the phonebook edit mode, for example, the keypad will not lock.

Despite its rich features, the i-mobile 520 is next-to-cheapest model in Samart's lineup today. The top model for the Indonesian market is the i-mobile 613, followed by the i-mobile 518. The Basic Series model is the i-mobile 200.

Prices range from Rp 500,000 to Rp 1.5 million. Handsets in the Trend Setter series are also interesting; the i-mobile 902 carries an 8 MP camera, while the i-mobile 903 has a 500-m walkie-talkie feature.

Samart's R&D center is based in Thailand, but the cell phones may be made in Taiwan or Korea or somewhere else. It has built a network of dealers in Indonesia and has set up a local service center here.

At any rate, the i-mobile 520 shows that high-end features do trickle down to the more affordable models. In the meantime, cell phone makers continue to pack new and powerful features into the top models.

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