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Samsung’s last collaboration with Bang & Olufsen, the Serene, grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons. Seemingly attempting to literally revolutionise normal clamshell design by putting the display on the lower half and the keys (in a dodgy circular layout, naturally) on the top. It was very well made but difficult to use and as expensive as you’d expect something with the B&O logo to be. Still, neither company are made up of quitters and so while SlashGear was hanging out with Samsung they granted us some hands-on time with the Serenata, their far more interesting follow-up.
It’s the first time we’ve seen the handset outside of press shots, and it proved to be a pleasant surprise. Soft touch coated plastics and aluminium make it feel special in the hand, and it’s strikingly reminiscent of B&O’s remote controls. All functions are managed by the physical scroll wheel, which spins with a firm and satisfying motion, and what they’re calling the “up and down” LCD that maintains two different panels of information. There’s also a built-in desk stand.
Of course, being B&O it has some musical talents as well, and they start with 4GB of internal storage and sound profiles tuned by the audio specialists themselves. Dual stereo speakers have apparently been selected more for their sound quality than their ability to fit into whatever room is left inside a tight casing, and there’s the ridiculously named SRS WOW and equaliser functionality that many are used to on laptop computers.
Will the Serenata be more popular than the Serene? It certainly deserves to be – unlike last time, the design feels intended rather than merely meant to stand out, and the music performance is undeniably a step above the usual music handsets. Of course, you can expect the price to come in a step or two above as well; Samsung couldn’t give us definitive figures, but this certainly isn’t a budget model. You can see more photos of the Samsung B&O Serenata in the SlashGear gallery.
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