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Samsung's Serenata music phone greeted with lukewarm reviews, but still overshadows the Windows smartphone.

A month ago, all the excitement was about the new Windows phone from Samsung; now that the actual official launch has happened, the interest has rather shifted to the "Serenata" music phone, developed jointly with Bang & Olufsen.

Minor disappointment with the camera on the new Samsung SGH-i780 smartphone [above left] may be the reason for its low-key reception following its official launch yesterday in London; it's only 2 megapixels.

 That's not actually bad, but it's not exciting compared with the five megapixel devices like the Nokia N95 - and more importantly, it's a lot less than the widely expected 3.2 megapixel resolution which was first reported from the Gitex event at the start of October.

Those reports seem to have spread from a YouTube clip which was carefully analysed by Arne Hess into a prediction which has turned out to be remarkably prophetic.

The official release reveals the phone to be a Windows UMTS smartphone described in one report as "a tri-band (900/1800/1900) device that offers HSDPA/WCDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity." However, that report insists on the original 3.2 megapixel camera, which is possibly an error - but a common one, if it is.

"The announcement came alongside the official European launch of the widely trailed G800 camera phone and a new music phone, the Serenata, developed jointly with Bang & Olufsen," reported Stephen Pritchard confirming the addition of WiFi connectivity for VoIP.

Other phones announced at the same time were the B&O Serenata [right] and two Nokia Series 60 designs; the standard format i550 and slider i560 handsets are both Symbian 9.2 operating system devices. "Both phones include GPS satellite navigation, as well as 3.2 megapixel cameras and push email," according to Pritchard.

The Serenata "looks nothing like a mobile phone," reports Damian Koh. "The only signs that would probably blow its cover are the green/red dots which are reminiscent of Call/End buttons on a phone. In fact, if we didn't refer to the user manual, we'd still be trying to figure out where to insert the SIM card."

And any doubts about which market this is aiming at, are dealt with straight away: "If we rotate the Serenata upside down, it almost looks like an iPod." Or, perhaps, an iPhone? If so, Koh's report is unlikely to generate extra sales for it.

A similar lukewarm reception from Philip Berne at Infosync - finding the found the feature set "lacking for such an expensive phone" - makes the same comparison that Koh makes with the previous joint venture between Samsung and B&O, the "Serene"  - and makes the same disparaging observations about the user interface, and the overall ergonomics.