1>Samsung M7600 Beat DJ (2009)
Even though the iPhone had been launched some two years previously, in 2009 Samsung still saw the value in feature phones - unleashing this music-focussed mobile on the world. Its audience? Wannabe DJs. Besides audio tweaked by Bang & Olufsen, the puck-shaped phone packed a touch-enabled panel that was somewhere between an iPod scroll wheel and a DJ deck - letting you mix tunes on the fly with nothing but your thumb.
2>Samsung P730 (2004)
In the days before smartphones, specs were middling and feature sets limited - so manufacturers turned to the design department to set their wares apart from the competition. Which is how we ended up with things like the P730. Eschewing the traditional flip-phone hinge, its LCD-equipped top half could swivel around the arrow pad (which jutted out from the top of the phone when closed). Why? To help you make best use of the massive 1MP camera on the back.
3>Samsung Serene (2005)
A joint effort from Samsung and B&O, the Serene was very much form over function. Equipped with a circular keypad and a camera mounted on the hinge, it was far from the easiest mobile to operate (though it could be used either way up), while its eye-watering $1,275 price tag was never going to be justified by an aluminium hinge and some funky styling. Still, it’s arguably more interesting than most of today’s black rectangles.
4>Samsung Z130 (2005)
In the days before you could poke your phone’s screen, half of the handset’s body was inevitably taken up with pesky keys - which meant portrait screens and a rubbish video experience. Cue the Z130: a candy bar handset with a swivelling ‘wide view’ screen. Text in portrait, before flicking it sideways for a quick video hit. That the display had a resolution of just 176 by 220 pixels was beside the point.
5>Samsung Serenata (2007)
The second of Samsung’s tie-ins with Bang & Olufsen was equally as strange as the first: the Serenata was all sleek lines and smooth curves. Oh, and it looked like it had been designed upside down. The iPod-style scroll wheel sat above the display, which made it a bit of a fiddle to actually hold. Still, the slide-out speaker sounded decent enough.
6>Samsung S7550 Blue Earth (2009)
It’s not easy to improve your eco-friendly image when you’re a smartphone manufacturer churning out millions of plastic-shelled phones - but Samsung still tried in 2009 with its Blue Earth handset. Constructed from recycled plastic water bottles, its big selling point was the whopping great solar panel on the back which, in theory, could deliver 10 minutes of talk time from an hour under the sun.
7>Samsung B3310 (2009)
Slide out keyboards made a lot of sense before the touchscreen really took off. Slide out keyboards where a row of numbers was attached to the top of the phone? Perhaps less so. Looking decidedly lopsided, the asymmetrical B3310 sold well all the same, in large part thanks to a low price point - proving that weird designs either have to be really cheap, or really, really expensive to make sense.
8>Samsung P900 (2006)
What’s better than a phone with a rotating screen? A phone with a rotating screen that flips. Taking the mould set by the Z130, Samsung’s P900 paired the established flip-phone aesthetic with a display that could swivel to horizontal for video duties. The best bit? It looked like some kind of sci-fi body scanner at full rotation.
9>Samsung X830 (2006)
Samsung knew well in advance of the smartphone era that making phones fashionable was a winner – only, in 2006 that meant garish colours, a fiddly keyboard and an impractical swivelling design. Still, despite its narrow screen and narrower keypad, the blocky X830 was a hit because it was just so different to everything else on the market - except, perhaps, the equally strange Nokia 7280.
10>Samsung Z710 (2006)
A handset that was part phone, part handycam, the Z710 paired a 3.2 megapixel lens on the back with a screen that flipped out on an arm - and it was a pretty weird package. From the back it looked like a digital camera, complete with flash, handgrip and shutter button; from the front, it was every bit the flip phone. As stylish as the S9? We’ll let you decide.
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