There is a special reason why in less than five years Samsung have become the third largest handset maker in the world – the Korean giant knows how to build great phones, which not only look good, but also perform better than their rivals. While the Finns (Nokia for the uninitiated) have lost their sense of minimalism, Samsung has cashed in on build clean and sometimes simple yet beautiful phones with best RF-qualities.

This morning I got a brand new prototype of e-105 which is a new Samsung phone built specifically for the T-Mobile networks. The phone is a dual-band feather weight descendant of tri-band S105. I had owned S105 and sold it on Craigslist, a move I have regretted since then. The new e-105, however is a phone which would make me loosen my purse strings again.

It has a simple, colorful and very elegant interface, which is the hallmark of most SamSung phones. Nothing spectacular about it. However, the diminutive clam-shell phone has large buttons, and a squarish nav-button arrangement which I love. A special button takes me to the T-Zones in a jiffy, and what more the phone which is nearly one-third the size of an IPod, has spectacular battery life. It uses the same charger that came with older Samsung model (thank you Samsung for not trying to fleece us! Steve Jobs take note please!) and works with any standard handsfree model. An old data cable, which I plugged into my tiny laptop got me up and running wirelessly at GPRS speeds. I think bluetooth is not worth it, at-least for now.

The phone kept me surfing for almost three hours without running out of juice. And as an aside, this tiny giant phone has a radio chipset which kept the signal intact in an elevator. This one, despite its Americas only functionality is a little giant worth buying.

PS: My other phone is Sony Ericsson T-610.