Samsung F700 Review

Permalink: Samsung F700 Review by Franz Bicar

One glimpse and you’ll realize that the Samsung F700 looks just like the Apple iPhone. That’s not surprising as a lot of manufacturers have produced handset that’s base on Apple’s popular phone. Companies like LG and HTC have done this, to name a few.

However, looks alone don’t make the phone. Its more on the functionality and features. Its user-friendliness and its appeal to the masses. With this in mind, let’s take a look at Samsung’s F700 phone.

As mentioned, the F700 looks a lot like the iPhone. But it’s not the same as the iPhone - it’s less wide, thicker and dark blue in colour. Samsung has stayed away from touch screens most of the time and built its name on its ultra-thin sliders. But, I guess with the popularity of this technology, Samsung just can’t ignore it anymore.

The F700’s large touchscreen is nice to look at and responsive to touch. Underneath the screen there’s a mechanical key, which pops up a shortcut menu. On the top of the F700 there’s a power key and charging port next to a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Same as the iPhone, the F700 is hard to hold and easily slips through your hand. And, when you want to hold it tight between your fingers, be assured that you’re gonna spend a lot of time wiping your fingerprints off the phone.

But, with the F700’s keypads, you will see the difference. The F700 supports a full slide-out Qwerty keypad that is much more useable than the iPhone’s screen keyboard.

The F700’s user interface is more like the LG Viewty than the iPhone. When the iPhone wows users with its usability, the F700 needs a little bit more improvement. Certain processes, such as hanging up, are less straightforward than they should be. There are no fancy built-in sensors, so the screen doesn’t automatically change to landscape mode when you tip it over, or realise when your face is near it, or adjust the screen brightness.

Maybe we are just expecting so much from this phone. Just because it looks just like the iPhone, doesn’t mean it’s as better as the iPhone. The browser doesn’t render pages very well, the music player is relatively basic and the screen just isn’t as large or as sharp as the iPhone’s. But before you count it out of the fight, the F700 does have some redeeming qualities.

HSDPA (3.5G) means you can download data much faster than on the iPhone’s EDGE connection. Unlike the iPhone, you can take pictures and send them to friends via MMS, you can use the camera to shoot videos and you can make 3G video calls using the VGA camera on the front.

Similar to the LG Viewty, the F700’s screen produces a reassuring vibration when you tap it, which helps if you want to make sure you’ve pressed something. You can use the F700 to watch YouTube videos and download Google Maps to it.

You can even download your favourite tracks, similar to what you can do with iTunes, over-the-air for a flat-rate monthly subscription, which works very well. You can listen to tracks using your own headphones or wirelessly using a pair of stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) ones.

The F700’s audio quality, especially when making phone calls, is loud and clear throughout, without any noticeable muffling or distortion. Its loudspeaker is equally good and audio from its music player sounded fine.

The picture quality from the F700’s 3-megapixel camera was good for MMS messages and small prints, but blurry and grainy when blown up to full size, even when using the auto-focus. It’s a shame there’s no xenon flash, but the LED photo light is relatively bright at close range.

All in all, the Samsung F700 is an attractive phone. It looks just like the iPhone and could even be so much more than Apple’s handset. It’s basically a rough-around-the-edges kind of phone and needs a bit more improvement. Perhaps next time, Samsung will release a phone that could become the “iPhone Killer.”

Sources:
http://www.yourmobilephonereviews.co.uk
http://www.3g.co.uk
http://www.reviewcentre.com