Samsung going downhill (Samsung SGH-F300)

Member Name: iamthebest

Product:	Samsung SGH-F300
Date:	26/09/07 (484 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good battery life

Disadvantages: Too many to list

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Samsung F300
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Astonishing! I really couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this phone advertised on the TV in the advert with Beyonce, a phone on one side and a music player on the other, surely that wouldn’t be too good but never the less after having a look at a few of them and playing around with it I decided that this phone was a must have. So what are some of the main key features of the phone?
- Unusual dual face construction
- Only 9.4 mm thick
- 2 mega pixel camera
- Video in QVGA resolution
- 100Mb internal memory, MicroSD memory card slot
- FM radio
- Bluetooth with A2DP
- GPRS and EDGE both class 10
- Practical case with integrated battery enclosed in the retail package

So having all this makes the phone quite good. In my lifetime I have had several Samsung phones and they always seem to be coming up with something new and extraordinary. This is the first phone if it’s kind to hit the market. When I say this I mean that it is the first phone that has been manufactured with two functional sides to it as it does not have a bare standard back panel where the battery is concealed. Both sides of the phone have display screens which increases the risk of breaking them but one side operates as the normal standard phone that you would use to call and send SMS messages and the other side of the phone acts as a music player. The standard “phone Side” has a very small screen and all of the usual numerical keypad buttons which can be used as letters or numbers as standard. The “Music Player Side” has a considerable amount of a bigger screen which you are able to view your music files etc. Just below that you will see that there is a series of touch sensitive buttons and also a confirmation button in the middle.

Since this phone has so much technology and a unique design the size is quite incredible measuring in at 9.4mm thick and also 103.5 x 44mm just a little bit bigger than a credit card. The phone would actually weigh 79g but with the case it shoots up to 156g. I have found that when I am texting on my usual phones that here is a sort of clicking noise that gets on everyone’s nerves as I sit there texting whilst there trying to watch the soaps etc but there is no sound at all with this one and the material seems to remind me of a kind or rubber substance.

Just looking at the phone you can see that there are loads of buttons all over the place and immediately think that you are going to get confused and be overwhelmed with them all but this isn’t the case. On the left hand side you will see that there is a combined element for the headphones, charger and the data cable which means that you could not charge you phone and listen to the music through the headphones at the same time which brings just one disadvantage to the phone. Anyway next to this you will find a slot where you are able to place your microSD memory card. Moving to the top area on the left hand side you will see that there is a silver line which houses the function to switch between the phone side and the music player side, the reason for this key is because both sides of the phone cannot be used at the same time. Also in this area there is a sliding lock which can be used but it is quite hard to move and I often find that a fingernail does the trick. As with all phones these days there is an eyelet so that you can connect it to a neck strap etc.

The SIM card slot can be found under one of the covers (firmly fastened to the body of the phone, just like all other covers) on the right side of the phone. The SIM card is inserted just like any memory card. Yet, remember to push it deeply inside the phone; for this purpose you can use a sharp object. A sharp object will also come handy for the removal of the cover of the external antenna connector located nearby as well as for the reset of the phone provided by a press on the button behind the tiny hole. The dual volume-control key can be found on this side, too.

The top of the phone is actually bare which was a surprise although it does have a connecter where you can connect the second battery to it, which mention earlier is integrated into the case, I thought that this was very useful although it does make the phone a considerable amount heavier. The case which holds the second battery is imitation leather and actually looks quite good. Upon putting the case on I found that it slides nice and easily into the case until it is stopped by two locks at the bottom. Although the case is quite big it still lets you have sufficient access to both sides of the phone. Also if you insert the phone in to the case when the phone battery is low then you will find that it automatically starts to charge from the second one, genius or what. The battery is built into the phone in such away that if it needs repairing then you have to take it to a specialized shop and get charged a fortune. The battery is a Li-Ion battery with a 720mAh capacity and supposedly lasts for 155 hours on standby and 150 minutes of talk time.

Now for the functionality of the phone. The phone side is mainly devoted to the keypad which takes up almost all of the front side other than a small TFT display which measures in at 33 x 13 mm and supports a 262K colors. This really will make you feel that you are taking a big step back in time because this screen is tiny and you are only able to view two lines of text at any one single time. I though that this was a really bad design feature for this model. The keypad on this side of the phone is dominated by a four way navigation key with a button in the centre that is used for confirming choices etc. the rest of the keys on the front are the standard keys that you would usually have on a phone to be able to send messages and dial numbers etc. there is also the start and end call buttons and also as standard with all Samsung phones there is the “C” button where is basically the backspace button. I have found that there are quite a few good things with the keypad and they are that it responds to the press very quickly unlike some of the other phones that I have had, there is virtually no sound when the buttons are pressed and they do not really stick out from the phone a huge deal meaning that the phone has a slight sleek look. The screen has a resolution of 176 x 64 pixels meaning that all of the text and small images that are shown are super sharp because this resolution is quite good considering the size of the screen that we are dealing with. It has all of the standard features such as the backlight going off if the phone has been inactive for a set amount of time. As with some of the other new phones that are out there in the world you can still see the screen perfectly well when it is in direct sunlight which is an extra added bonus.

Moving on to the music player side, it immediately jumps out at you that this is the side that you would like to be playing with and looks like it has so many features that you would like to get to grips with. It features a much bigger screen display coming in with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, although it supports the same amount of colors as the small screen the images that can be viewed on the screen are super sharp and fine. All of the colors on the display are as vivid as they are on the small screen but this still works well. What about the keypad I hear you asking? Well Samsung seem to have gone for a slight Ipod look with the main buttons on the music player side. It contains a touch sensitive four way directional keypad with a button in the centre for confirming the choices that you have made. In my opinion I think that this is not the best choice that they have made because although it does look very good it does not have the functional factor as this keypad is far too sensitive and I find that it sometimes reacts a bit slow when the buttons are pressed. The right and left keys are used when you want to navigate between menus in a horizontal direction, the upwards pointing key opens a context menu, and the button pointing down sends you a level back.

There is a slight problem that I seem to be finding with this keypad and that is that sometimes it does not seem to know the difference between a slide and a click. I forgot to mention that just like an Ipod you are able to browse through a list of files by using the touch sensitiveness of the keypad meaning all you have to do is slide you finger or thumb along the button. So when I am browsing my music I sometimes find that it will start to play a song when I wanted to browse through them. Until you have mastered how to use the phone then you will get very annoyed with songs playing when all you want to do is browse. Upon first use and sometimes still today I find that it is very hard for me to actually go to an item straight away, I always seem to be going to far or stopping to soon, this is a real challenge to get the right file until you have got used to how sensitive the keypad is. There is a sort of help section that is supposed to help you use the phone and teach you how to actually use the sensitive keypad but I found that this was not really much help, but that’s my personal opinion.

The display screen for the phone side does not have any special features and doesn’t really do anything special, you can have a choice of white or black background for the main screen and then it just shows all of the different standard things such as on the left hand side it shows the Battery status, signal strength and things that have been activated such as Bluetooth and the different profiles that you may have set up like general or silent etc. on the right hand side of this very small screen you can view the date, time and weekday etc.

To access the main functions such as the menus and the phonebooks these have been integrated into the shortcut buttons of left and right as this makes things a lot quicker when using the phone. The right direction is the one that opens the phone book, contacts list whatever you would like to call it. The main menu can be accessed by the pressing the left direction key. The main menu is not actually that entertaining as it is just a row of icons in a horizontal composure as there would not be enough room on the screen to have more than one row unless everything was very small and you had a magnifying glass to hand when using the phone. This is the really bad thing; you can’t even have words telling you what each icon is because there is such a lack of space. I thought that when I was using the menus that it was actually quite difficult because until you come to learn about the phone and know which order all of the options are in then it sometimes takes a very long time to actually get to an item that you would like from the menu. As most of the Samsung models do these days there is a neat little function installed so that the phone remembers the last menu that you were looking at then when you open up the menu again the last visited menu appears. If you find that going through all of the menus is very time consuming then you could use the shortcut keys such as the numbers because this speeds things up a lot but again you need to know which item is which number in the list.

The ways of the navigation key can provide instant access to one of the available 15 functions if set to do so. Not so comfortable is the fact that, on stand-by, the confirming center of the navigation key (which otherwise does confirm selection in the menu), opens the home page of the WAP browser, which automatically leads to the activation of the opposite side of the phone.

For the music player side of the phone the menu is not really much better as in looks or functionality, and basically just contains 5 items: Music player, camera, album, FM radio and a voice recorder. The main reasons for it not looking so attractive is the fact that all of the icons are white and are distributed onto a white violet background which does not really look that good. As a good power saving measure after some time of inactivity the phone switches to power saving mode which basically means that the display switches off. Now here is something that I always seem to get annoyed with and that is, when you unlock the phone the phone it is the last active side that lights up and therefore I always seem to be rotating the phone because of not remembering which side was the last that I used and therefore looking for the lit up side. The most annoying thing is that the phone can only be activated again by pressing the button on the last active side so not only do I have to look for the light but I have to try and unlock both sides to see which one was last active.

Going back on to the phone side of the mobile the memory capability is to store 1000 contacts, and for every one of these you have the choice to assign different things to all of them i.e. first name, last name, 5 phone numbers, email address, picture, ring tone, and a note. I find that to add all of these things to all of the contacts in my phone is real hassle as it is quite time consuming. To make yourself more organized you could store all of the different contacts in to different groups. This can make browsing the contacts list easier as browsing through the whole list is not the best of activities, on this display anyway. Whilst you are searching through contacts on your phone there is to lines. One that shows the name that you are looking at and the second is where you are able to type the different letters so that you can find a contact easily. A good thing about this phone is that you have the option to view all of the contacts that are stored on the sim card as well as all of the contacts that are stored on the phone at the same time. I recently found that out that you can also view your contacts on the multimedia side of the phone but on this side you are not able to add, edit or delete any contacts.

Yet another bad thing about this phone is that it does not have an answering machine meaning that people are not able to leave a message for you when your phone is switched off or when you are in an area of no signal. Profiles are available to set but these just include a silence mode. The things about the profiles that I most dislike about this phone is that you are not able to have the phone ringing and vibrating at the same time which I thought was a bad idea to let the phone do this. When you do have the phone ringing there is a variety of formats that you are able to use, they are: MP3, AAC, and WMA.

Here is a major flaw for technology that people want in a phone but a thing that I was not too bothered about and that is the fact this phone does not have an EMAIL facility. Just think trying to type out an email on this phone and then selecting the contact that you would like to send it to. This would take a very long time and it would not be a very good and practical activity to do. The Samsung F300 only supports the two message types of SMS and MMS. The good thing about the SMS messages is that you are able to send the same message at up to 20 people per time which would be a good idea if people actually sent the same message to 20 different people but in my life I have never known anyone to do this yet.

Moving on to the organizer that is integrated into the phone, this is not the best of applications either because you are only able to have the day view because of the screen being so small. There are three different things that you are able to insert and they are: appointment, anniversary and task. You are only able to store 100 entries in the phone memory as this is all that it is capable of. The best thing that is possible that is possible with this organizer is that you are able to set a task to repeat every week etc, although that is not marvelous it shows just how good this really isn’t.

The camera that is built into the phone is a 2 mega pixel which means that the maximum possible image size is 1600 x 1200 pixels, which for a phone is not really that bad unless you compare it to some of the really high end phones. There are quite a few options that you are able to change when using the camera, these are things such as the image size, quality and the exposure, effects, white balance, ISO sensitivity, and night mode. What really caught me off guard is the fact that the phone has a perfectly functioning, high definition zoom which is an excellent feature to the camera. I almost forgot to mention but the camera view finder is actually in the multimedia side as this is the side that has the bigger screen so that you can actually see what you camera is directing at. Imaging that you were trying to take an image using the other smaller screen, that would just be horrendous.

Pictures and videos that have been shot by you using the phone automatically get stored to the internal memory of the phone which means that if you have a memory card then you will have to move all of these from the phone to the memory card, depending on how many files that you actually have stored depends on the amount of time that this is actually going to take. All of the files that you have on the hone or on the memory card can be viewed using the file manager where they will be grouped into the different types. When using the file manager you are able to view your images, turn them landscape, zoom and you also have the options to send them to another Bluetooth device, which will automatically activate your Bluetooth.

As for the music player this also has a variety of formats that it is able to play which are as follows: MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, and eAAC+ formats. These all mean nothing to me but they are able to be played by the phone. The music player does have plenty of options which you are able to adjust to your preference but this has lots of different submenus that will take quite a while for you to become accustomed with it. As for the sensor key that will take you even longer to master. When viewing all of the files you have the options to sort them according to name, artist, album, genre and number of runs, I thought that this was quite good because you are then able to find all of your songs or media much easier. Not only this you are also able to make play list so that you can choose the different songs that you want to play. Have fun doing this as it took me a lifetime and I still have trouble doing it now thanks to the really bad design of the sensor key.

The phone seems to have some trouble locating all of the songs that are stored on your memory card unless they are stored in the folder called “My Music” which I thought was a big flaw as now you can only have one folder for all of the music that is stored on your phone and depending on the size of the memory card this can be quite troublesome to find a particular song. Earphones do come with the phone but they are not really of any value as they are not really the best, they are something that I would think comes with those little cheap hand held radios if you know what I mean. The bear the same features as any mobile headphones. A little section which contains a microphone and also a small key which allows you to answer calls when you phone is in your pocket etc. if you store the phone in its case and both batteries are fully charged then you would be able to play music into your headphones at a medium volume for 35 hours constantly, I don’t know why anyone would want to do this but its something extra that the phone does and means its something else that they can boost the price for. As for the radio there is nothing special about this, it picks up stations, you listen, and you can save the station for ease of use to find it again. Nothing special!

Those of you that like to play games on your phone when bored at work or college, this is not going to happen with this phone as it does not have java support meaning that no games would work, but can you really imagine playing games on a screen of that size. It really wouldn’t be possible.

I almost forgot the most important thing and that is the reception quality, I have always found this to be quite good but the signal strength depends on your provider really and depending on where you are. Well this phone can be purchased from many places these days including most good phone shops and even places such as eBay where there will be hundreds of people trying to sell there huge disappointment for a price of around £165.00 - £250.00.

Now moving on to the conclusion this phone is nowhere the top of the range phone if you rate it on its ease of use, features etc. I think that this phone is just for people who like to stand out from a crowd and make sure that they have the best phone but this really isn’t the case. So from me I think that this is the biggest mistake that I have ever made with a phone and will not be buying anything like this again. Admittedly the phone does look quite nice and have a stylish look but it really is not a phone that you want to call people or send texts to people its just too much hassle.

Final conclusion: if you would like to text people and ring people and that is what you use the phone for most then do not buy this phone. If you are a person that listens to music most of the time and does not mind about the lack of functionality then this could be the phone for you, but if you are just buying this phone so that you can stylishly listen to music just go out and buy an MP3 player or Ipod it would be much cheaper. From me 5/10.

Thank you for reading and I hope to be hearing from you soon!!!

Summary: What a huge disapointment

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