14 DAY TRIAL // F490 and F700 are two of the latest high-end phones to come from Samsung. The South Korean producer currently showcases them both, along with many other of its cool devices, at CeBIT 2008 in Hanover, Germany (4 ? 9 March).
Samsung F490 is a handset that will surely attract many mobile users with its elegant, iPhone-ish look. As you can see in the live images, the device is slim and has no hardware keypad ? it's fully controlled via the touch-optimized Croix User Interface. Measuring 115 x 53.5 x 11.8 mm and weighing 102 grams, F490 packs a wide 3.2 inch, 262K color full-touch display with haptic feedback and a 5 Megapixel camera with video recording (plus a secondary camera for video calls, of course). The handset offers tri-band GSM connectivity as well as HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), GPRS and EDGE.
Other specs include video player (WMV, MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 support), music player (MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA support), multitasking capabilities, NetFront 3.4 browser, Google Search, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Java MIDP 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, Picsel document viewer, organizer, a 130MB built-in memory, microSD card slot and a standard Li-Ion battery (up to 6 hours of talk-time and about 220 hours of stand-by time).
Samsung F490 has retail price of about 800 USD, which means it is not a phone for everyone. For the moment it's only available in Europe, but it should reach North America too, pretty soon (no clue about the carrier bringing it).
Samsung F700, the other F presented at CeBIT, is an older acquaintance of ours, but still a device that can pass as "new", since it hit the market quite recently. The handset resembles F490 in terms of design, but it also packs a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out horizontally, hence it's a bit thicker (112 x 56 x 15.9 mm and 139 grams). Among F700's worthy features we have a 3.2 inch TFT touchscreen (240 x 440 pixels and 256K colors), a 3.15 Megapixel camera with flash, auto focus and video, secondary video-call camera, video and music players, Google Maps, document viewer and so on.
Samsung F700 is already available in Europe and will also be released in the US, via Verizon Wireless, under the name of Samsung U940 or Samsung Glyde, with a retail price somewhere around $450.
For the moment enjoy the live pics with both Samsung F490 and Samsung F700:
Live report by Bogdan Popa and Cosmin Vasile from CeBIT 2008 Hanover, Germany.
