Samsung F700, Approved by FCC and Ready for the US

Samsung U940, the North American version of Samsung F700, was approved by FCC and is now ready to be launched by Verizon Wireless on the US market. Unlike the European version, which is a GSM phone, Samsung U940 is not and is specially created for the CDMA and EVDO network that Verizon has.

The handset comes in an elegant design and offers a wide 3.2 inch touchscreen and a full sliding QWERTY keyboard, which represents one of its main attractions. Samsung U940 is 3G enabled and can provide data transfer speeds of up to 7.2 Mb per second - a feature that not many phones can come with. Furthermore, the phone supports Stereo Bluetooth and will, hopefully, have an interface like the award-winning Croix one.

Unfortunately, Samsung U940 only packs a 2.0 Megapixel camera. Not bad, of course (the iPhone, for example, has a similar camera) but since the F700 model has a 3.0 Megapixel one, it would have been great for the US version's camera to bring the same performance. Another feature that may be considered a drawback is the fact that the device has just 150 MB of internal memory - not really comparable with iPhone's memory. But, of course, there's microSD card support to extend the storing capacity to 2 or maybe 4 GB (there are no details about this).

Considering their looks and features, Samsung U940 together with LG Voyager are Verizon's "weapons" against the iPhone, which is not available via Verizon. So for those desiring a device that resembles the iPhone but do not really want Apple's phone, or do not want to sign a contract with another carrier, Verizon Wireless now has really good options. While LG Voyager is already available, Samsung U940 will be from 2008, for a price that is unknown yet.