Just how much can you stuff into a phone that is only 10.7mm thick? Apparently, quite a bit.
Samsung adopts the everything- but-the-kitchen-sink approach, and throws in a bunch of features into the SGH-F500, a 3.5G offering dubbed the Ultra Video Phone. It is the first DivX-certified phone in the world, and it looks impressive.
Part of Samsung's Ultra line, the F500 is dual- sided and features a twist-and-flip style. Its anaemic appearance is rather deceptive, as at 107.5g, it is quite hefty. But this is good weight, making the thin, mostly metallic-clad phone feel really well-built.
On one side is the phone function, where the top half consists of a 3.8cm screen, navigation buttons and numeric keys. The phone twists in half in the middle so that the 6.1cm screen on the reverse side can be propped up like a mini TV when the phone is placed on a flat surface.
The 6.1cm screen with 320 by 240 pixels is extremely bright and vivid. The phone also supports direct TV output, but users have to be really desperate for entertainment to consider this. I played a DivX movie ripped from the DVD Thank You For Smoking, and it played beautifully. The phone also supports these video formats: Mpeg4, H.263, WMV, Avi.
Navigation on the media side of the phone is performed using the squarish, touch-sensitive navigation pad that has a push-in centre button. Getting around demands that users not merely tap the compass points (with designated functions like menu, next, previous and back), but 'sweep' their thumbs up, down, left and right of the outer edge as well.
But the inconsistent software interface is confusing: In the main display, you can sweep to navigate, but when the menu is pulled up, you can only use the Next and Previous tap spots on the navpad.
On the phone side, the 3.8cm screen, while clear and bright, often reminds you how tiny it is, which is ironic, given how long the phone is - 116.4mm. Also, the keys at the bottom are so thin and flat that my average-size thumbs often struggled to hit the right keys.
The trouble with the dual personality of the F500 is how frequently it tells the user to switch to the larger screen and vice versa. Simply changing the wallpaper on my display required me to activate the 'switch screen' button on the side to confirm my choice before making the switch back. Tedious.
But other than these dual-personality gripes, the phone itself is exemplary.
Call quality, as with most Samsung phones, is fantastic. And calling out was a joy: Dialling the first few digits of a number brings up contacts whose numbers match - almost like what you have in predictive text. Excellent, Samsung!
The F500 has a two-megapixel camera for snapping pictures and video conferencing, HSDPA support for speedy data connections, a microSD card slot for media and data files, and an external battery pouch for protecting the phone and also extending its power.
- Alvin Lai is a freelance writer.
FINAL SAY
The SGH-F500 is a classy and solid offering. Recommended for anyone who desires a well-made, easy-to-use phone with great multimedia capabilities.
