Design
Samsung F500 Ultra Video phone has two screens, a smaller screen on the side with the number pad, and a larger screen for video on the side with the five-way touch-sensitive button. The phone swivels at the base, where the number pad lies. The touch-pad is unique. You can press the individual buttons, or sweep your finger across horizontally or vertically to access functions, such as lowering volume by dragging your finger down, or scanning through a movie by sweeping your finger from left to right. The hinge for the swivel is on the side of the phone, and fully open the keypad forms a grip for the phone's camera. The phone is very thin, about 0.4 inches.
Features:
Video looks nice and crisp; we watched video clips from "The Mummy" and "Mission Impossible," and special effects looked clean, without noise or blur. Switching between the video and phone modes required the flick of a switch on the side of the phone, and in demonstrations we saw a few non-fatal glitches pop up while the phone lagged between modes or froze the video. You can work with the phone-side functions while the music player is playing by engaging a lock switch – we wonder why the phone can't simply figure out which side's buttons your pressing. The touch-sensitive button with its finger-slide function is cool to use for scanning through movies, but navigation seems poorly mapped. The center button plays a file, but does not select a menu option; and to open the menu from a playing video file, you sweep your finger, which seems wholly counterintuitive. The phone will use HSDPA for high speed network access, but Samsung hasn't yet announced whether the phone will make it stateside.
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