Being two-faced certainly isn't a trait that you'd want in a friend, but is it one you'd want in a phone? Samsung seems to think so because that's what it's offering with the F300. On one side it looks pretty much like a standard mobile phone, while on the other it looks like an MP3 player styled along the lines of the iPod nano.
There are plenty of phones on the market that have music features, but none that separate the music and call functions in such a dramatic way as Samsung has done here. The handset will be available free on contract from Carphone Warehouse, among others, or you can pick it up SIM-free on the Web for around £270.
Design
Despite the addition of screens on both sides of the phone, this blower is still impressively slim. It's around the same thickness as a standard CD case, but actually looks slightly slimmer thanks to the nicely rounded edges.
The phone side of the handset is taken up by a small keypad and an even smaller screen. Despite the keypad's diminutive dimensions it doesn't actually feel too cramped so you can work up a decent speed when texting.
The tiny screen is much more of an issue. It's only tall enough to show three lines of text at any one time. As a result it's used for just the most basic functions, such as looking up contacts or typing out SMS messages. When you access most of the phone's more advanced features, such as the Web browser, it displays a message saying 'switching' and you have to turn the handset over to use the larger screen on the MP3 player side.
That screen is excellent as not only is it bright and sharp, but it also makes colours look great. Perched underneath this is the touch-sensitive pad for navigating through the music menus, but more on those later.
The problem with the two-sided design is that it makes the phone hard to use. The constant swapping between one side and the other quickly becomes tiresome. For example, you have to switch to the larger screen to use the Web browser and you're pretty much forced to switch to it to view pictures and videos, because they look like thumbnail images on the small display.
It can also be hard to know what side to look at -- pick up the phone after leaving it on a table for a few minutes and both screens will be off to save on battery. We guarantee you'll look at the wrong side more times than not.
The menu system is also a mess and some of the entries are just badly labelled. For example, would you really expect to look for videos in a menu marked Albums? No, we wouldn't either, but that's where you find them on this handset.
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Vivienne Phillips 3 July 2007
Good: The handset looks the business! By far the sexiest on the market!
Bad: Phonebook, both screens, sensitivity of the mp3 player side, the ring/vibrate option
Comment: Got this phone as a present and thought how sleek and sexy it looks - but being an ex-Nokia and Ericsson user found the menu really hard to navigate. My main beef comes with the phonebook. You cannot toggle from Sim card info and Phone info so you have to make a choice - keep your contacts on your Sim card (then you're unable to allocate ringtones for people) or move everything to the phone memory and run the risk of losing it all if the phone fails (has happened to me before - not funny). If you keep contacts on the handset and the Sim, the phonebook doubles them up, puts them in alphabetical and numerical order and does that annoying lastname first thing (that could be my ignorance on how to change it mind you) so if you have contacts under Sue Home/Sue Mobile - it will list eg Home;Sue etc - and you end up with 20 Home;(name) which is tiresome when trawling for a number - I had to re-do my contacts list manually (but that looks like its because the Sim had come out of an Ericsson handset).
Second beef comes with screen size. Why would you want a half-inch screen to do all your texting, phone book stuff on and a huge (lovely) screen just to listen to music? Oh, and I agree with the CNET review about pictures too - unless you "switch" you've got a hope in hell of seeing them on the little screen (and I've got good eyes!) Think Samsung got this the wrong way round maybe in an effort to get it into the shops quickly?
Third beef is the sensitivity of the mp3 side - trying to access music content etc and it just annoyingly "switches" back to the other screen ARG. And no, I'm not overly heavy handed - even took me a good while to get through the tutorial because its so sensitive it kept on switching back.
Oh and the ring/vibrate mode is sad too - it will ring (not exceptionally loudly if you're in a busy street), it will vibrate - it will even vibrate THEN ring (but if its on the sofa you wont notice it until its done one ring and then gone to voicemail) - BUT IT WONT RING AND VIBRATE AT THE SAME TIME. Growl. Oh and dont get me going on the battery life.
Yep, you've guessed - its going back - and I'm going back to Ericsson! Sorry Samsung, you just didnt cut it for me in the end.
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