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3GSM 2007 On-site Coverage
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Page 4

3GSM 2007 On-site Coverage

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Posted: 11 Feb 2007, 11:38, by PhoneArena Team

Categories: Accessories Accessories Articles Articles MWC MWC Bookmark

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Samsung Booth

Samsung phones are getting slimmer and slimmer with every new announcement, and we are not sure when this will be over – will there be a phone as slim as a sheet of paper?

The phones from the Ultra II series are slimmer than those of the Ultra I, but not at the price of features. Unfortunately, they are all European-bound phones and the U600 is the only one with quad-band GSM supports, which makes it fully usable in the US.

Samsung has always like to have the “world’s …” and they kept their practice and released the “world’s thinness” phone, or the U100 Ultra 5.9 The super-slimness is noticed from the second you take it in your hand. This is successor of the X820 and has smaller bulge on the back for the camera module, but it is 3.2-megapixel one instead of 2-megapixel, which is not a small improvement.

The keyboard of the U100 is completely flush, hard to press and without any tactile response, which makes it the worse we've tried so far– it seems that the slimness comes at the price of comfort. U100 has the same display as the X820 (220x176 pixels) but its main menu is comprised in a grid of 3x4 icons, while the X820 was 3x3 with larger image of the selected menu at the right. Sub-menus are similar to all of the other Samsungs, visualized as a list which shows the sub-options of each menu.

The phone’s speed is very fast, as with the rest of the current Samsung line. The device is tri-band only GSM for Europe, but we expect a US version as well.

Ultra 9.6 or the U300 is the clamshell phone from the Ultra II series and replaced the D830 from the current line. Its whole front is of brushed metal, but the back cover is plastic. It has small caller ID display on the front, while on the inside there is QVGA. Interesting about this phone is that the whole keypad is touch sensitive. It is completely flush and the keys don't move at all, but unlike other phones using this technology, here you can just quickly tap on a key and don't keep your finger on it for a period of time in order to get it pressed, which makes them work lots faster. In order to give some tactile feedback, the phone slightly vibrates on every keystroke which definitely makes it easier to be sure that a key press was acknowledged by the device.

The flip is easy to open and reveals very bright and colorful 2.2” internal display. The front also has a small LED one which displays the most important information. As the phone is tri-band GSM only, it is destined to be released in Europe only


U300 interface

Samsung U300 Video

The Ultra 10.9 U600 doesn't improve much on the D900, which it replaces. It has slightly different design with smooth surface and touch-sensitive keys on the upper slider – we aren't impressed by their performance, as their reaction is slow. The numeric keypad of this one is not completely flat as the previous two models, and so it more usable – although the size is not very big and the keys on one row and don’t have any space between each other, you can at least feel when you press one.
The camera resolution is kept the same as on the D900 and is 3.2-mega pixels.

Samsung U600 Video

U700 is the 3G version of the U600, but it drops the 850MHz GSM band which means it is not suitable for the US. Pretty similar in other functionality, you can notice that the U700 has 2 more keys on the upper slider (between the soft and answer/reject keys) and that its navigation key is different. It is not only a standard 5-way navigation key we are used to, but the circle area around the center position can be rotated similar as a iPod wheel – this way you have an alternative for moving (scrolling) through the menus. U700 adds almost 2mm to the thickness of the U600.



U700 interface

Samsung U700 Video

In addition to the Ultra II slim series phones, Samsung announced the new Ultra Multimedia phones, including the F510, F520 and F700 – Unfortunately all these are tri-band phones for Europe/Asia.

F510 is an upgraded version of the F500 – it is dual-faced candybar with rotating bottom part, which actually has multimedia controller with touch-sensitive keys. In addition to the DivX videos of the F500, the F510 now supports DVB-H for Mobile TV broadcasting on the QVGA display. When you rotate the controller, you can extend a telescopic antenna which will help for improving of the signal strength of the TV receiver.



F510 interface

When we tested the DVB-H of the F510, we experienced lag of the connection in the first few seconds after a channel is chosen. Loading the TV at all is pretty slow operation, which took us 20-30 seconds the first time we did it.

Samsung F510 Video

Samsung F520 is an interesting device with dual-slider design – you can slide it up for numeric keypad, or from the slide, to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. When it is closed, you still have large touch display to operate over Samsung's new Flash based interface, which will compete with the Apple iPhone and the LG Prada. Unfortunately the demo unit over at the 3GSM show was not working and we were not able to take a look over that interface, which Samsung claim to be better than the competition. We will not talk about the built quality of the phone, because it was so early prototype that even was able to open it to the both directions at the same time. You will not be able to do this in the commercially available phone.

Samsung F520 Video

The Samsung F700 Ultra was announced a few days before the 3GSM show started, and we immediately called it "an iPhone competitor" – just as the F520, this one has big touch display (wide screen 440x240 pixels) and just a single key. Again, here is a side-sliding full QWERTY keyboard – although the size of the keys is relatively small and there is almost no space between them, we believe they will be more comfortable than the iPhone's on-screen keyboard, when it comes to typing a message. The F700 can be proud that is probably one of the most beautiful devices on the market and also of its 5-megapixel camera.

One thing that ruins its look though, is that it very easily catches fingerprints just as the KRZR, the Prada, the Pearl, (probably the iPhone), and every other device with glossy surface.


F520 and F700 Comparison

Samsung F700 Video

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1. Josh (unregistered) posted on 20 Oct 2010, 01:41 0 0

Does any one know if they are coming to chicago, or if there is similar events like this in Chicago? Please e-mail me if you know josh68684@yahoo.com

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2. David (unregistered) posted on 14 Feb 2007, 20:40 0 0

The similar event in the US is the CTIA expo. It will take place in Orlando sometime in March.

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