Samsung Ultra Smart F700 | A rival for the iPhone?

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Apple’s iPhone has not even hit the market but already have a close competitor: the Samsung Ultra Smart F700. The smart phone, unveiled today by Samsung, externally shares a lot with Apple’s devices. The Ultra Smart F700, in fact, has a large 2.8-inch screen with a single button in the lower part of the smart phone.

The Ultra Smart F700 will be showcased next week at 3GSM World Congress. Samsung has already revealed several interesting details though. The smart phone has a full touch-screen (just like the iPhone) but its keyboard is not drawn on the screen.

Instead Samsung opted for an integrated QWERTY slider-keyboard. Once the keyboard is accessible, the display will change its mode from portrait to landscape. The smart phone touch-screen will use a “drag and drop” technology that has yet to be fully explained by Samsung. Right now we only know that the interface will be Flash-based.

As announced by Samsung, the Ultra Smart F700 also comes with a 5 megapixel camera and in particular with HSDPA. The latest is a 3G mobile telephony protocol that allows for higher data transfer speeds. The smart phone, using HSDPA, will be able to receive a (theoretical) 7.2 Mbps even if the actual speed for the moment will be half that amount (at the maximum).

Other features of the Samsung Ultra Smart F700 are a microSD slot (to expand the available memory capacity), Bluetooth support and VibeTonz. The latest is a technology that allows the Samsung Ultra Smart F700 to give feedback to the user when the screen is touched. Initially the Samsung Ultra Smart F700 will not be available in the U.S. and there is no word about its arrival.