Samsung SGH F700

Having had the handset for a little over a week i thought i'd write my own review.

I also own an LG Viewty and up till a week ago also a Samsung G800. I'll be refereing to these other handsets for camparion reasons periodically thoughout the review.

The handset is of excellent build quality, feels heavy in your hand when compared to the Viewty, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on if you like a handset which weights very little. I like to feel that somethings in my hand and therefore like the weight of it.

As you may or may not be aware the F700 comes with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The slider mechanism is very nice, is smooth and does not feel loose in any way. Rather the opposite, nice and tight with an easy motion. The screen changes from portrait to landscape when sliding out the keyboard to its full extent. Again a nice feature.

The touchscreen: The F700's most prominent feature. With the large screen area it does look very slick and is very clear. However it's biggest downfall is that it is "hard to use". I mentioned above that i have an LG Viewty also, which is far superior. The LG responds very very well to my input whereas the F700 needs more of a heavy handed aproach. This is what i feel lets this handset down in a big way as the primary function when considering a new hansdet is it's ease of use. A big let down from Samsung on this handset as i feel the screen and it's touch sensitivity could have been tweaked to make it more user friendly and more resposive to touch.

I felt myself getting frustrated with it on a number of occasions as my input was ignored, having only then had to touch the screen a further few times to get to my required destination in the menu.

As with the G800 which Samsung recently brought out it does suffer with the primative and somewhat antequated menu systems. A big Downfall of Samsungs handset range. If someone at Samsung is reading this - Please SORT out the software systems, they are far behind that of other leading manufacturers.

The sound from the handset is rather good in comparison to the G800 as it's speakers are further apart and seem to be louder. They are neatly tucked into each end of the large screen.

As with the G800 you require the adapter (supplied) for use with the headphones which are also supplied. The headphones are the In Ear type, and having used them i find they provide a clear and crisp sound. Good set of headphones. Not excellent but then they are free. If you require good sound with headphones go for Esure or Bose etc.

Bose headphones the IE ones do come with the handset if purchased throught Voadafone this month and are RRP £70 the last time i checked. These were sealed and i've not used them as of yet. The phone will be returned as i'm not 100% impressed with it so see no need to crack open the Bose's.

Features:

HSDPA 7.2Mbps, EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz + 2.1GHz

Camera: 3 Megapixel with Auto-Focus

Display: TFT (2.78", 440x240)

Features: Full Touch Screen, MPEG4/H.263/H.264/Real MP3/AAC(+)/eAAC+/Real, QWERTY Keypad, MMS / E-mail / JAVA / WAP 2.0 Bluetooth / USB /Flash UI / Document Viewer / Full HTML Browsing / Offline Mode, BGM

Memory

microSD

Size: 104 x 50 x 16.4mm

It is a very good handset but i feel that the touchscreen is hard to use and as that is its primary input method (can use QWERTY keyboard) this lets the overall experience down.