The Samsung F490 is the all new successor to the Samsung F700. But the F490 is also a radical departure from its older brother. For starters the Samsung F490 has a full touchscreen interface. It has ditched the QWERTY keyboard of the F700 and come up with an impressive interface that is aiming squarely at the iPhone. Although it has to be said the F490 falls short in this battle, it should not be dismissed out of hand.
In terms of looks the Samsung F490 is almost a duplicate of the F700. The front of the F490 is dominated by the large 3.2 inch TFT display which outputs in a pure 16:9 ratio. The earpiece on the F490 is located above the display and there is a camera for video calling. Video calls on the handset are particularly impressive thanks to the HSDPA support on the F490. Underneath the seemingly giant display are three touch keys. In a novel twist, the display and these buttons respond to touch from any object, not just your finger. Useful if you are struggling to take a call with your hands full. Two of the keys are green and red receiver keys whilst the other key takes you to the menu screen. Samsung have made it easy to prevent the touch screen on the F490 from being activated by the change in your pocket. There a hardware slider key located on the right side of the phone. Pushing it up will turn the phone on but pushing it down will lock the screen.
The Samsung F490 comes equipped with the award winning Croix interface which is a joy to use when combined with the touch interface. Although it doesn’t feel quite as seamless as the iPhone, it certainly gets very close. The use of sub menus on the F490 is quite clever although there are some strange leftovers from the F700 (some of the options have numerical shortcuts, weird when you consider the F490 has no keypad!). When you combine all of this with a five megapixel camera it’s easy to see why the F490 is so eagerly awaited. Leave your name and e-mail in the box above if you want to join the queue! |
