Thursday, June 28, 2007

Samsung F200 (SGH-F200)

The Samsung F200 is a mobile phone styled like an MP3 player. It follows on from the similar Samsung "Blush" X830 and is basically a slightly cut-down version of the SGH-F210 announced at the same time.

This is a very narrow handset that looks just like an MP3 player when folded up. However, rotate the display and you'll see that the SGH-F200 has a hidden numeric keypad. One key difference (if you'll forgive the pun) between this and the X830 is that the keypad follows a much more conventional layout. It's quite lightweight too.. the Samsung F200 weighs just 76 grams and measures 90 x 33 x 20mm.


The SGH-F200's display is an unusual 128 x 220 pixel panel in 262,000 colours. Internal memory is just 5MB, but the standard sales package includes a 512MB microSD card, and the Samsung F200 can take up to 2GB of memory expansion. The SGH-F200 also supports stereo Bluetooth, as well as a wired stereo connection.

Of course, this looks like an MP3 player because it is an MP3 player, or to be more precise the Samsung F200 is an MP3 / AAC / AAC+ / WMA player with an FM radio thrown in for good measure. It also supports various Digital Rights Management (DRM) formats. The F200 also supports a music library and music setup wizard application.

The small screen isn't ideal for web browsing, although the SGH-F200 does have a WAP browser. Remember that Samsung are one of the few mobile phone manufacturers who make MP3 players, so you can expect the F200 to be quite usable despite it's unusual format.

Unlike the F210, the SGH-F200 doesn't come with a digital camera.

Although the Samsung F200 does look very much like an MP3 player, it does also make phone calls. It supports tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM and has GPRS.

Price and availability are not known at present, although the F200 should be somewhat cheaper than the F210.

No comments: