Gadget Review

Motorola SLVR L7e - truly eye-candy

2006-12-21T08:09:00.000-08:00

Sales package:

Handset
Charger
microSD 64 Mb memory card, adapter (capacity may vary by region)
User Guide
CD with software (optionally, varies by region)
miniUSB data cable(varies by region)

Motorola has been so darn consistent in cloning its very own solutions, like Motorola RAZR V3, which got a successor in the form of an “i”-labeled model and a couple of other look-alikes, that it is now evident – having found a “gold vein” once, the company does whatever it takes to squeeze the utmost maximum out of it, which is the right way of thinking for such iconic products as the RAZR. At the same time, “slim” bar-shaped SLVR has fitted right in as well, having quite good sales, yet not as good as the RAZR’s of course. However within Motorola’s range this solution occupies a valuable spot, for the company traditionally ignores candy-bar-style phones and avoids the mid price-bracket. There the company relies on the line-up’s flagship that is to maintain the sales and rival numerous competing products. And it’s not a big deal to guess that the SLVR is the one fitting this role. First announced back in February, 2005, this handset had been replicated a few time even before it was released, the most famous of the “clones” is BenQ Siemens S68. By the time the SLVR made it to the retail stores, comparable solution had been offered not only by BenQ Mobile, but Fly, VK and other players as well. The finishing blow was delivered by Samsung with its Samsung X820, boasting the world’s slimmest casing. Driven in a corner, Motorola started doing what it was good at – dropping prices for its solution. Indeed, in the sense of price, design and quality of materials used, this price-bracket hasn’t seen a proposal stronger that the SLVR.

However at the end of 2006, a VGA camera onboard is completely out of place – consumers are demanding better quality. That’s why the company came up with an idea to prolong the model’s lifecycle by revamping its software, adding support for long-anticipated EDGE, update the camera module to 1.3 Mpix and enhance the set of pre-installed apps. The updated handset got he “L7e” index and will be followed by the L7x, sporting a new camera module, specifically the one embedded in the KRZR. Quite smart approach allowing the maker to alter everything but design – no one has ever used something like that, though, the fact is, Motorola is forced to carry out this strategy.

The new SLVR L7e measures the same tiny 113.5х49х11.5 mm as its predecessors. With no extras onboard it weights 96 grams, while with a SIM card this value increases up to 100 grams (compared to 86 grams of the original SLVR). Nevertheless this difference won’t be unbearable for your hands – in fact, you will feel nothing special, the handset still gives you a tactile feeling of a solid and by no means weightless phone. But again, it’s mostly a pleasant heaviness, and on top of that the cold metal makes all the difference – the casing does feel like made of metal, no tricks here.

Video, looks and comparison of dimensions (wmv, 11.7 Mb)>>>

The casing’s trim is Metallic Blue, which has been pushed by Motorola in all solutions this season, for example the KRZR K1 and the RIZR Z3. If you wonder whether the L7e’s shell gets soiled in no time, the answer is yes, definitely. On the other hand, it’s doesn’t get excessively dirty, and if you prefer wearing your phone in a pocket, then the L7e will get wiped clean without your help.

The most newsworthy improvements include new software, which is now the same as that used in the KRZR – that’s why there is Return key and two-key (instead of three-key) interface layout. Furthermore, this has impacted the handset’s keypad, being almost a complete replica of the one found on the RIZR Z3. And it’s surely not the bad thing, as it’s easy to work with and will barely cause any hardships. Bold rubber framings make typing phone numbers blindly a breeze. All keys are lit in bright blue, which looks quite stylish and gets on well with its major function at the same time – all symbols are well-visible in various environments. The L7e’s edition for the Russian market features two rows of symbols (Rus and Eng).

The display has been left unchanged and still sports a resolution of 176x220 pixels (30x38 mm) and can show up to 262 K colors. For the type of handsets the L7e belongs to, this screen does well, however many offerings boast QVGA-powered displays nowadays. The picture put up by the SLVR L7e looks sharp, colors are vivid, and owing to TFT technology it doesn’t fade too much in the sun. The screen can show up to 6 text and 3 service lines at a time.

The memory card expansion slot is covered by a rubberized flap, firmly attached to the casing. “Hot swap” works here for any memory card provided that it is microSD (topping out at 2GB today).

The right side features dedicated camera button, doubling as Push to Talk key (in case this feature is enabled in software settings by the user/manufacturer, otherwise it won’t be available even via the menu). Since commercial PTT services are non-existent on the Russian market, the maker didn’t bother itself with including PTT configurations for operators and left everything to the end-user. Another item residing on the right side is miniUSB socket for connecting charger/headset/data cable.

Housed on the left is rocker volume key, while the standard Smart-button is placed slightly below – it performs actions varying by menu you are currently in. Some firmware versions allow for binding it up with voice tags activation or sound recorder application.

On the top end you will find an ambient sensor – one of the highlights of all Motorola’s latest offerings – which turns on or off the backlighting depending on the illumination conditions. Holes for a carrying strap are mounted here as well. The rear would have been completely bald if there wasn’t the 1.3 Mpix camera lens.

Removing the back cover reveals a 880 mAh Li-Ion battery (BK60). As the manufacturer claims, it can put up 350 hours of lifetime in standby mode and provide up to 6.5 hours of talk time. In conditions of Moscow networks the charge on the battery lasted for 4 days at one hour of calls and up to 45 minutes of other functions usage. But you are more likely to end up with 2-3 days of stable operation on a single charge. It takes the SLVR L7e a bit more than 2 hours to charge from empty to full. Should you be heavy on its music capabilities, the lifetime will fall down dramatically to 1 day (4-6 hours of music playback, up to 1 hour of calls).

As compared to its predecessor, Motorola SLVR, the revamped model is better by approximately 25 percent, provided that both handsets are used pretty much in the same fashion. What has allowed the L7e to get this huge benefit? First, a more capacious battery (880 mAh against 820 mAh), but the main credit goes to updated software, consuming less power (about 20 out of 25 percent are generated by the software).

The handset houses 21 Mb of user-manageable memory, this volume can be expanded with a memory card, where you can keep various applications on. An executable Java file is restricted to 1MB in size (the size of a JAR-file), while the HEAP can top out at 2MB. Actually which memory type is used doesn't matter to the phone when working with files (music, calls, photos, applications), but the interface speed proves to be lower for the internal memory (though it should be vice versa if you come to think of this). This pust a restriction on the bitrate of mp3 files as well. And now the recommended bitrate for the phone's memory is 64 kbps and 128 kbps for the card. However you should treat this statement as recommended by the manufacturer, rather than as a limitation to obey. The phone will play back files with 256 kbps or an alternating bitrate perfectly; problems pop up on rare occasion only for some specific tracks.

Memory for applications is distributed dynamically, 1000 contacts is an assured number of entries that can be saved in the phonebook. An organizer can store up to 500 events and up to 400 tasks (or any combination of them - not more than 900 entries in sum). An MMS is limited to 300 KB in size.

To call up the main menu, you can simply press OK button, located in the centre of the navigation pad. The main menu traditionally features 9 icons; each of them uses information bar for definitions. You can switch the appearance of the main menu to the list mode and then everything will be arranged in plain lists. A half of the submenus is represented as lists and another half as icons (if you choose a corresponding menu appearance). The user may customize the shortcut number navigation, but you can setup shortcuts for almost every menu item or function (including custom ones). For standby mode, the navigation key may call up various applications that are assigned by the user. Further more, you can play around with the options in order to make all icons disappear from the screen until the navi-pad is pressed. Two soft-keys can be bound to various actions as well, apart from the default ones. With such menu flexibility at your disposal the lack of the shortcut number navigation is not that crucial.

The device supports iTap-powered predictive text input. While typing, the screen displays current words, but hides symbols assigned to the keys.The device remembers the variants of the words you picked and after that offers them automatically. That helps to avoid entering words into the dictionary as it is necessary in T9.

Those using two languages for typing SMS messages will be happy to find out that this option is very manageable on the SLVR L7e. You can also setup which type of text input to use for every language - predictive or not

Phonebook. Not less than 1000 names can be saved in the phone's memory and for each entry you can store First Name and Last Name (two fields), Nickname, phone number (select its type in a list - home, work, mobile, fax and so on, available for videocalls or not). At entering a number you will get only one field, but be sure another one will get highlighted after you fill the given field. That means the phone offers step by step data entry, which seems quite logical. And the last but not the least, up to 7 numbers can be kept for a single contact, which is enough for the majority of users.

Apart from telephone numbers you can enter e-mail addresses (up to 2), URL, a postal address (two fields for street, city, state, area code, country). Also we should mention a text note, a personal ring tone, user groups (unlimited number, and each one can have a personal tune), and a birthday. Unfortunately, no reminder on birthday gets scribed in the organizer automatically, no sound signals appear either. I consider it to be the next step in development of the phonebook.

The handset makes use of a speaker-independent voice recognition system, which means no voice tags are required (though they vary by region and selected menu language) – you can dial any contact or call up applications with voice right away. For some markets this handset will come included with disabled speaker-independent voice dial feature, so that users will be forced to record voice tags.

The general list shows names both from the phone memory and SIM (only one type is viewable at once). Search may be carried out by several letters and you can add until a word is complete. Three view modes of the list are available - only names with an icon of a default number; names and photos and the first phone number (a default one); names with a number. Fast scrolling with the help of horizontal presses is enabled on the SLVR L7e. Any number can be added to the fast dial list, so that you can send a message or call a selected number via a pop-up menu.

The groups settings enable you to pick personal ring tones and images for them – the SLVR L7e houses 4 groups by default, though this number can be easily extended by user. Support for mass message sending to group members is onboard.

A really appealing addition to the interface is filter by e-mail address (sorting of the general list) or recently used numbers (works for SMS as well) – in the latter case the list is topped by Recent Contacts.

You can retrieve contacts from other phones, which is an attractive capability. And if names coincide, two entries are created. If one of the entries has a Nickname field filled up, then the contact will be displayed under this nickname, rather than under the First Name and Last Name. In fact this is one of the first devices that can receive complete information on contact from another device (for example contacts beamed from Sony Ericsson K800i had assigned photos on the SLVR L7e).

Even despite some possible distortions of encodings for Russian language, synchronization with MS Outlook brings about no problems. We failed in finding the reason why they were so crude, though. However after a complete clean up of all entries and a repeated synchronization, all entries were displayed in normal Russian.

Messages. The default memory capacity for 100 SMS is provided, which may also vary depending on the firmware version. As a rule, operators’ editions are capped to 300 messages. The device can handle EMS if such necessity arises. Automatic cleaning of the whole message list should be mentioned as an extra possibility, as well as a list of templates. Delivery report may be turned on permanently or switched on/off for a given message.

MMS management doesn't cause any inconvenience; everything is simple and easily understandable. The messages can be enhanced with pictures taken with the built-in camera and sound clips. The ten predefined templates are really great, be sure to check them out.

The phone has POP3/IMAP4 e-mail client, allowing watching the headers of the incoming mail and downloading their bodies as well. Only images, video, mp3 that do not exceed a certain size limit can be sent. In case you want to store some of the e-mails, you will have to use the dynamically spread memory, just like in case with MMS.

WAP. The phone has WAP-browser v2.0 and its capabilities are standard so nothing special can be said. EDGE (class 10) is enabled, the settings are rather simple, just follow your operator's instructions.

Recent calls. The handset retains a merged list of calls, which means there you will find both missed and dialed numbers. Using “*” and “#” keys you can seamlessly jump between the lists. Special lists for 40 recent calls are also available.Not only the caller's name but the type of the number is shown, if it is kept in the phonebook. Everything is rather simple and traditional, nothing special at all. Each entry features the date and time as well as the duration.

Also this menu shows last calls, call duration and data connections.

Tools. This menu features a whole bunch of office applications such as the Calculator. It's convenient; the full digital keyboard is present on the screen, which reproduces the real keyboard perfectly.

Alarm clock. You can set up several alarm clocks, choose custom ring tones, name and volume, type of reoccurrence (daily, single time) for each of them. This phone was designed for continuous use, that's why entering names and titles for the alarm clocks is required (however you can enter no text, if you like). Alarm clocks are activated in one touch, and a note really makes handling alarms a breeze.

Voice recorder. The recording function can be called up both in standby mode and while calling – in the latter case it records both sides. Maximum duration of a recording is limited only to amount of free space you have on your SLVR L7e. Your interlocutor gets notified if the voice recorder has been started – at first it’s a buzzing sound and then short peeps at regular intervals.

Organizer. You can view it monthly or weekly with breakdown for hours. You will see your appointments bound to a certain time of the day, it's convenient. Each entry can be assigned with a name, start time, length (measured in hours, the minimal amount of time - 30 minutes). Alert can be set up to trigger off before the event (user-manageable). Each entry can set to be recurrent, which is a major attraction.

The To Do list is missing in the SLVR L7e.

SyncML support is enabled on the SLVR L7e, which is aimed at enterprise users who are in great need of synchronization with data server (a kind of remote synchronization with Desktop PC, but this time the server must be located in the network).

Activation List – the handset boasts support for DRM 2.0, so that in the Activation list you can check out licenses, their status etc.

World time – shows current time in three different cities of the world.

Games and applications. The phone supports Java MIDP 2.0; all applications that are located in this menu item are based on this technology. The number of games and their title depends on where the phone was bought. In most cases you will end up having only MysterryMansionPinball game onboard.

The Applications contain three utilities by Motorola – Motorola Text, Motorola Setup (operator-based setup of the handset), BackUp (uploads your phonebook to the server).

Some European market will get eBay Pocket Auctions app onboard as well – as its title implies, this program allows handling lots on eBay.

Even though a MP3-player is available, it’s not of much use; since it cannot be minimized, as well as Java-based applications on the whole (Suspend is the only supported feature).

The handsets retailed in Euroset shops might have an optional application going by the name of Jolly - catalogue featuring various types of mobile content.

Multimedia. The phone supports themes. It's a set of wallpapers, color schemes for the menu, sounds and ring tone types. You can change the outlook of your phone almost instantly and this is really amusing. New themes can be downloaded from Motorola's website, but keep in mind there aren’t too many items to pick from.

The number of available skins has been modified and now they look differently as well. They not only change menu color, but the windows as well as the rest of the interface, which is quite nice thing to play around with.

Sounds - information about all sound files stored in the phone's memory is located here. You can check out their size, info and even listen to them. The player found on the SLVR L7e is similar to other Motorola's phones, everything is clear and easy to understand. The great advantage of this very player is playing back mp3's in background mode. You can draw you own play lists with the help of corresponding tools. Support for MP3, as well as AAC and AAC+ is onboard.

Pictures - list of all images located in the phone's memory. There's a special icon placed next to each file. Every picture can be set as the wallpaper or screensaver. Pictures can be sorted by categories; which makes browsing easier.

Moreover, you can use a built-in editor, which allows overlaying frames, changing color scheme and using special effects. The most convenient part is that after editing a picture it can be stored with a new name. This means that both the original and the new picture will be available for use. This may come in handy in case you want to edit the photo, and not to ruin the original.

Settings. Here you can setup all Display settings including the color schemes.

Ring tone type and notification mode (mixed mode, when the silent alert goes off at the same time with the ring tone) is here as well.

Here you can activate the Flight mode and set an alert on its activation. The fact that profiles are missing on the SLVR L7e frustrates a little, however the Flight mode is the first step towards fully-functional profiles.

Security settings have been expanded greatly. Now you can protect some functions with a password – be it the phonebook, messages, or some other phone’s sections.

Bluetooth settings were slightly modified; Now, the Print option is available, printing is possible for a message, an organizer note or a phonebook entry.

The supported standard is 1.2; apart from the Print profile the handset now can provide Audio Profile (A2DP), which allows pairing up a stereo headset with it. You can't use fast forward feature from the headset; however it will certainly help you to switch tracks. Bluetooth data transfer speed tops out at nearly 25-30 Kb/s.

USB-соединение. The SLVR L7e has support for Print profile and USB Mass Storage mode, when it’s identified as a memory card. Data transfer speed is no different from USB 2.0 Full Speed, which is in fact not too much, but is OK for handsets For connection purposes you can make use of a standard miniUSB data cable.

Camera. A 1.3 Mpix camera is integrated into the phone, allowing you to take photos in the resolutions of 120x160, 240x320, 480x640 and 960x1280 pixels. The possibility to switch off the shutter sound, vary exposure from -2 to +2, choose lighting conditions (auto, sunny, cloudy, indoors, office) should be also mentioned. Timer-based shooting support is onboard.

Photos taken in maximum resolution can be saved only to the memory card, while video is stored in the phone's memory. The quality of the CMOS-sensor is mediocre; it screws up in bad lighting conditions, so that snaps get blurry and crude. The best results are achieved in bright sun light and in other cases gamma of the resulting snap is somewhat disappointing. Thankfully, though, when working with the camera the picture is shown full-screen and keys captions are semi-transparent. Lighting settings may be adjusted with vertical presses of the navi button, which is also responsible for choosing effects (color, black and white, blue, oldish, red, green, and negative). There is an 8x digital zoom enabled on the L7e as well.


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A curious fact – in video recording mode, the interface switches to landscape orientation, so it seems over at Motorola they are working on implementation of widely-used interface layout – for the time being such layout is utilized by Sony Ericsson- and Nokia-branded handsets.

There are three quality grades available for video - good, best, very best. The maximum duration of a single clip makes 10 minutes. What's interesting is that the camera interface differs from the video recording one since it is another menu item. There is a fast settings change but the picture occupies a part of the screen which can be explained with the clip resolution (low - 128x96 pixels, high - 176x144 pixels). The quality of the video is average and sound may be turned off when recording. Frame rate – 15 FPS.

Differences between the SLVR L7e and the SLVR L7

I have stumbled upon tons of questions regarding the differences between these two handsets and whether one should go for a new edition or not. To nip further development of the controversy in the bud, let us list the major distinctions:

Casing’s trim – blue only for the L7e
Revamped interface, bringing about new keypad, two-key device management.
Support for EDGE class 10
Full functional phonebook
Enhanced battery life – increased by about 25 percent
Support for Bluetooth A2DP-profile and stereo-headsets
1.3 Mpix camera (better quality provided only by the resolution used)

How vital these adjustments are – it’s all up to you.

Synchronization with PC. A full version of Mobile Phone Tools version 4.x is included into the package (not for all markets – the packages for Russia lack this software). The program capabilities cover the needs of the majority of users: they include synchronization with MS Outlook, making reserve copies on a PC, copying photos, tunes, drawing up messages on the PC. ActiveSync Exchange support is also onboard, though only remote synchronization is provided (with a mainframe via network).

Impressions

The model delivers good receiving quality, typical for all modern devices. Ring tones’ volume is slightly above average, midi-tunes are played back via 64-chord polyphony module, which ensures fairly great sounding. The silent alert is nothing special on the SLVR L7e – it’s somewhere between “average” and “slightly above average” strength-wise. The loudspeaker outputs enough volume during conversations for nearly all environments.

The handset is arriving in the market in December at a price approximately 40-50 USD higher than the SLVR L7’s, in other worlds, the updated model will be retailed for 230-240 USD. For the time being this price-bracket doesn’t host any slim offerings from the market’s best makers, with BenQ Siemens E71 being the only indirect competitor (this handset boasts a better screen, yet plastic casing). The rest of the features, including music capabilities are pretty much the same for both proposals. And that’s about it – apart from the E71, the SLVR L7e is all alone on the market at present.

Going for the revamped handset is fine, if you are in vital need of functions missing on the original SLVR or just you have fallen for the new trim. While having a very affordable price, the new model is truly eye-candy. Definitely this offering will have some good sales, yet it’s not cable of becoming a bestseller in the full sense of this word.

Source: http://www.mobile-review.com/

Nokia 6300 Review: Undoubtedly Best

2006-12-19T03:40:00.000-08:00

Review of GSM-handset Nokia 6300

Live photos of Nokia 6300

Sales package:

Handset
Battery (BL-4С)
Wired stereo-headset HS-47
microSD memory card 128 Mb
User Guide
CD with software

Nokia traditionally pays no attention to all latest-and-greatest trends in the mobile industry, specifically the hype around “slim-n-sleek” devices, when some are ready to throw functionalities and a part of the common sense away to get the casing thinner. But for Nokia it is experience what really does matter – therefore, they rely on ratio between various aspects, from design and hardware filling to software. Nokia 6300, just like any of its 6000-series monoblock-shaped siblings, should sport the optimal price/quality ratio; and don’t be deceived with the marketologists’ so-called truths that Nokia has engaged in the race for the slimmest-gadget-ever – this is definitely not the case. Nokia does foster plans to launch very portable solutions, yet reaching either extreme in terms of size is a non-value-added way and they do realize that.

However Nokia 6300 is rooted not in the modern age – as a matter of fact it’s a reincarnation of the top selling Nokia 6100 that arrived in the market early in 2003. There is a little to doubt about – these two models share almost the same strategies in marketing and positioning, but differ in the sense of casing’s thickness, which is highlighted more for the 6300. The target audiences for Nokia 6100 and Nokia 6300 are pretty much the same – men and women with more or less equal ratio for either model, who are want to acquire a fair feature-pack (they call it “modern” and by that mean player, radio and crisp display), eye-candy design and, more importantly, an eye-picking brand on the phone for reasonable money. Relying on this audience is not a miscalculation – the way Nokia 6300 is positioned has been proven by the experience of the prior offerings, thus give a warm welcome to a new Nokia’s bestseller.

Another thing that gives us the right to call the 6300 the successor to Nokia 6100, apart from positioning, is its size – previously we saw 102x44x13.5 mm on the 6100, and today a slightly bigger 106.4х43.6х13.1 mm is what you can experience with the 6300, which doesn’t really make any difference, but at the end of the day Nokia 6300 appears to be thinner due to being only 13 mm deep at the display area, whereas the keypad block is slimmer, measuring a hint less than 12 mm. Such uneven thickness distribution is nothing new, though – some other Nokia-branded solutions sport the same peculiarities, for example Nokia 3230. But getting back to the 6300, such approach to the design is not a coincidence, for the developers wanted to make it gain some resemblance with sliders that would boost the handset’s image and looks.

Video, looks and comparison of comparison of dimensions (wmv, 3.4 Mb)>>>

As for the negative experience of Nokia 6100 usage, there were some complaints about the plastic quality, the back cover reliability and the painting. Basically what they would have overlooked on less popular and demanded devices was the sticking point for the 6100 and created certain issues with post-sale service and built up a somewhat negative image of the product. Nevertheless such feedback didn’t affect the sales much, but even at this rate they were taken account of by Nokia. As a result, for the very first time in its class, Nokia 6300 retains metal details, specifically the battery cover, made of stainless steel, and the front-panel. And this is another indirect evidence that the handset will be produced in great amounts and eventually will top the charts. That is why more trims are probably to come – there is no way they will let only the black plastic and metal be on the market all alone. I think a bit later Nokia will release a device painted in black from head to toes and maybe a blue- or red-colored edition.

The glossy plastic used in the 6300 is good; in fact it is similar to that found in Sony Ericsson T610i. Even though it draws scratches and finger-prints, they are not too prominent, unless you start examining it, of course. The metal is exposed to wear and tear as well – first grazes appear in a week’s time, but you won’t stumble upon them at first. Overall, all surfaces of this kind suffer from the same “illness” – Nokia N91 is not an exception with is battery cover.

Weighting only 94 grams, the 6300 fits in hands pretty well and can be carried in any desired fashion. The handset is easy to use, yet retains a number of shortcomings in ergonomics. In light of the face it makes use of dual-interface layout, on Sony Ericsson’s “advice”, dedicated volume keys have been moved to the right side in most phones. This proves to be handy when this key doubles as zoom-button in camera mode. However since Nokia 6300 houses only a single side-mounted key, specifically the volume rocker key, why would they need to relocate it to the right? To blindly follow up the trend? But it is not convenient, and due to being hard-to-push and placed quite deep inside the casing, this key won’t make the user very happy.

The numeric keypad is average ergonomics-wise – you will encounter neither critical flaws nor breakthroughs here. At a glance the buttons seem to be made of cheap plastic and stir up discord in the handset’s looks. When cheap plastic blends with stainless steel, the resulting mix is somewhat strange, but apart from the aesthetics I have no gripes with the keypad. All keys are evenly lit in blue, which is well-visible in various environments

The set of functional keys is one level above the numeric keypad – all buttons are handy, this goes especially for the navigation key and OK button. Owing to the glossy plastic used, this part of the keypad is really pleasant to manage.

The display in the 6300 is its most outstanding part – in both senses of this word. Being a replica of Nokia 6131’s display, this screen empowers you with bring and crisp colors, all in all, it’s one of the best screens to date. At QVGA resolution (240x320 pixels, 31x42 mm), it shows up to 16 mln colors (TFT). Even though colors fade in the sun, the information on the screen remains readable. Depending on picked font size and current application, the display can hold up to 9 text lines (or even more) and up to 3 service lines.

The top end houses the power button, serving for fast profiles switch as well, while at the bottom you will find miniUSB-socket covered by a plastic flap attached to the casing, and 2.5 mm jack for a headset and charger slot.

On the rear you will find a lens of a 2 Mpix camera starring at you and the grill of the main speaker.

The handset is well-built - gaps, as well as crackling noises, are non-existent at all. Removing the back cover is really simple – just push it and draw. The microSD memory cards slot is located on the left side; “hot-swap” feature support is onboard.

The 6300 utilizes 760 mAh Li-Ion battery (BL-4C) which made its first appearance in Nokia 6100 – what a fortunate coincidence! As the manufacturer claims, this battery can keep the handset good to go for up to 3.5 hours in talk mode and up to 330 hours in standby. In conditions of Moscow networks the 6300 lasted about 2 days at 1,5 hours of calls and up to 3 hours of music playback, while all other functions were almost out of work. The battery life is insignificantly lower than that of Nokia 6233/Nokia 6131, which comes as no surprise, taking account of a less capacious battery. It takes the phone less than 2 hours to charge from empty to full.

Over at Nokia they are getting to make even more mistakes in spec sheets than before, so that Nokia 6300 is said to be powered by S40 3rd edition with Feature Pack 1. On the other hand, though, some features like DRM 2.0, revamped player and other specs, reviewed on Nokia’s pages, define it as a model running Feature Pack 2. So it is fine to distrust the manufacturer in this very case, since Nokia 6300 retains the latest software version by Nokia.

The handset accommodates 9 Mb of bundled user-manageable memory.

Being a standardized solution the 6300 doesn’t deserve just another close-up of its features – fortunately, the manufacturer hasn’t presented us with any changes. All software features of the device have already been reviewed in a dedicated article, which we are now referring you to.

Software features of S40 3d Edition>>>

Camera. This handset has 2mpx camera (CMOS) which is not that much according to today’s standards, but it is still pretty enough for a middle class model. Nokia decided not to bet on camera part, it is more of an optional feature. This is why camera’s module that was selected for 6233 is one of the cheapest, and provides average quality, if not to say bad one. In dark conditions camera refuses to work normally, exposure time increases and every movement your hand makes within that time leads to blurry image in the end. Dark conditions are considered daytime in summer on a street where there’s not much of sunlight. Indoors it is even worse. In case you consider camera being a nominal solution – it is pretty much comfortable, at same time handset was unable to reach at least Sony Ericsson’s K750i level.

Following resolutions are supported:

1600x1200;
1280x960;
800x600;
640x480;
320x240;
160x120.

Two minimal resolutions were added for creating photos that would fit as wallpapers for display. Three JPEG compression types are supported: basic, normal, high. Considering the fact that photos do not blow your imagination away, it is better to set maximal quality, it won’t be worse than it is.

Shutter sound can be disabled, there is 8x digital zoom, but there is no reason to use it. You can save photos on both memory card and internal memory.

Some effects can be applied to already made photos, should they be used initially – it is up to you to decide. Such effects as False Colours, Greyscale, Sepia, Negative, Solarize are available.

Those who love to shoot a lot of photos at once, there is corresponding mode for you – camera makes up to 3 shots at a time, all settings remain similar to selected for single shot, including resolution. There is auto-timer for self-shots.


(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG	(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

(+) maximize, 1600x1200, JPEG

Video. Handset allows recording video in 3GP format, available resolution – 128x96 pixels, or 176x144 pixels. Recording quality is divided into three parameters. You can limit recording’s length, but it also can be limitless, until memory runs out (of memory card or internal memory). Effects can be applied for video just as they can be applied for photos, they are all the same.

Video sample 1 (3g, 336 Kb)>>>

Video sample 2 (3g, 224 Kb)>>>

Video sample 3 (3g, 300 Kb)>>>

Applications. The standard set of applications includes Music Guess, Unit Converter and Nokia Sensor. Some markets might get the phone coming included with other apps and games. Java-apps can be loaded over the air or via the memory card, cap on maximum file size is standard – 1 Mb (heap 2 Mb).

Performance. The 6300 offers typical performance rates for Nokia’s latest generation of handsets, no breakthroughs here in the sense of interface speed.

Jbenchmark 1

Jbenchmark 2

Date	12/11/06	17/06/2006
Model name	Nokia 6300	Nokia 6233
Firmware version	pc3.92b

Jbenchmark 1	1.1.1

Version

Total Score:	1798	1889

Details:
Text	413	434
2D Shapes	433	445
3D Shapes	306	316
Fill Rate	200	240
Animation	446	454

Screen Width	240	240
Screen Height	248	250
Color Screen	true
Number of Colors	16777216	16777216
Double Buffer	true
Total Memory	2097152	2097152
Free Memory	1982640	1878256

MicroEdition Configuration	CLDC-1.1	CLDC-1.1
MicroEdition Profiles:	MIDP-2.0	MIDP-2.0
Microedition Platform:	pc3.92b	3,5
Microedition Encoding:	ISO-8859-1	SO-8859-1
Microedition Locale	en	ru-RU

	Nokia 6300	Nokia 6233
Version	2.1.1

Total Score:	263	243

Details:
Image Manipulation	260	189
Text	225	220
Sprites	403	423
3D Transform	327	302
User Interface	163	158

Screen (canvas) Width	240	240
Screen (canvas) Height	248	250
Color Screen	true
Number of Colors	16777216	16777216
JPEG Support	true
Transparency (Alpha Level)	256	256
Double Buffer	true
Total Memory	2097152	2097152
Free Memory	1281100	1281700

MicroEdition Configuration	CLDC-1.1	CLDC-1.1
MicroEdition Profiles:	MIDP 2.0	MIDP 2.0
Microedition Platform:	pc3.92b	3.5
Microedition Encoding:	ISO-8859-1	ISO-8859-1
Microedition Locale	en	ru-RU

Jbenchmark 3D

Jbenchmark HD

Perfomance	Nokia 6300	Nokia 6233
Jbenchmark3D HQ:	134	133
Jbenchmark3D LQ:	261	262
Triangles ps:	33839	34713
kTexes ps:	1317	1351

version:	3.1.0

Screen(canvas)width:	240	240
Screen(canvas)height:	320	320

3D Subsystem:
M3G Version:	1.1	1.1
Antialaising:	false	false
True color:	false	false
Dithering:	false	false
Mipmapping:	true	true
Perspective correction:	true	true
Local camera lighting:	false	false
Max lights:	8	8
Max Viewport dimensions:	1024	1024
Max Texture Dimensions:	256	256
Max Sprite Crop Dimensions:	1024	1024
Max Transforms Per Vertex:	4	4
Number of Texture Units:	2	2

Other properties
Color Screen	true	true
Number of colors	16777216	16777216
Transparency (alpha level)	256	256
Double buffer	true	true
Total memory:	2097152	2097152
Free memory:	434436	398212

MicroEdition Configuration	CLDC-1.1	CLDC-1.1
MicroEdition Profiles:	MIDP 2.0	MIDP 2.0
Microedition Platform:	pc3.92b	3.5
Microedition Encoding:	ISO-8859-1	ISO-8859-1
Microedition Locale	en	ru-RU
Microedition Communication ports:	COM0	COM0
Microedition Hostname:	null	null

	Nokia 6300	Nokia 6233
Version	4.0.3

Rendering Quality
Bilinear filtering:	99%	99%
Trilinear Filtering:	Failrule (80%)	Failrule (80%)
Perspective correction:	Failrule (85%)	Failrule (85%)
Z-buffer depth:	14 bit or higher	14 bit or higher

Perfomance
Smooth triangles:	66455	65232
Textured triangles:	54584	53942
Fill rate:	1623 kTexels	1620 kTexels
Gaming:	115 (3.8 fps)	116 (3.9 fps)


3D Subsystem:
M3G Version:	1.1	1.1
Antialaising:	false	false
True color:	false	false
Dithering:	false	false
Mipmapping:	true	true
Perspective correction:	true	true
Local camera lighting:	false	false
Max lights:	8	8
Max Viewport dimensions:	1024	1024
Max Texture Dimensions:	256	256
Max Sprite Crop Dimensions:	1024	1024
Max Transforms Per Vertex:	4	4
Number of Texture Units:	2	2

Other properties
Microedition Platform:	pc3.92b	3.5
Number of colors	16777216	16777216
Transparency (alpha level)	256	256
Double buffer	true	true



MicroEdition Configuration	CLDC-1.1	CLDC-1.1
MicroEdition Profiles:	MIDP 2.0	MIDP 2.0
CLDC (JSR 30, 139)	1.1	1.1
Encoding:	ISO-8859-1	ISO-8859-1
Locale	ru-RU	ru-RU
Total memory:	2097152	2097152
Free memory:	1074660	1014240
MIDP (JSR 37, 118, 271)	2	2
Form width:	222	222
Form height:	246	250
Canvas Width:	240	240
Canvas Height:	248	250
Fullcanvas Width:	240	240
Fullcanvas Height:	320	320
Canvas doublebuffered:	true	true
Color:	true	true
Colors:	16777216	16777216
Alpha levels:	256	256

FC (JSR 75)	1	1
PIM (JSR 75)	1	1

Bluetooth (JSR 82)	1	1
Connected inquiry:	true	true
Connected inquiry scan:	true	true
Connected page:	true	true
Connected page scan:	true	true
Master switch:	false	false
Connected inquiry scan:	true	true

OBEX (JSR 82)
WMA (JSR 120, 205)	2	2
Smsc	N/A	N/A

MMAPI (JSR 135)	1.1	1.1
Snapshots encodings:	encoding=jpeg	encoding=jpeg
Video capture:	true	true
Video encodings:	encoding=3gp	encoding=3gp
Streamable contents:	none	none
Mixing:	false	false
Recording:	true	true
Audio encodings:	amr, amr-nb	amr, amr-nb
Audio capture:	true	true

Web Parser (JSR 172):	1	1
WEB RPC (JSR 172):	no	no
SATSA (JSR 177):	1.0	no
Location (JSR 179)	no	no
SIP (JSR 180):	no	no

JTWI (JSR 185)	1	1
CHAPI (JSR 211):	no	no
SVG (JSR 226):	1	1
AMMS (JSR 234):	1	1
Global (JSR 234):	no	no

Impressions

The volume of 64-tone polyphony is enough for almost any conditions. The receiving part also does fine, as it equals all other phones of the current generation. The silent alarm is average strength-wise, but can be still felt while the handset is in pocket.

This model by Nokia has turned out to be extremely fetching, and the most pleasing thing is to find it running on 3d Edition Feature Pack 2, which grants the 6300 acceptable music capabilities, radio, and well-implemented phonebook and organizer. A2DP did better than before as well – though it’s only my own opinion, don’t know whether it will be proven by facts or not. Refined materials used, marginal flaws in ergonomics – all this makes the handset looks like a kind of masterpiece. When it comes to the class it originates from, the 6300 comes out on top with its superb display, which is one of the market’s best screens as well. Like all other S40 cameras, the one found on the 6300 is beneath criticism and is seemingly embedded in the device just for sake of it. On-screen quality of snaps, owing the brilliant display, is pretty much fine, but viewing them on PC won’t make you happy. Video recording capabilities have been gotten down to the bottom level under the pressure of marketing strategy.

In the middle of February the 6300 will be retailed for 350-370 USD and will go down to 350 USD in no time. And there is a good probability that this model will be a long-liver among handsets – it might even exceed the lifecycle of 1,5-2 years and still look fetching, and there are many facts confirming this point of view, including the example of Nokia 6100. In fact the 6300 is not rivaled directly by any other model, however form-factor wise Samsung F300 could pose a threat to Nokia’s latest offspring, however its price tag is a bit hefty and specifications are quite different as well. But the Walkman-branded phone, scheduled for release pretty much on the same date and boasting smaller size and a whole lot of music features under its belt for a slightly higher price, is a totally different story. Music and fashion lovers will definitely go for Sony Ericsson’s offering in this case, but this target audience won’t be overlapping that of Nokia 6300 too much.

If a handset boasting golden price/quality ratio and equipped with a brilliant display, good specs, which is reliable wherever you go and is what you seek – Nokia 6300 should definitely be on your short-list. Nokia’s range delivers even more models of this kind - Nokia 6233 and Nokia 6131. But the toughest competition, as it seems, will take place between the 6233 and the 6300, since it’s quite easy to run around like a madman looking at their specs – Nokia 6233 gets ahead by offering stereo-speakers and better keyboard, but the screen is its drawback, as well as non-minimizable player and on top of that software has less to bring to the table. Quite challenging choice, isn’t it? So, everything I have left to do now is repeat my own words again – Nokia 6300 is undoubtedly one of Nokia’s best offerings to date.

Source: http://www.mobile-review.com/

GSM-handset Samsung F300 (Ultra Music)

2006-12-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

Sales package:

Handset
Charger
User Guide
USB data cable
Wired stereo-headset with 3.5 mm jack
CD with software

In fact Samsung totally revised its market strategy early in 2006 – already in February they had a shaped and plain agenda allowing to initiate development of a range of all-round new solutions, arriving in the market not as concept-models, though, yet not as mass-products either. Most of the niche-aimed offerings have something to do with music department, where the company can afford experimenting and afford it in a big way – up to the mid of 2007 you shouldn’t expect a straight and refined line-up of music phones to emerge, however even now we can enjoy some fetching solutions in a couple of models such as Samsung X830 and Samsung F300.

Model Samsung F300 goes by the alias of Ultra Music, meant to stress its prowess in music department. Tiny casing’s dimensions and a feature-packed interface (for a size this small) count in favor of this fact. But what is really unique about the F300 is its double-face design housing two displays embedded in the front and rear respectively. Being the very first handset to offer such functionality, the F300 launches a whole new trend that will soon become widely spread on candy-bars (the lay-out may vary though), especially on music-tailored ones.

Handset’s design (wmv, 4.5 Mb)>>>

The pursuit of slim-and-sleek curves and shapes of handsets has brought to live numerous top-notch approaches and tricks that might pop up in the upcoming models as well. The F300’s thickness is 9.4 mm which is a world of difference compared to the thinnest-ever 6.9 mm of Samsung X820. However this phone has its height evenly spread throughout the casing, so that there are no parts that would stick out, whereas the X820 houses a camera module has is approximately 1 cm deep. Measuring 103.5х44х9.4 mm and weighting only 78 this phone feels nearly like Nokia 6300 (even though the latter offering is slightly thicker) and the next slim Walkman-branded gadget by Sony Ericsson. Having such portable dimensions, the F300 will readily jump into anywhere; on top of that it is relatively lightweight and comes with good ease-of-use characteristics, boasting standard width, acceptable height that allows you fingers to get a good grip on it. Furthermore, the F300 doesn’t feel weightless – on the contrary, you may rest assured that the phone will give you a nice feeling of something heavy in your hands, yet there is nothing bad about it.

Since such compact casing should retain loads of controls and details, the manufacturer went in for some unusual approaches. First, they left out a detachable battery – this thing is now literally built in the casing, not enabling the user to replace it on his/her own. The market has already seen this construction in a number of other proposals, and even though users expressed serious concerns upon its practicality, all these fears have never come true. The life time of this battery surpasses the still-looks-good time span with interest, especially for such offering as the F300.

Second, tight layout of controls had brought about the need in applying reinforced plastic and metal skeleton that shows through on the bottom end and the sides, making you think of its as a pencil-box supporting the rest of the details. For example Nokia 6300 utilizes an opposite solution – the middle is made of plastic, while the frontplate, as well as the battery cover enjoy all the benefits of metal. Both designs proved comparable level of protection, but in the end its all about thickness, where the pencil-box design does better by reducing overall height.

In the third place, since the battery section has gone missing, the SIM-card bed is now mounted in the side, covered by a flap attached to the casing – the good thing is that you are free to extract the card and swap it for the other one even on a working device, and if that’s the case, the F300 will just reboot and accept all settings and data stored on the new SIM-card. On the opposite side plate you will find to protected sockets – one for charger and headset and the other one for MicroSD memory cards (as usual, hot-swap is enabled)

Speaking about the quality of the flaps used on the F300, we have nothing to complain about here, as there is seemingly no way they will get loose with time.

It’s near to impossible to squeeze a full-size keypad in a device this small, but over at Samsung they have surprisingly managed to do so by cutting the main display in height. The keypad itself is handy for it offers bulky numeric keys arranged in horizontal rows, they buttons provide moderate click sensation, yet they are don’t employ touch-sensitive technology. If the buttons’ size was smaller here, it would be really challenging to make use of the keypad, however Samsung hasn’t let us down and hasn’t overdone at either extreme. The four-way navigation key retains shaggy surface. All keys are evenly lit in blue, making them visible in various environments.

Absence of the battery slot has forced to company to engrave all certification marks on the front under the keypad – I’m very curious to find out what way they will think of to stick Russian certification marks on the casing and whether they will do it at all (since it’s a paper sticker)

The main square-shaped display would perfectly do as a fold-phone’s external screen, yet it looks strange on a candy-bar. On the other hand, its specifications are something to talk about – 1.4 inches, a resolution of 176х65 pixels (33х12 mm), TFT technology and 262 K colors. Both images and text look bright and crisp here, no problems, but makes all the difference is the capacity – the screen can hold only two text lines or two menu items at a time, even though the font resolution is great. So grading its functionality, we are ought to give it “low” when it comes to standard features like SMS, camera etc. And it would be a crucial and fatal drawback, if the F300 didn’t have another display measuring 2.1” diagonally on the opposite side – in most cases you can switch to this secondary screen, for example when viewing short messages. No about, ergonomics-wise this proves to be somewhat troublesome, but it’s a kind of way-out, allowing you to have all features enabled on such tiny device.

All we have got to say now is that switching the screens is done with the help of a dedicated key found on the side plate, where you will see two-way key lock button as well. The right side houses volume rocker key, while the top left corner features holes for a carrying strap. On the bottom end you will find the built-in microphone located next to a socket vitally important for an extra battery implemented into a leather casing, similarly to Samsung P300/P310. This battery won’t come included with the handset, and what is more, it’s still unclear whether it will be retailed at all, so don’t pin your hopes on it at any rate.

Another point of interest here is that since there is no detachable battery in the F300, you won’t be able to reboot it manually should you stumble upon critical software bugs, however here we should give a credit to the developers for arming the handset with RESET button located on the right side.

Above the screen one will find a camera lens, which would be taken as UMTS-support by many, while the camera itself would be dubbed as a tool for video calls. In fact it’s a 2 Mpix camera (no 3G support here) mounted this only because the interface for handling it is displayed on the other side, although nothing will stay on you way should you want to make a self-portrait.

The F300’s design, when speaking about it as a phone, is nothing new, except for the shell’s dimensions and minor thickness. The very unique ratio between the display and the keypad is surely an eye-picker, but overall the handset looks like any other product. At the same time the opposite side is similar to a closed slider or Apple-branded players – which is pretty much a fiction, since putting an iPod and Samsung F300 face to face, you won’t see a striking resemblance, but the feeling that they do share something won’t let you go.

Similarly to Samsung X830 this model will come in various trims with the black color scheme arriving in the market first (a part of the plastic used sports soft-touch surface). Then the market will get Festival Orange, Scarlet Red, Pure White and Universal Blue.

The music-face of the phone is remarkable for its huge screen showing off a diagonal of 2,1” and a resolution of 176х220 pixels (33х42 mm). This display shows up to 262 K colors and up to 8 text lines at a time. Due to the fact this screen originates for the previous generation, its being put into a slim casing brings about certain difficulties – should you push it a little you will see ripples spreading across the surface, but this is unlikely to damage the device or do something worse, so you might be able to turn a blind eye to it, after all.

The picture quality provided by the display is good, but all the standard settings, that we have gotten used to on other handsets, have gone missing – i.e. there are no wallpapers, the outlook makes use of a single style and thus looks very similar to music players, rather than phones. The screen does well in the sun, even though the colors usually fade to a certain extent. This very display houses status bars as well, but it’s impossible to make or handle a call using it.

The touch-sensitive button allows managing all modes when the handset acts as a player – on top of that, this key retains a hardware play/pause button. Left and right keys stand for rewinding, the one at the bottom - for canceling actions or moving one level up in the menu, while the key on the top is the Menu button. Not all lists can be navigated through with the help of the above-mentioned controls alone – some times, the side-mounted volume key steps into the action. Such mess in only a few menus reveals crude interface lay-out – total integration is still on the way, so there is nothing to wonder about.

And the last but not the least – the built-in 720 mAh Li-Ion battery. As the manufacturer claims, it can put up about 155 hours of standby and 2.5 hours of talk time respectively. The lifetime is the sticking point for all slim devices, and this one isn’t an exception. We should note that this handset lasts for one day at 2-3 hours of music playback and radio, up to 1 hour of calls and few SMS. Should you be calling up the phone and music modes back and forth too often, the battery won’t be happy with that either. Power users are likely to end up with less than one day of life time on their hands, while the rest of the audience should be aiming at one day of operation only. When we attempted to have the F300 around as a calls-only gadget (one hour of talk time), we squeezed about 2 days of stable operation. It takes the handset more than 2 hours to charge from empty to full.

This unusual and tiny main display has brought about the necessity to re-work the interface, lay-out of some items and empower users with dual-face mode. At the same time the platform the F300 runs on is the very familiar Gumi’s development (hardware-wise Agere/SkyWorks). The handset carries 128 Mb onboard with slightly above 100 Mb being user-manageable, at that this value can be expanded with a memory card of any volume

Handling the handset’s menu in phone mode (wmv, 3.1 Mb)>>>

So let us take a closer look at the interface lay-out of the phone-face with occasional references to the possibility of switching to the bigger screen, and then move onto the music part.

Handing the handset’s menu in player mode (wmv, 2.3 Mb)>>>

The entire interface found on the F300 has been revamped in a way to fit the screen’s low resolution, that’s why the status bar with all its properties has been move to the left, while the main part of the display is taken up by your carrier’s name, date and time. All phone-related functions make use only of this very display – for example it’s impossible to make a call using the screen on the rear, so eventually it turns out to be a kind of data display. It can show list of phone numbers for a contact, allow you to read a message, but actions are to be performed via the keypad and consequentially via the tiny display. The usability of such approach is exceedingly low, as on incoming call a caller’s image looks more like a thumbnails with number and name being scrolled through on the right. To prevent the handset from scaling images, the manufacturer disabled use of pictures with a resolution topping the minimal one for the phonebook – an already existing snap cannot be transformed either.

Similarly to all Utra-dubbed devices, the main screen (the screen itself, rather standby mode) can be altered with the help of two skins – black and white. The main menu retains horizontal layout, where you see a line of icons with one of them being highlighted. Sub-menus are viewed as vertically arranged lists, though the display cannot accommodate more than two items at a time. Memorization of position in each sub-menu and main menu is onboard. Handset will “remember” which function you addressed last time, and will highlight it automatically next time you enter same menu item. For example you selected call list in main menu, done some operations in it, and next time you enter main menu you will have it highlighted in first place.

Shortcut number navigation is supported, but that’s not all options of menu navigation. You can bind four different applications from the list, offered by manufacturer (you will not be able to bind java applications).

The F300 is the first handset to house fast number search on dialing – when typing a number from the standby screen, the phone will offer you a list of matching phone numbers of contacts from the phonebook. Up until now this handy feature was found only on smartphones.

Phonebook. Contacts can be accessed by pressing right soft key, you will see a list that contains all entries from both SIM-card and phone’s memory. However it’s not even a list with the search line and one contact being displayed on the screen. Fast name search by first letters is supported; there can be up to twenty of those, for any language. Once you press OK key you will go into detailed view of selected entry. There you will see a thumbnail in case there had been one assigned. It can be an image, a photo (240x320 pixels at best). Each entry can have up to 5 phone numbers of different types (cellular, office, home, fax other), one of them will be main one (by default it is the first one you entered). All fields are fixed.

There are two lines for First Name and Last Name (search is conducted only by first field), fields get summed when displayed, Name comes first. For example Eldar Murtazin will be shown only in this order. Length of each field is 20 characters for any supported input language. You can also switch languages on the go when entering a name.

All entries, without regard to language, are sorted out under the algorithm – all contacts with headings made in a local language (Russian, for example) go first and then those with names in English. This is rather convenient and handy list sorting system. Taking into account fast language switch option during the search, it’s clear that no language will spoil the experience of working with this phone.

But let us return to the information entered for a contact. Apart from phone numbers, e-mail address, a little text memo can be submitted on top of all that. Any music file as well as composed MP3's can be picked as a ring tone for a contact. Three caller groups are provided by default with the possibility for creating any number of additional groups, selecting a personal melody and image for each. A group can accommodate not more than 20 contacts

The phonebook is capable of holding up to 1000 contacts with filled in data fields. Even if all the available blanks are not used, the cap won’t get any bigger and will still make one thousand. It is possible to set in the settings where all new numbers should be kept by default. There is also an option for moving entries from the SIM-card although the vice versa action is denied. According to the developers, PC (MS Outlook in particular) is best for data synchronization with the D900. Any contact in the form of SMS/MMS, mail message or other text file can be quickly sent through Bluetooth to another device. There are no problems with sending and the phonebook entry being transmitted to another device, where it is read without any trouble.

The phonebook may contain a business card as well, though its structure copies all the fields applied to a regular contact in the phone book.

There can be up to eight numbers in the fast dial list; separate numbers tied up with a single contact may appear on this list as well. The subtitle of the chosen entry (not of the phone number type) is displayed on the buttons.

While viewing the phonebook you can switch over to the big screen, where you can navigate only using the horizontal bar, since keypad input is not enabled for this mode. You can check out a detailed view of a contact and even dial a number, but in the latter case the handset will automatically return back to its phone-face.

Call lists. Each of the given lists contains up to 30 phone numbers. There is a combined list of all the last calls with an icon indicating a call type. The date and the time of a call without special note of duration are displayed in extended view for separate entries. Calls from/to one number are summarized, so that a number standing next to the call specifies total amount of calls made. In order to access duration data you will need to call up detailed information on desired item. As always, the overall time of the calls and their prices can be viewed in this menu (in case the service has been enabled).

Messages. Working with various types of messages is implemented through separate submenus. Let us begin with short messages. The phone memory can hold up to 200 messages simultaneously; the handset supports EMS standard compatible with Nokia Smart Messaging. T9 text input capability comes in handy and is easy to use. When at choosing recipient window, you can either select a telephone number from your contacts or pick one from the call lists or groups. All messages are manageable, this means you are at liberty to move a certain number to your black list, in order to make sure all messages coming from that phone number will be deleted automatically; possibility for moving messages to any own folder is also at your disposal. For e-mail you can move not only addresses to the blacklist, but unwanted subjects as well.

MMS. Interface for creating multimedia messages is pleasant to use, you can instantly save them in different folders. There is limitation for message size (295kb), meanwhile incoming messages are not limited at all (though they may take up not more than the reserved memory volume). As for additional settings – there is option to disable advertisement reception, select weather messages be received during roaming or home network stay. Messages are stored in a separate memory block (3 Mb).

SOS Message is a new feature to the Samsung’s arsenal – here you need to submit telephone numbers that will receive messages with user-customizable text. To send such message all you have got to do is press the side key four times. However how useful this function is in light of missing GPS-receiver and coordinates tracking, is a big question; generally speaking, it’s nothing more but an addition to Mobile Tracker.

While working with messages, you can easily go for the bigger screen to view messages without being able to edit them or something. Though, MMS messages cannot be transferred to the big screen.

Planner. There can be up to 300 different events of four types (3x100) - meeting, affair, anniversary. The day and the time as well as end time of the even are indicated for each entry. Alert signal, as well as its duration can be adjusted according to your liking; repeatable events are available for setting up (at that repetition time is also adjustable as well as exclusion dates). The weekly and the monthly calendar views are disabled, but for some reason that doesn’t make me wonder.

Speaking about the organizer’s shortcomings, I cannot overlook the fact that when typing date and time for an event, the end time doesn’t change, which badly hurts ease of use – other manufacturers make the due time shift automatically (by default an event takes one hour).

Tasks – a standard list of tasks with the possibility of stating priority.

WAP. There is a wap-browser ver. 2.0 (NF 3.2), similar to that carried by some phones by Nokia and Sony Ericsson, using http protocol. The browser automatically offers you standard prefixes and endings of the entered addresses.

Keeping in mind how low the display’s resolution is, the wap-browser in the F300 is impossible to use and is implemented just for the sake of it.

Приложения. Voice recorder. You can record up to several hours of voice memos with the number of files being unlimited. Basically, limitations on recording durations are set by user himself, though length of a single recording cannot exceed 1 hour. All the files are stored in a separate folder in the memory bank. The recorder performs well during lectures, conferences and presentations – I could even say that it is a partial substitute for a digital tape recorder.

World time is displayed for chosen cities, no world map for the F300, though

Alarm clock. The phone is equipped with three alarm clocks. One is meant for mornings and can be set for selected workdays, however the other two boast the same feature (no specific days, though). For each of the alarm clocks there is a selection of five tunes, though necessity of them is questionable, as mp3 tracks can be used there as well. It is up to user to set up whether the phone will turn on automatically in the time of the event or not.

Countdown timer and Stopwatch should be familiar to most users as well.

Memo – standard text notes.

File Manager (My files). That’s the place to search for all files such as music, pictures, video and sounds. Any uploaded file gets stored here. The disadvantage is that files sometimes are not displayed in the list immediately - in that case you will need to leave the menu and enter it again.

Files and folders can be viewed either as a list or as thumbnails. You can select any amount of files. The handset supports Move, Copy and Delete operations, as well as various types of sorting (by type, name or size)

Memory card’s file structure is a slightly different story, as it can be accessed through the main menu, where each item features “Memory card” option.

Settings. This item boasts password protection of selected sections (messages, short messages, organizer, etc.), backlighting duration and brightness, dialing display.

The side-mounted key can be set to decline an incoming call or automatically send the caller a message, whose text is user-manageable.

Backlighting duration – there are three options at your disposal, one of them is Night mode , implying that backlighting will be active only between 5:00 PM and 9:00 AM and disabled during daylight. If you come and think of it, this feature nothing more but an illusive replacement for illumination indicator, which Motorola’s handsets are armed with.

Mobile Tracker – submit a phone number, where notifications will be sent to in case SIM-card was changed – that message will contain number of the SIM-card being used with the handset. This section is protected with password, so that no one other than you or someone else who knows the password could disable the Tracker. Should your device have the SIM-card switched once, the specified number will receive one message instantly, and one more each time a new card is plugged in. A fetching feature which can prove to be of much help in case the handset is lost or stolen.

Flight mode – you can disable network part of handset.

The handset lacks profiles system and offers only adjustable events settings, which makes it look like it came from the past – for example, newest Samsung’s 3G devices have profiles onboard (though many other functions have disappeared). The P310 has got many vibrating alert modes and tunes in its sleeve, everything here works without any limitations, but what really frustrates me is inability to set an own tune for incoming SMS-message or e-mail – you are enabled to choose only from 10 pre-installed simple tunes found on the handset. On the other hand, ring tones are adjustable for contact groups, stand-alone entries in the phonebook and even for the alarm clock; therefore it’s somewhat obscure why not all alerts are customizable.

Bluetooth. The handset supports various profiles, namely, Headset, Handsfree, Serial Port, Dial Up Networking, File Transfer, Object Push, A2DP. The Bluetooth realization is not ideal, troubles with headsets having only a Headset profile appear pretty often, and speakerphone is handled in improper way sometimes either. In general the Bluetooth found on the F300 is comparable to that on Nokia’s phones, but worse than on Sony Ericsson. The handset handles stereo Bluetooth-handsets in a convenient fashion, or better to say, it lives up to its class (in other words – average sound quality).

Music

In the music-mode you get access to a number of functions arranged in a horizontal menu with the selected item being highlighted. The menu’s looks doesn’t change a bit throughout all trees and items, at that it can be navigated through only with the help of the touch-sensitive button and the side-mounted volume control key. The contextual menu, called up by pressing the button Up, always houses a horizontal bar with menu items, so that you can switch between applications right there. Now onto close-ups of each item.

Sound recorder. Duration cap makes up 1 hour – basically, it is the same Sound recorder found in the main menu.

Radio. Works only with a headset plugged in; no auto tuning available though – you are forced to track all stations manually and then save them in the memory. Speaking about the radio’s quality, we cannot overlook the fact that it’s considerably worse than that of its analogues manufactured by other companies – the first thing you stumble upon is fewer radio stations available. On the other hand, those stations that eventually get detected by the F300 can be listened to with pleasure, as the sound is quite good. But the fact is, in Moscow out of 21 stations picked up by a Sony Ericsson-branded handset, the F300 got only 3. That’s why we have all the right to say that the radio here is just for the sake of it.

Images and video. A kind of an album, where you can view either particular images or initiate a full-screen slide-show, so that you will end up having only positive impressions. Support for MPEG4 (audio AAC) files with maximum bitrate of 1.5 Mbps is onboard. The F300 can handle clips recorded only in resolution up to CIF, but QVGA (30 FPS) ones make more sense. And that’s about it – the player boasts no special or unique settings, rewind feature works only at a set pitch (about 5 seconds), image on the display can be turned into full-screen mode.

Camera. Generally speaking, nothing is an impediment should you want to manage the camera on the phone-face of the F300, but it won’t bee very convenient since the camera lens will be starring at you. So what does make sense is taking snaps with the help of the big screen – thankfully, all camera’s features are available there as well. The camera module incorporated into the F300 provides a maximum resolution of 2 Mpix.

The interface layout for the F300 is no different from other Samsung-labeled products – you are free to switch picture into landscape mode, turn off shutter sound. Unlike other models, though, snaps quality is always at maximum and cannot be adjusted via the menu. The following resolutions are supported:

1600x1200;
1280x960;
800x600;
320x240.

You are also at liberty to apply various overlays (special effects), alter white balance and take the advantage of the digital zoom. Frankly speaking for a device this slim, the camera perform quite well, therefore I don’t have any serious complaints about it.


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Video is recording in 3GP format with the resolution topping out at 240x320 pixels, but 176х144, 128х96 pixels are also available. All video clips are average quality-wise, no wonders here.

Music player. Even though this solution is called Ultra Music, the manufacturer hasn’t put great efforts into revamping the music applications, thus it isn’t too much different from other handsets. Newsworthy things include support for Album Art, displayed on the display in course of playback, at the same time listing is disable in the F300 – only play-lists are allowed, at that to draw some you will need to go back to the main display.

Music can be transferred to the F300 via Bluetooth or USB data cable – while utilizing Bluetooth capabilities you can see the entire file structure, the very process will be a real pain, as even 500 Mb take a while to upload (speed – about 40 Kb/s). But when you plug in the data cable, the surprises start popping up – the F300 supports both USB Mass Storage and Media Transfer Protocol (for the memory card), using MTP you can send music to the device directly from Windows Media Player via USB 2.0 (speed – about 400 Kb/s), whereas PC Studio grants you two times worse data connection (USB 1.1).

While receiving files, the handset can handle calls as well, but occasionally they can reset data transfer. On the whole MTP does well on the F300, even though the player refuses to copy some files reasoning with missing support for the file type on the handset, whereas Bluetooth beams these files in a convenient fashion and on top of that, playback doesn’t cause any problems either. The shortcomings include inability to copy music to the handset’s memory directly – every time you will need a “third-party”. Such limitation seemingly originate from the necessity to store all files in Music folder – on other devices tracks stored outside this directory are not recognized by the phone.

The following audio formats are supported - mp3, AAC, e-AAC, e-AAC+, WMA. Apart form the traditionally enabled OMA DRM version 1, the F300 now houses support for Windows DRM. However many will take it as a drawback, rather than an advantage, especially on the Russian market. But on the other hand, if your music library stored on PC is categorized in Windows Media Player with DRM, it is the only way to listen to music on devices other than your PC.

Music can be played back through either the wired headset coming included with the handset or a wireless Bluetooth-powered headset (A2DP).

Using the Hold button you can lock the keypad, which is really handy.

Even though the equalizers found on the F300 are non-adjustable, they are many instead - Normal, Rock, Bass, Bass&Treble, Live, Dance, Pop, Full treble, Club, Party, Large Hall, Soft, Soft Rock. Shuffle and various repeat modes are supported, which cannot be said about special effects, although you still can take advantage of fade and stereo widening.

Quality-wise the F300 performs on an average level – it won’t feel like something totally new or a breakthrough, and rather acts any other Samsung-branded device or mid-range flash-players. In terms of ease of use, there are some flaws as well: since you are unable to manage play lists on the F300, you will be always bound up with Windows Media Player – to me it’s a kind of hassle, as the handset stops being a stand-alone device and pretty much depends on availability of a Windows-powered PC.

One of the best things about the F300 and all the upcoming music phones is 3.5 mm jack stereo-headset coming in one box with the handset – this trend originates from the Walkman range, but in its turn Samsung offers simpler headset, which can be seamlessly replaced with your own headphones to boost sound quality considerably.

Imperssions

The handset delivers good reception quality, which is on a par with other modern phones, though. However there is a small cloud on the horizon, as occasionally we experience unwanted noises during calls, but we attributed that to the tiny dimensions of the casing and windy weather. The volume of the 64-chord polyphony is above average, which makes the F300 stand out against the background of other Samsung models. As for the silent alert, it’s average or slightly above that strength-wise.

It’s really hard to judge the F300 in an objective way, as the first thing coming across your mind when you see it for the first time is “WOW – it’s so slim and solid! And look, there are displays” But some hours into usage, and you will notice that common functions, reading and making up SMS-messages are hard to deal with and on top of that the F300 lacks some extra features (for example I really don’t need this stopwatch, but sometimes could really use the help of a calculator). If only the handset had two big-enough displays, everything would be much easier and I wouldn’t have any reason to blame the device. However this would be fatal for the F300’s lifetime, which is quite tiny already and, to tell the truth, is close to the very bottom level.

When though of as a music handset, the F300 is quite weak and yields not only to stand-alone players, but music players embedded in other phones as well – like those found on Nokia-labeled device, not to mention Sony Ericsson’s products. The reason why they called it Ultra Music might be dual-face design, but, honestly, it leaves much to be desired in the condition it is now. Being retailed for 450-500 and schedule for release in January the F300 aims at “see-and-buy” sales, as it would be strange if a solution of this kind generated profit in a different way. The handset is truly uncommon and strange-looking even for the niche it resides in. No doubt, there will be people falling in love with the F300’s looks, but there won’t be many of them. The market volume for this handset will be on same level with Samsung P300/P310, in other words, somewhere between slim and nil.

With the release of another Walkman-branded solution in January, which sports comparable dimensions and fundamentally better specs, Samsung F300 will lose even the slightest change of holding on the shelves for a little while even if it outdoes the Sony Ericsson’s offering price-wise. On top of that the market will see the launch of Nokia 6300 pretty much on the same date – it’s that so fabulous, but will appeal to men for sure and get a part of the audience as well. All in all Samsung F300 is a good experiment, but being a commercial model with bright future is probably not his role.

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