Samsung F400 Mobile Phone Review - The Affodable Samsung Music Phone

Introduction

The Samsung F400 is a much more affordable music phone compared to previous releases from Samsung. In this review we will take a look at its design, features, and performance and give you all the information you need to know.

Design

A very important aspect is it's 3.5mm headphone socket. Throw out your bundled cables because you don't need them to use this handset. Although you'd think a music phone would automatically come with this feature and that it should be assumed that it was included-even the highest-end music phones forget this part.

Most slider phones are light-weight, almost as slim as a piece of paper, and break easily. However, don't look forward to that with the F400-it's built constructively and is very rugged. That doesn't mean you should throw you new F400 against the wall to see how versatile it is! Although it would also make a great paperweight too!

Being most commonly a music phone, it comes with Bang & Olufsen mini-speakers integrated behind the screen. Undercover speakers... such a nice thought, right? Don't hold your breathe! Simply slide the screen downward and you will see where they are. It does, however, come with a nice keypad that is big enough to set a high texting speed.

It comes packed with a 240x320-pixel (56mm or 2.2-inch) screen that is very clear and easy to use. However, keep indoors or the glossy plastic coating may become a problem in the sun's rays.

Features

One impressive but not extraordinary feature is the microSD slot which allows expanded memory space for the things you normally wouldn't be able to fit on the phone. It comes bulked with a 3-megapixel camera which produces good quality and it is even equipped with a LED flash making it top other phones in that aspect.

Don't worry about compatibility issues with your music, the F400 supports many different audio formats, including but not limited to: MP3, unprotected AAC, WMA, and even songs purchased from services such as Napster. You can even enjoy listening to your "jams" on wireless headphones by using the built-in stereo Bluetooth, A2DP.

Enjoy the music while you can because you'll be disappointed when trying to watch a video. Not only is it more difficult to access than your music, it seems like a full-time job just to meet the requirements of the phones capabilities with video files. It has strict file formats and you MUST obey resolution and bit rates. Don't worry though; Samsung includes the [hardly] easy to use software that allows people to tweak their video conversion setup.

Although it's not a nice process, few phones make this an easy task-not just Samsung.
We were, however, impressed by the 3.2Mbps HSDPA data connectivity. This allows for fairly quick web browsing. Personal preference, of course, makes us throw out the idea of the built-in browser and go straight to the free Opera Mini browser and create an enjoyable experience to web browsing with the F400.

Performance

Although it tried to compete in the music phone industry, it still lacks some important characteristics used by other phone models, such as the dedicated 3.5mm headphone sockets. Claiming to have "breathtaking sound quality" is possibly an over-statement when put to the test. Some distortion issues arose but most people would be happy with its performance.

Even though the phone is fairly easy to use, there are some tweaks that still need to be made such as, not having to stop your music to browse your music list. However, its call quality is well above average but not quite the top of its competitors.

Conclusion

Lacking things that stand out from other mobile phones make the phone not as top quality as we expected. It is, however, a good phone in the long run. Being marketed as a phenomenal music phone would be a bad idea since it then gets compared to dedicated MP3 players, in which it stands no shot.

Although a music phone, the best features seem to be its flash-equipped camera and its easy usability in regards to texting and navigation-rather than its music capabilities. If you are looking just for a music phone, we don't recommend this phone-however; if you want usability along with music then this phone is for you.