Samsung F490 is impossible not to compare with the Apple iPhone. This is the first thing you want to do immediately after a quick inspection of the Korean device. However, the phones are different and are intended for different audiences.
Design
When the F490 is next to iPhone, it’s easily to notice that the phone from Cupertino looks bigger, more massive. Nonetheless, Samsung is seen as an inferior product. This is most likely due to the large screen separation from the edges that makes it narrow in appearance. In what concerning the thickness, the devices are almost the same. By weight wins F490.
If the Korean device would be analyzed separately or in comparison with LG KF700, it would look good, even interesting. The original dark silver color of the front side and the metallic aspect certainly draw attention. From our point of view, by the WOW-factor, the F490 is similar to LG Prada.
The middle area of the case is made of good quality black plastic. From the same material is made the battery compartment lid, which covers almost the entire corpus. It is relatively thick, does not look brittle and the external side has a matte aspect. In the battery area, the lid is thickening, which actually serves as a fixation mechanism. An original and convenient solution: to lift the lid it’s needed to click on its midpoint, thereby weakening the clips contact between it and the battery.
Inside the phone is installed a very weak battery for such a device, it has a capacity of only 880 mAh, also here we can find the SIM-card slot and the memory card slot.
The front panel consists of an organic glass with a metal frame. The material under the glass has a dark color with a silvery tent, which strongly glare in the sun. The metal finishing is lifted above the shell’s surface with about 1 mm. The idea is to prevent the scratches on the front panel. But in fact it is not saved: even with care treatment at testing the phone suffered small deep scratches on the display. The surface of the screen is glossy and it is hard to clean it up without a suitable material. It is easy to get the screen dirty when touching the ear or the finger.
In overall, the body’s construction could be recognized as good. It does not make any improper sounds, is carefully assembled, has no loose parts, and lies comfortably in the hand.
The touch screen was built based on a capacitive technology and the ease of use reminds very good the iPhone benchmark quality. The recently tested LG phones were worse on this parameter. We called the iPhone a benchmark because, in our view, it has the best implementation of the touch screen. At least, in our test laboratory has not been a device with better and convenient touch screen.
For F490, the taps are fixed easily, without effort, does not require much to click on the screen, a tap is enough. Multi-touch is not supported. The system correctly identifies the small icons pressing, faulty operations are extremely rare. In some LG touch screen phones, this occurs often enough.
The display is bright, has a good color reflection and a comfortable viewing angle. Despite the reflexive substrate, it behaves quite adequately in the sun. In a sunny day, you can use the phone without much difficulty.
The screen resolution is lower than that of similar LG or iPhone devices. The picture looks fine, is not disintegrated in pixels. If you do not look the characteristics (240 × 432 pixels), you could not guess or notice that the resolution is so low.
Below the display, there are three touch buttons intended to call the main menu, reception and call rejection. Their sensitivity is slightly below the normal.
On the right side is located the switch (we'll talk about it below), quick menu key and the camera button. On the left side - the volume key and the interface connector. The upper end is for the strap attachment and a standard 3.5 - mm headphone output.
The voice speaker is also used to play music. It is loud enough and performs its duties well.
The microphone is installed on the bottom brink. We cannot say anything special about it.
Menu
The F490’s menu very strongly resembles Samsung P520 Giorgio Armani. Practically all the fashion phone’s features are present on the tested gadget. As usually, this is the Samsung’s standard menu, adapted for touch screens. The sub-menu lists are also the usual ones for the Korean manufacturer’s models. There are no pop-up submenus, but there is a bubble, showing the contents of the submenu. In fact, we see the habitual menu with a new type of desktop and main menu, as well as a new interface for dialing and texting.
On the desktop, we can see the clock, an inactive organizer, a panel with three pictograms and a square to enter the fast menu - that is all, again, like Armani. The menu appearance, applications’ location and other Croix features also match. We see no reason to describe them again.
What is really interesting is the realization of the sensory management. The menu’s functionality is only the inner part. In the case of the F490, despite the very good implementation of the touch screen, all is spoiled by the too many features and details.
On the right side is located a switch, which pressed down works as a keyboard blocker, and when pressed up – as an on/off key. If a little longer the switch is hold in the top position, instead of unblocking the screen, the phone is switched off. It took some time to learn how to turn off the lock input.
Further more – the incoming call. Even if the screen blocking is not activated, when there is an incoming call, it ceases to respond to pressing. Logically, in this case the up move of the switch does not deliver the desired action. The phone keeps ringing until the user clicks the camera button, and then clicks on the screen or on the "reception" key. Note that the camera button is located next to the menu button and they differ only with small logos. Guess what button to click in the first place? True, not the one you need.
If an incoming call is received while the screen is blocked, then pressing the camera button is useless. In this case, you are saved only by the switch movement and then a subsequent click on the desired button on the screen or below it.
When performing an outgoing call, the screen also gets blocked. That’s why, if by mistake you call someone, then you first need to press the camera button, and then - to repeal. For the first time, everybody clicks on all the buttons, but not on the right ones and not in the right order.
In fact, without a screen lock button could be better. The display ceases to perceive any clicks once it goes off. To return to writing, is required to move up the lock key (move carefully, otherwise the device will turn off) or click on any of the side buttons. The last one, however, will be accompanied by appropriate action.
Scrolling - a separate history. In some menus, scrolling down the list with the finger will move the list up, in others - vice versa. We have not been able to identify the rule. It’s easier to try to point the thin scroller line and simply move the menu with the finger. When clicking on any of the menu’s item, automatically it enters the submenu. Many will find it so unusual, but, in our opinion, it’s more convenient than to double click to open the submenu. If there is no submenu, then pops up the only option (typically, is "yes / no"). It’s easy to change it without leaving the current menu.
Theoretically, if to get used with all the menu features, which invented the producer, then they will not get in the way or seriously annoy the user. For us, this took much time.
A few words about texting. In this case, the hardware and the software change the places. To press on a touch key is much more convenient, they respond to a light unconstrained finger touch. There is an option in the “Settings” section allowing the user to adjust the tactile feedback force. We set this option on the minimum value. The result proved to be worthy, clicking on the virtual keys is really pleasant. What, then, is the problem? The keyboard. To write the text, according to the manufacturer, it’s more convenient with the help of a virtual telephone keypad, to be more exactly with several of them. The user chooses a separate keyboard to move between characters, for entering text, numbers, characters.
To enter text or numbers, you have to click with finger on the desired row. Only after that, a special menu appears, where you can enter numbers or text (depending on the context). No problem with the numbers, but is inconvenient to enter text. As in the first implementation of the LG Prada menu, the user is provided with a virtual telephone keypad. On each key is needed to press several times. If for a real keyboard is more or less habitually and conveniently, then the virtual one is fuzzy. The touch key can not be quickly pressed several times - this is the technology’s rule. In other words, text input is inconvenient and an annoying occupation.
We did not hear anything about the availability of a Bang & Olufsen amplifier in this model, but the produced sound in headphones is surprisingly high quality. A PC Headset the phone is not capable to power, but the little Sennheiser CX400 pills – no problem. In general, different music sounds good as well, there are noticed all the required number of bass, high frequencies etc. For a complete happiness lacks only the equalizer. For some unknown reasons, it was not implemented.
The browser is based on the NetFront 3.4. This is not a quality solution at all, it is extremely slow (loading pages, moving on them, following the links).
The phone supports video formats as mpeg4, H.263, H.264, which lets you view movies on the widescreen display. It is true, the image will not be stretched, dark bands will be vertically and horizontally. Video with a resolution of about 320 × 240 pixels is reproduced without problems.
The office files can be viewed through Picsel Viewer. There are supported Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat documents. Even the voluminous files are opened quickly. Editing documents is impossible.
The battery allows the phone to work without charging about two days with an average load. It can be strongly affirmed that exactly two days of autonomous work would be normal and natural for most users. With the increased loads (Internet, player), it will have to charge the battery every night.
The Digital Camera
In the F490 is installed a 5 megapixel digital camera with LED flash, but without autofocus. We were not able to achieve high-quality photographs. Perhaps, this problem is characteristic only for test sample.
The photos were with blue tinge, over lighted, very noisy. The flash almost always was ruining the picture. The quality of video we also did not like.
Conclusion
Samsung F490 has turned to be a very controversial phone. Among the undeniable benefits of the model - a great player, pleasant appearance, quality housing and good touch screen.
Particular weaknesses is difficult to identify. Among the most obvious - the camera, the touch screen managing idea, a small battery capacity.
Source: GSMpress ®
