Samsung F210

release date: October 2007

colours:

blue

black

purple

pink

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RATING

Pros

Small and slim
Looks good
1 GB internal memory

Cons

Tiny screen
Battery life
No 3.5 mm audio jack

SUMMARY

Slim, lightweight fashion phone with 1 GB memory and music player. The small screen will be a turn-off for many - 1.4-inches is just too small.

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Review

Samsung F210 - an "I'm a lady" sort of swivel phone. Looks like an MP3 player. It also bears an uncanny resemblance to a Bluetooth dongle, albeit larger. The Samsung F210 is available in blue, black, purple and pink colours.

Design

The F210 is OK feature-wise. The design is the big problem - the screen is teenie weenie - super tiny. At just 1.46-inches (diagonal), this is possibly the smallest mobile phone screen on the market. The screen compromises the usability of the phone. Web browsing on a 1.4-inch screen - hehehehehe. Contacts with long names, calendar - somewhat naff.

The screen is very narrow - 19 mm , 32 mm high. Many of the menu titles can't fit on the screen, so the titles have to scroll across the screen. That's usability boo-boo number 1.

The Samsung F210 is mighty slim (width) - just 31 mm. It's the slimmest mobile phone we've tested. It is quite a thick phone - 20.5 mm.

F210 Keypad

Swivel design: Oh dear. Swivel phones. Annoying. Having to swivel the front panel to the left and up, each time you want to answer or make a call. Nudge the front panel to the left, and it'll spring 180 degrees into position. The screen switches to portrait view.

The F210 is an update to the Samsung X830. Unlike the similarly slim X320, the F210 has a 3 column x 4 row keypad. The keys are small, but they're easy enough to press.

Jog wheel: Use the circular jog wheel to navigate the menus. It works OK, however we found it easier and quicker to use the wheel as a navigation pad.

Features

Music player

The music player is decent. Supports MP3, AAC, eACC+, WMA, MPEG4. The F210 has 1 GB of phone memory (250 4 MB songs) and a microSD card slot (supports up to 2 GB). The memory card slot is underneath the battery - no hot-swapping fun here kids.

Use the jog wheel to navigate around the music player. The landscape orientation is better than portrait - more room for text.

The lanyard earphones (pretty good quality) clip into the either side at the bottom of the phone. There's a loop, it's designed so you can wear the F210 around your neck. Attach the earphones to listen to the FM radio. The F210 doesn't have a 3.5 mm audio jack.

2 MP camera

No autofocus, no flash, no camera lens cover. There is a mirror on the back of the front panel - pose away poseur. Image quality is OK. 2x digital zoom and basic camera options.

The camera captures video in CIF format - 352 × 288 - that's pretty good compared to a lot of other phones.

Other Features

FM radio with RDS - attach the earphones. Bluetooth 2.0, music recognition service, organiser tools (calculator, notes, calender, converter, timer, stopwatch, memo), T9 predictive text and a Web browser - superbly lousy on a 1.4-inch screen.

Battery Life

Samsung state 3.3 hours talk time - not great, considering the F210's not too demanding feature-set.

Summary

The Samsung F210 could be a good little phone for young people. It's slim, lightweight and has a decent 1 GB memory and music player. The small screen will be a turn-off for many - 1.4-inches is just too small. The swivel design is not the most-loved of mobile phone designs either - too much opening and closing.

You might like to buy a fashion phone with a bigger screen and standard design such as the Nokia 6500 Classic.