Samsung Company continues release of unusual phones and it is not quite easy for everyone to get accustomed to them. Yes, there comes a successor of P520 and F490 models, a Samsung F480 with completely (or almost) touch control system. Of course nowadays it is difficult to surprise advanced users with something, but in spite of that F480 seems to be more than an interesting example. Let us see what this novelty can do.

Appearance
As well as the majority of devices equipped with touch screen (let us remind you about F490) this novelty is a bar type device and it outstands among other devices with its big screen. Black edging on the front panel look glamorous which is suitable for this device, but it is easily and solidly gets soiled.





The back side of the device looks like gentlemen’. The battery cover is fully metal as well as the rest surface of the back side. There you can also see a camera eye which lens is covered with protective glass and a LED flash.




The edges are mounted with metal-like material, but it is afraid of keys in your pocket, but common metal details are also covered with small scratches if you treat them badly. The ends of the phone have common phone “baggage” set: universal jack, camera key, microSD slot, volume control wheel. Everything is as usual and everything is on hand when you need it.




On the upper end of the phone we can see a Hold key which turns on/off the keyboard blocking.



At that the key is not mechanical, as for example Nokia N96 and other Finnish examples have got, but electronic. This really reassures, because mechanic keys often get broken and it seems like there is no such danger here. Except a big display on the “face” of the phone there is also a small loudspeaker grid, camera for 3G telephony and three context keys two of which also fulfill the answer/cancel functions.



The size of the pictures is optimal; exactly the one it should be, because anyway the main control functions are fulfilled by display.



If we make a try to evaluate the design of F480 we should rather say it is more moot, because the part of inquired like it, the other part does not. As for me personally – it seems nice and lovely, but I did not feel any mad feelings about its appearance. Samsung F480 looks more like a business device for men, than a lady lover, which should be promoted on the pages of a glam magazine. At that this device is rather wide and it mostly suits hands of the man, and this device also does not have any flowers on its surface (like La Fleur series has got, for example L310 model).




Display has a big diagonal of 2,8 inches, which can be called really chic. Big viewing angles let reading electronic books in transport and high brightness allows working in sunny weather (the indications can be seen quite well).





Of course, the screen is naturally rendering colors adding just a bit of colors. Frankly speaking it does not irritate at all, when you see the test pictures downloaded to the phone are rendered perfectly well. Preinstalled wallpapers look good too, in half an hour of owning this phone the user is no longer trying to find some wallpapers in web. Among the screen setting we have only brightness control and the time of the backlights actuation.






Due to the fact that we have a touch screen here, it would be logical to have a sensitivity control option, but we could not find out. By the way, the sensitivity is set just the way it should be, responding even the slight touch of finger. I cannot say that this device was aspiring to answer every pressing (including occasional pressings), the system was working perfectly well. Of course, there is a scroll function of images, menu points or simply when you need to control volume.
As for our test sample it was not always working well, I mean it was failing sometimes. After working for several days with touch screen I stayed a fan of keyboard phones (I stress: phones, but not WM based devices), because it is more convenient to work with keys in the car and when you are walking. And one thing more, frankly speaking I feel scared for the big screen, it does not have many chances to survive after falling down from the man’s height.

Menu, functions
As well as U900 model this device can vibrate answering pressings and of course vibro power can be adjusted up to full turning off.






The menu consists of twelve big icons.




You press the icons with your finger calling appropriate menu or a function, for example MP3 player. Instead of main menu you can choose showing so called widgets on the screen. Imagine a desk top of Windows Vista (default settings, imagine a side panel with clock, calendar, weather forecast and other things. We can see something like that on the screen of F480.




There are widgets icons on the side panel (you can fold it down): clock, calendar, world clock, player icon, convenient profiles showing and etc. With a slight movement of your hand you can move a widget to the desktop and work with it. It is especially useful and interesting with a calendar, player or screen wallpapers. Isn’t that nice? By the way, it is quite comfortable to control your phone like that.






Let us go back to menu. The small part of fashionable tendencies (partially taken from iPhone) can bee seen in the context of touch control. For example a Bluetooth module: in the center we have a circle with blue tooth symbol, pressing it turns on the search of devices and you can simply drag and drop this device into the circle to add it.






Id est everything is done in one and the same menu screen, as if you are playing, but onу page (screen) can show you no more than five devices at the same time and then there appears one more page where you can see other five devices, if there are such around you.
Working for a week with F480 and going back to iPhone from time to time, I still could not take a decision which control system is better. I can only say that not all of the advanced users liked touch control; people were aspiring to the usual keys.
The functional of this nice phone is on the level of business-devices by Samsung, something like D880 DuoS or its relative F490.
If a novelty has a big touch screen, it does not mean that you will get functions of a good PDA device, so you should not expect something extra from F480. Well, in fact there was a time when VGA camera in the phone was a wonder. Five programmed alarms – it is good, and it is not bad that there is a separate menu point for them. The most important thing for those who turns off the phones for the night – they should not forget to activate the auto power function in this phone, in other way this device will not wake up itself and will not wake up its owner.






The mentioned Bluetooth is working perfectly well, for example it transfers a file of 4,5 Mb with a speed of 65 kb/s.

Typing SMS or typing a phone number without usual keyboard? You know, it is quite easily. We can see a virtual keyboard in the left lower angle “dial” signature which calls this keyboard from the main menu or widgets menu.






Further on, everything is very simple too – we press indications and type the number. It is quite the same with SMS – just we enter words and shift the language if necessary or use symbols. Everything is quite convenient, except a small field for text, because you can see only three lines on it, but this is a pay for virtual keyboard, nothing doing.






The SMS editor is Asian-way bright, and it feels like instantly painting this device into pink color, but the most important thing is that everything is comfortable and it does not take getting accustomed or using instructions. There is only one game, where you have to make a puzzle of the pictures. The game is interesting and it takes skills and imagination.






It is more likely that commercial version will have other games too, which will be designed for the touch screen.

Player and radio
Samsung F480 is not a musical phone in opposite to the F490 and other models of F series and even i560 with inbuilt GPS receiver.
For example this novelty does not have a standard 3,5 mm jack for earphones, so you will have to use brand earphones or use an adapter (some half a meter wire).
The music application interface is quite standard, of course it is changed for the specific screen, so, the icons are bigger right for the size of the fingertip and they are placed in a different way.




It is comfortable to control an application; the sound may be controlled by a scroll bar or by a wheel on placed on the end of the phone body. There is a track rew/fwd function and again you can do that with the help of the scroll bar or pressing an appropriate virtual key. The album cover imaging is supported if there is a cover in the tag file.
As well as other Samsung devices you can give a rating mark to the tracks, turn on shuffle function or a repeat mode. Of course there are preinstalled equalizers (8), but at that you cannot save your settings, which is a pity. Of course you can sort tracks by genres, artists, authors and etc; and you can create your own playlists.








The quality of the sound is not bad (i560 sound is cleaner); the sound gives almost no distortions, the music sounds vividly, naturally, without lapse on the lower or upper frequencies. The volume is higher than medium, not like iriver Clix of course, but F480 is heard well in subway with good inlay earphones.

Inbuilt radio traditionally has a medium sensitivity, due to that many stations are received with noises, what bothers while listening to the music. Auto search function commonly rejects radio stations with weak signal, but you can use manual settings.








RDS correctly indicates the names of the stations, all settings are easily adjusted by one finger, at that there are not so many of them and the icons are very big. The tuner volume is enough for any situations; the most important is to have something to listen on the radio.

Camera
The big display perfectly suits a 5 megapixel camera. By the way, this phone reminds a thin primitive photo camera, than a phone.




Lower we can see the camera interface. Your individual settings are indicated in the upper part of display and if you want to change some settings, you just have to touch display which will show you appropriate icons.




The main settings are: the choice of picture quality, size (by the way, they are in different submenus), sensitivity choice, exposure meter, flash work, anti-shake mode.




Among additional functions there are light effects, “face in frame” function, different photographing modes (series filming for example and etc).








Rather useful modes of photographing: for example, portrait, sport and etc. In other words – there are many options. There is a flash, but mostly as a matter of form, because there is no need in it. The flash is useless on the long distance and it is not good for macro filming, because F480 does not have this function, although one can rather take pictures on the short distances. Partially this camera reminds its colleague of the U900 model, at least its functional part is alike.
Due to the reason that we had a test sample, the pictures look a little blurry. At that it was not optics that blurred pictures, but a processing program, because “soft” focus appeared as the result of the pictures processing. On the whole the quality of the pictures is good; it can be compared with the pictures of U900 taken in the sunny weather and at good skills of the photographer. The final picture of about 2 Mb is stored to the phone memory (or to memory card) for 2 seconds, which is really good.

Lower you can see the test pictures as well as you can find the full picture archive.










Verdict
No matter anything, Samsung released a very successful…niche product, which will be lost among more demanded models if not a powerful advertisement support and promotion; among such models there is a D780 (DuoS-2), which is twice cheaper, but it attracts twice more attention.  iPhone 16 Gb, as well as Samsung has a little more than 250 ROM itself plus a microSD slot. Of course we understand that iPhone is “gray” and etc, but the fact is the fact. Frankly, I felt like to see some more functions in F480, Wi-Fi or GPS. It will not make worse. You do know that buying a device for such a sum it feels like having something extra.