Here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Samsung announced a slew of new phones, one of which is the SGH-F480. It is a stylish slim candybar with combination of brushed aluminum and glossy black for the finishing. It is a top notch device both in terms of design and functionality, and is the first to use the new TouchWiz interface, which is the successor of the Croix. This interface makes the phone look really contemporary and uses the strong sides of the software, used in other Samsungs. The F480 definitely catches the eye, so continue reading this preview for more information.
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Did someone say ? Well, it really looks similar. We won’t go into details about the design in this preview as the images will say it all. The F480 can stand next to the Prada and Armani phones with its head high up as it definitely looks great. Additionally, it can have a leather cover on the back (half of it) and front, making it look as a fashion accessory. The unit we currently use is of this type, but we also saw one without the leather – it is just the battery cover which is different.
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The larger part of the front is occupied by the 2.8” large QVGA touch sensitive display; above it is the eaerpiece and the video camera lens, while below are the send, shortcut and end keys. The screen uses capacitive sensing technology, which means it is activated by the electricity of a finger instead of the touch itself (so cannot be used with any object, but finger). Strangely, this prototype reacts better than the Armani and the F700 which we didn’t really like, but still we guess that even the final version will be at least a step behind the best one in this aspect we’ve used – the iPhone.
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Interface:
As we said earlier, this is the first phone to use Samsung’s new TouchWiz interface, which is the successor of the Croix. It is very similar in the way it acts, but in visual aspect they have nothing in common: our main dislikes of the Croix were that it has monochrome look, and often the user must wonder what the icons actually meant. In the TouchWiz, everything is colorful, easily distinguishable, and has label with its function, so even the first time user will orientate easy.
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Home screen and Main menu | |||
Similar to the G600 (and the Soul), the menus change with an animated transition. In this model they cannot be personalized, but are different depending on menu you are currently in. In combination with all the colorful icons, this looks very good.
A new feature are the ‘widgets’: currently there are only eight of them, but probably in the future there will be much more. These are simple small applications that are shown over the homescreen. Situated in a column on the left, when needed must be dragged and dropped on the home. They are not ‘locked’ anywhere in a specific position, and just ‘flow’ over, so if you want to change their position, can do it directly by dragging.
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Widgets | |||
As expected, all software functions are modified ones from other Samsung phones. The phonebook is the one from the high-class models, with option to add multiple additional fields. The same goes for the Calendar, Alarms and other organizer options. The music player ‘filter menu’ is also from the high-class models, and thankfully the now playing interface has nothing to do with the Croix – it shows the art cover, the track information and the buttons for control. However, we should note this is just the model we are currently using – the final version may use other modules (for example from the mid-level devices) and other phones with this graphic interface are not expected to be exactly the same too.
Camera interface | ||
A new feature is called “Music recognition” – we weren’t really able to try it, but guess it is just what the Track ID for Sony Ericsson and the Music ID for LG do – records a few seconds and sends them to an online server to analyze them, delivering track information back, such as artist and title.
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