Samsung F490 Review

Overall Rating

The best thing for me has to be that the phone doesn't have a 'keyboard' on the screen when you type (like the i-phone) it has an image of a regular phone keypad with quite large buttons (numbers 1-9, and the abc, def, etc, under the numbers) so the texting is exactly the same as a regular phone and surprisingly quick for a touch screen.

It has 2 buttons on each of the sides - 'camera', 'shortcuts' 'vol up' and 'vol down', and the 'shortcuts' button doubles up as the button to press to answer a phone call.

Its very easy to use with one hand - its not that much wider than a regular phone, and just as easy with two hands, and you can always rotate it to landscape if you want to.

it used micro-sd - awesome! - you can upgrade the memory to whatever you want. (it comes with a 1gb)

its got a regular 3.5mm jack input suitable with all regular headphones, and can go up pretty loud too.

if the phone rings in your pocket, you don't need to get the phone out to shut it up, just squeeze the side (push any of the buttons on the sides) and it will go silent.

The software that comes with it isn't great, but a good way round that is to just drag and drop into the phone its self and not use the software.

The microphone isn't as loud as on my last phone, but it makes little difference.

Its not that quick - if you want a fast phone, where you can call someone in 1 sec, or write a quick memo (if your a 'business person') this phone isn't for you (thats not to say that its slow - far from it, but its not as quick as a button phone)

It doesn't support flash player, so you cant access you tube - there may be a download out/coming out but i haven't found one yet.

The one thing that my last phone had which was a great help was a button on the side to skip to the next track when playing music - there is no easy quick way to just skip to the next track on this phone.

It has no stylus - it doenst make that much of a difference, but when on the net there are some smaller touchables on the screen - you can still touch them, but slightly harder to get accuracy.

Games on the phone are only demos.

After using a Sony Ericsson for 5 years, and loving every part of it, And, the fact that my housemate has an i-phone, which is great, it was going to take alot for the Samsung F490 to win me over. But, i thought it would be worth a try, after getting used to the Samsung interface, i loved it!

Unlike the i-phone it works on pressure rather than heat, so you can use it though gloves, and clothes - it has a hold on the side too, so if its in your pocket it wont accidentally call someone or something. The battery is good - lasting three days with me using the music function alot, taking lots of photos, sending over a hundred texts and one or two phone calls. The camera is a little slow, but as its 5mp then its worth the wait, and the funky things you can do with the camera are fun to.

It doesn't have an automatic screen rotation, but you can rotate to landscape with the touch of a button for pictures, internet and video.

The video quality is good, and uploading video, images and music is easy and quick. The speakers are very good - music sounds great through the phone and through the 3.5 jack output.

I have only had the phone for a week, and am still finding shortcuts, and extra thing which just make this phone better and better.

I would recommend it to anyone who wants a fun, easy, stylish touchscreen.