Introduction, package

What makes a phone successful? Interesting question. I’ve noticed one thing on my journalist carrier: it does not depend on what press writes from the phone. Of course, a review has strength, but really not as much as the other areas of the media, exactly at the advertisement. Because of my position, I’m aware to the selling statistics of the phones how little my review effect of the success of a phone. I can write what a best buy the phone is if the product of the competiting manufacturer can be seen of the placards of the subway, people will buy that. It was the situation in the battle of the humiliated Nokia 3110 Classic and the e200 Samsung E200 that I extolled – the Finnish product became absolutely successful, and the Korean one that is - I think much better - didn’t. Why I’m writing this? Because I can foretell the future although I’m not a prophet. There is the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic with no advertisement and an extolling review on the other side, here is the Samsung F330 which was watching me for the giant placards before I had the test-phone. I know that it doesn’t matter what I write, Snow White will make high sales enough and I know that the 5610 is not popular.

All these prevent me writing an objective review about it, which is also a good stuff – but not as good as successful it will be, at least I think. Practically it has no radical innovations, quality is not perfect, just nice, white, and has touch buttons, not at last, advertised to death. Advertisement… in the XXI. century, it has more weight than anything else. That’s the way it works…

I had two sample of the F330, one was offered by the XXL GSM, the other by the Samsung’s Hungarian agency. The first reached me weeks ago, not from anywhere, but exactly from Italy, it was a sample of TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile). This can be seen in the pictures. There is not much difference between the two versions in appearance (these will be mentioned on the next page), but the menu system was dulled in the Italian one, this made the review be late, we had to wait the network-independent one. After a turn, let’s take a look on the package: middle-sized, nice box, data cable, stereo earphones, 3,5 mm jack converter, CD, manual, so, the usual pack.

Appearance

Trendy. This is the word that really fits the exterior of the phone after all it has everything that is needed nowadays: slide, white, mirror, touch-buttons, this will surely make the granny smile too. To tell the truth, I like it. The used materials are well, but not outstanding in its category, the engineers were operating with smooth, glossy plastic. The mechanics that helps sliding is not bad, but not perfect, because the phone has a little backlash in open and closed case too. Size is average: 48 x 103 x 13,5 mms, weight is 98 grams.

On the top of the front, there is the gaudy speaker, on the right side of this, the secondary camera can be notice - this is for video calls - ,under it, a logo is placed, on the TIM version, it’s appropriately a "TIM" sign, on the SIM-independent one, it’s a note in a circle. These are on the reflecting surface, which has two extensions below, both hide two function buttons – what a game with the number! The display is hidden from the inquisitive eyes, only wakes up at turning on, but really does then. 2,1 inches, QVGA resolution, it has nice and bright color, works fine.

The main control panel is under the Samsung logo, it has five buttons. Four of these are touch-buttons as the function buttons on the side, only the one in the middle is a normal buttons. Watching these kinds of solutions, so many ask how useful is it, I’m asking why the hell it needs to be forced. Certainly, this touch-thing is fun, it excites people because it’s trendy, but few notice that the usage of these buttons are much more uncomfortable than using ."normal." ones. It’s not so annoying in this case because of the large size of the buttons, but we can order the F330 to do as we tell with less accuracy, than its mates with real buttons. There is fortunately a normal button under these, the sign on it can be noticed somewhere else (note in a circle), it’s function is evident - starting the music player.

After the sliding – accompanied by a click – the numeric buttons become visible, these are fortunately normal buttons. Basically they can be used well, but the fact that the buttons in raw are on the same panel, no separately is not so innovative. The middle column has strange surface and grey color, the ones on the sides are black sleek, a bit slick.

There is nothing on the top, on the left side, the connector of the headset is placed under a covering cap, under it, and there are the volume control buttons and a hotkey.

At the bottom, the "tine me in the neck" holes, on the right, the expose button of the camera, the sunk power button and the microSD slot.

The back is snow-white, so it’s the dream of women, Apple-fans and the enthusiasts of the mentioned Disney hero. The well known note is placed above, the Italian version had an unassuming Rock&Call caption – it’s missing from the Hungarian one (sigh of relief here) - whereas the Samsung and samsungmobile.com captions, the latter one is on the removable part of the back which begins at about the middle of the back.

Menu, basic functions

The phone is based on the new (version 2) BlackUI system. Beside the well-known white theme, a purple one is also available, it has icons arranged in a rail, too, but the main menu looks a bit different, the icon of the current menu point can be seen above in large size. There is no problem with the speed, but the touch-buttons make the usage a bit difficult, this makes the user feel that the stuff is a bit slow. Shortcut menu is also available, so you can place your favorite things into it.

The capacity of the contact list is 1000 notes, everything is usual, it has extra fields, the important information can be stored in separated cells. The SMS messages are placed into the 24MB built-in memory. The phone naturally handles multimedia messages, size limit is 295 KB. E-mail client is also available, it has no problem with the authenticated IMAP4 servers and attachments.

There is no novelty in the PIM functions, but it supplies all needs. The calendar has monthly and weekly view too, 100 meetings, 50-50 anniversaries and holidays as well as 20 "important" and 20 private entries can be stored. Notepad, task manager, voice recorder (the limit of the records is 60 minutes), world clock, basic calculator, measure and currency converter, stopper and timer are available. The stuff is able to download RSS, it has a song-recognizer software, instead of the latter one, and equalizer should have been worked on, but don’t care. The Google got an own point in the main menu, net browsing can be started under it, or Gmail mailboxes can be read. There is no game built in, which is ehm… It should be.

Calling

I had no problem with callings, the sound quality was perfect, the voice level was high enough, the phone could solve the changes between 2G 3G networks unnoticed. The quality and the voice level of the speaker is good too, it has no problems.

The quick launch menu can be seen on the right

In the call the last 30 dialed/missed/received calls are stored, they can be browsed in combinated and separated view too. The timer and the data counter.

At Samsung models, the existence of profiles and the ability of vibrating and ringing at the same time is a permanent question. For the first one, we know the answer, the 3G phones has profiles, the vibration/ringing combination is an other question, I guess, the manufacturer is not so consistent in this or just I don’t understand the system. The main point is that the F330 has both of them. I think, it’s a shame that this question must be written on in 2008.

Multimedia

The camera is a 2 megapixeled one, with fix focus. The optics appear in slid case, it’s on the left side of the black surface, there is a huge mirror in middle of it, on the right side, a caption is placed to advertise the resolution – the incredibly ingenious, high speed advertiser UMTS Hi-Speed caption is fortunately the Italian’s own. I think, the autofocus is expected in this middle-category stuff although this is not sharpened for the camera. Accordingly the 2 megapixels would be enough but it’s a bit funny that the Nokia 3500 has the same resolution, which is a level lower. Happily the Korean princess makes much better photos than it’s finish friend, but the quality won’t make us wondering. The settings are the usual: Photo series, mosaic and panorama photo, effects, frames and white-balance settings. The movies get recorded in 3GP format, the highest resolution is 176 x 144 pixels, the maximum frames in this resolution are 15/secs.

The music player can sort the tracks placed on the memory card by ID3 tags, but pre-created playlist can be used too. The program is well-known from the older Samsung mobiles: displays the album cover, the voice level can be set in 14 steps, only some pre-defined timbres can be used, no custom ones can be created. Repeat, shuffle is available, dynamically fastening forwarding/rewarding is not, but the size of the steps depends on the length of the track. The player runs in the background, skipping, stopping can be done on the stand-by screen. The F330 has no problems with the podcasts, and it has FM-radio.

The 3.5 jack connector is missing as it’s usual from the manufacturer, but any earphones can be used with the stuff with converter. The stock one has not got outstanding abilities, but it’s adequate for listening music. The speaker of the F330 sounds average.

Data communication, summary

The GSM module is three channeled (900/1800/1900 MHz), for data transfer GPRS, EDGE and UMTS can be used, but HSDPA not. The Bluetooth is A2DP compatible, version 2.0, the same as the USB with custom connector. The opportunity of browsing is available, because the browser handles HTML sites. The pleasure is limited because of the size of the display, but it meets the requirements.

The stock battery is a 950 mAh one, replaceable. I can’t tell good news from the uptime, it couldn’t stand two days at me but I really didn’t use it a lot – I listened to music on it using the speaker for a half our, I think, kicked it out. I would expect more from a music model.

Summary: the Samsung F330 is sentenced to success – the causes were exposed in the introduction, and I don’t want to repeat myself. It will be popular none the less it brings no innovation compared to the L760 which is not a music phone but it has similar abilities. It’s 40 Euros cheaper than the rival Nokia 5610, but that has a camera with 3,2 megapixels resolution and autofocus, and has better musical abilities (equalizer, earphones), can be handled better (real buttons), stand more with one charge furthermore I think that has better software. However, less trendy. So, everyone have to decide what he needs more. A Hungarian provider sells the F330 for 160 Euros with subscription, the SIM-independent version cost 220. I guess it’s unequivocal which one is the better business. Looking the latter one, it gets the Tetszett mark, but for the ones that would like to buy a middle-class mobile for music I I would recommend the Finnish one.

Samsung F330