Ever since the much-trumpeted announcement and subsequent release of the Apple iPhone, the race has been on to find the best alternative to this highly coveted (and lucrative) handset. With the arrival of Samsungs entry, the F700, we possibly have the first serious rival. With availability currently limited to Vodafone, it makes for a tantalising conundrum; iPhone or F700, O2 or Vodafone?

Design wise, the F700 is almost as streamlined as the iPhone as it contains very little on the front of the handset aside from the touchscreen. Though it’s not what you’d call ‘compact’, it’s still a decent size and a little extra thickness on the handset allows the inclusion of one feature sure to make it stand out from the iPhone – the QWERTY keyboard. The fact that the F700 isn’t much bigger and still manages to include a spacious keypad such as this is quite an achievement.

Though it isn’t quite as stunning to behold as the iPhone, the F700 will certainly draw attention with the main focus being on the massive 3.2” touchscreen display.

One particular spec that the iPhone was criticised for overlooking is 3G functionality. The chipset on the F700 will apparently be capable of data transfer speeds of 7.2Mbps, which is double the current maximum rate. Though no networks currently support this speed, surely it’s only going to be a matter of time, giving the F700 a clear head start over its current rivals who aren’t able to boast this.

In production, a vast amount of rumours were circulating that the camera would be 5MP to keep it in-line with Samsung’s other offerings, the G600 & G800, but this has now been downgraded (if you can call it that) to a 3.2MP offering. As this is not likely to be used mainly for pictures, this is more than adequate, especially since it easily trumps the iPhone’s 2MP camera.

Overall, the Samsung F700 is shaping up to be a very-interesting addition to the market, especially considering the amount of features that are packed into the device. It’s probably fair to say that the F700 is going to be the nearest competitor to the iPhone, but with all that it is capable of, it deserves to be seen as more than this.

The Samsung F700 is currently exclusive to

Vodafone, but we expect it to appear on O2 sometime in the near future.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 28th, 2010 at 1:19 am and is filed under Other Brands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.