Samsung U700

26 Jun 2008
In the long line of slim slider phones that Samsung produced, the U700 is the first handset in the Ultra Edition that offers 3G capabilities. Released in 2007, the U700 also known as Samsung Ultra 12.1 is characterized by its shiny and glossy finish, slim slider construction and lightweight material. Its slider spring mechanism is smooth, leaving no creaky sounds. Other than its glossy looks, the navigation key located right under the screen seems to have drawn attention. On the sides of the navigation key are four touch-sensitive keys which lie on the same flat surface as the screen.

Measuring only 12.1mm thick, 102.5mm tall, and 50mm wide, U700 is dubbed as the slimmest slider phone ever that carries HSDPA support. It weighs 86g making it super light. At first glance, you’ll see its large 2.2inch glass-like screen. The QVGA TFT screen offers a 240 x 320 pixel high resolution and supports 262K colour display. It offers superb contrast, vibrant colours and quality brightness levels. Its soft-touch numeric keypad is supported by a white backlight to help users read characters in dark places.

U700 really excels in terms of web access functions. It comes with 3G standard HSDPA support which allows a speed of up to 3.6Mbps. This simply tells us that internet connectivity, downloads or web browsing can be done in a breeze. Knowing that this is a 3G phone, it is outfitted with twin cameras used for video calling.

It is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera. The camera is rather impressive as it offers fantastic options expected on a high quality phone. Taking pictures with the U700 camera is excellent. It provides a flash feature for poor lighting conditions and an auto focus function for a sharp image. It also offers a picture editor to produce a nice looking photo and macro modes for a clear quality.

Unlike ordinary handsets, U700 carries an impressive personal organizer that offers almost all functions one would need. It offers a memo which is limited to 100 characters and task functions with title, details, start & due dates, and priority level. It also has a clock with world time, a calculator, a converter, a timer and stopwatch. In addition, it also provides an RSS reader, a voice recorder with up to 60 minutes recording time, a calendar, a business card exchanger and an alarm with different times and melody options.

Embedded on the phone is a 20MB internal memory. If the user demands more memory space, he can opt to use the MicroSD TransFlash Memory card slot provided by U700. This will be great for large storage of photos, videos and music.

Included in U700’s entertainment features is the integrated music player. The music player allows the user to organize its playlist by artist or by album. What’s great is that, it can still work on the background even if the player is minimized. The phone allows music synchronization with Windows Media Player in a matter of seconds. Although U700 is not a smartphone, it still supports JAVA MIDP 2.0 which allows games and other applications to be added.

Messaging features for U700 include user templates which can be saved for text or multimedia messages. It also has a T9 predicative text facility which helps in faster text input.

Internet and Connectivity options for U700 are average. Unfortunately, U700 does not run on a quad band network. However, it can connect through Bluetooth wireless technology which can be used for computer synchronization. Needless to say, data transfer is fast and swift as it also runs on EDGE technology. As for internet functions, it comes with an integrated NetFront browser with opens standard web pages. In addition to the browser is a document viewer that supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files.

Battery performance for U700 is up to 4 hours of talk time and 240 hours of standby time. The screen delivers brilliant quality which makes it even better when working with images and videos. The supplied headphones have decent audio quality and the user interface is wonderful. Overall, U700 is a fast mobile with above average features. It is a phone fit for those who want to use a handset that supports high speed email transfers and video calling.

Reviewer: trev - ming
Reviewed on: 9th November, 2008
Rating: 10/10
the u700 is a james bond mobile its 1st class well done samsung

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