Just bought...

[PappaLou]

A new contract with Vodafone

£30 per month, unlimited texts and 600 minutes
£15 per month for the 1st 3 months

getting a Samsung F490 free

anyone had experience with this phone? tell me its pros and cons

[Meanies]

In a nutshell: The Samsung F490 is a beautiful touchscreen phone with a large screen and slim body. Equipped with a 5 megapixel camera, 3G video calling, a music player, plenty of onboard memory and a fast HSDPA internet connection, it's a very stylish and well specified phone. But texters should be aware that a touchscreen phone can never match a conventional keypad for speed.

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The F490 (nicknamed the Samsung Nerva) seems to be Samsung's answer to the massive-selling LG Viewty. Like the Viewty, it has a full-size touchscreen user interface, a 5 megapixel camera, and high-speed 3G HSDPA which enables fast internet access. The Viewty and the F490 look very similar. The F490 also seems to be a development of the Samsung Armani. It looks like Samsung removed the Armani branding and made the F490 do everything that the Armani should have done! Read on and all will be made clear ...

The F490 is a touchscreen phone using Samsung's Croix user interface that first appeared in the Samsung Armani. We liked the Armani, but the trouble with the Armani is that it's just too small for a touchscreen phone. If you're relying on the screen to control everything from making calls to writing texts, then you want the screen to be big - like the iPhone at 3.5" or the Viewty at 3". The Armani's screen is just 2.6". The F490 has a 3.2 inch screen, and this makes all the difference. It's a much easier phone to use than the pocket-sized Armani, although text addicts please note that that texting on a touchscreen phone is never going to be as fast as on a conventional keypad. The screen has a 16:9 widescreen format when turned sideways, so is perfect for watching videos & movies too.

The F490 has a much higher spec than the Armani too - it's directly comparable with the LG Viewty. Don't even mention the iPhone - the F490 blows the iPhone out of the water in terms of features! First up, this is a 3G phone, with a high-speed implementation of 3G called HSDPA delivering broadband internet speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps. It also has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash - as usual, don't expect this to match a dedicated digital camera for quality, but as phones go it's in the top 20 of camera phones. 3G video calling is possible too. The F490 has a well featured music player capable of playing nearly any common digital format, and produces high quality audio. It's missing an FM radio though, which is a shame.

Memory is generous, with 130 Mbytes of onboard memory plus a slot for adding a microSD memory card. Connectivity is good too, with USB 2.0 and Bluetooth.

Physically the phone is very attractive, with its minimalist shiny black exterior. It's very slim too at just 11.8mm, making it significantly slimmer than the Viewty.

Overall we like the F490, but it doesn't quite match the Viewty. The Viewty user interface just seems to have the edge, and the Viewty's camera is better too. An excellent phone, but if you want touchscreen then the LG Viewty still rules in our opinion.

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Features of the Samsung F490 include:

5 megapixel camera with autofocus, 3x digital zoom and LED flash
Video recorder & 3G video calling
Display: TFT, 240 x 432 pixels, 262,144 colours
Music player (MP3, WMA, ACC, ACC+, e-ACC+ formats, OMA Digital Rights Management)
72-voice polyphonic ringtones / MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone
Voice memo recorder
Messaging: SMS, MMS, email
Java games
Memory: 130 Mbytes plus microSD memory card slot
Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB 2.0
Internet: WAP 2.0, web browser with Google search, GPRS, Edge, 3G (HSDPA 3.6 Mbps)
Triband (900/1800/1900 MHz) plus 3G (UMTS 2.1GHz)
Offline mode
Size: 115 x 53.5 x 11.8 mm
Weight: 102g

Looks quite nice.

[Sunny.]

My Brothers got that exact contract. But instead he got first 5 months half price rental and this vodafone bluetooth headset.

I love the phone