Samsung F700: Looks like an iPhone, walks like a Samsung
The Samsung F700 might look like an iPhone but there are a few significant differences that might make some Mac fans change their minds
It's not unusual for phone manufacturers to make mobile phones that look like each other. You only have to walk into your local phone shop to realise that a lot of handsets look suspiciously similar.
Today Samsung revealed a smart phone called the F700 (pictured) that many are calling an iPhone killer, and to be honest you only have to look at it to realise that it bears more than a passing resemblance to Apple's latest baby.
Indeed, the similarities are more than skin deep. There's a large colour touchscreen, and you can listen to music and watch videos on it. But before you go thinking that it's a complete rip-off, here are some hard facts.
The F700 runs on a flash-based user interface and features high-speed mobile broadband (HSDPA), which will let you access the Internet almost anywhere you can get a decent network signal -- a feature lacking on the iPhone.
There's no clever multi-tap interface but you do get a full slide-out Qwerty keypad. You also get a 3-megapixel camera instead of a 2-megapixel one, and there's an expandable microSD slot so that you can add more memory to it.
After having a proper look at the specs you realise that there's a lot more to this beast than first anticipated, but there's still something about it that's lacking. It's not that it's not great, and believe us when we say we're really excited about it, but Steve Jobs just has a special way of announcing products that is unmatched by any of his rivals.
Whether or not that means the iPhone will be better is yet to be seen -- we look forward to seeing how the two stand up to each other when they're both available at the end of this year.
Update: A full review of the Samsung F700 is now live.
At 16mm thick, the Samsung F700 is 5mm thicker than the iPhone but it houses a full Qwerty keypad underneath, which might be worth sacrificing the pocket space for.
Here's a shot of the Samsung F700 from 3GSM. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take it out of the box, but they did say we might be able to touch one soon. We almost smashed the plastic casing but the security men looked pretty ferocious. -AL