The Samsung i300 has really been in the news lately. First, the Inq wrote a brief article about seeing it at an 02 bash. And today slashphone has the news that it has been approved by the FCC. The picture above is it; notice two interesting ...
The Samsung i300 has really been in the news lately. First, the Inq wrote a brief article about seeing it at an 02 bash. And today slashphone has the news that it has been approved by the FCC. The picture above is it; notice two interesting things - the scroll wheel control, and the 3GB microdrive. MmmMMmmMMmMH.
This is the second time it's been in the news - it was announced just after CEBIT 2005, and Gizmodo managed to take a couple of live shots during CEBIT.
The Samsung i300 is a smartphone, using a Windows Mobile 2003. It's other key feature is a 3GB hard disk. Of course, this immediately brought to mind the Nokia N91; a highly anticipated Symbian Series 60 phone with a 4GB hard disk. Looking at the specs alone, Nokia wins...
Leaving aside the OS for the moment, the only advantage the Samsung i300 has is it's screen, which has a resolution of 240*320, as opposed to the 176*208 display of the N91. The N91 more than makes up for this with a 2MP camera, Wifi (802.11b/g) support, and a standard 3.5mm headphone port. We really like the 3.5mm plug. The Samsung has a 1.3MP camera and no wifi or 3.5mm plug.
The nail in the coffin for the i300, however, is it's abysmal battery life. While it seems rather premature to come to this conclusion before the product has shipped, further google searches uncovered a review of the i300 by mobile-review, dated 8th August 2005. Apparently the battery lasts less than a day with minimal (30 minutes) use of the music player and 40 minutes of calls, even though it's rated at 1000 mAh.
We really hope that this is not generally indicative of hard disk based phones - If the N91 has a battery life of less than a day, with 4 hours of music and 1 hour of calls, it's not going to be enough! (and we must say that the reported battery life of the N90 is slightly encouraging; the my-symbian review of the N90 stated that in spite of the larger screen and a smaller battery, the battery life of the N90 was equivalent to that of a 6680.)
Read the mobile-review review for a more complete picture of the Samsung i300. And - if only the FCC would approve the N91 too. That would give me.. hope! I really want a new phone.
