Samsung SGH-F500 Ultra Video Review

Closely related to the Samsung F300, the Samsung F500 is a dual-face multimedia 3G phone with a “multimedia side” and “phone side”. However, the SGH-F500 is much more than a standard music phone.. this handset is designed to play videos and, optionally, receive digital TV broadcasts (according to Samsung).

The Samsung F500 receives digital TV transmissions using the DVB-H standard, as does the Samsung P910 and overdue Nokia N92. We don’t know if there will be a version of the SGH-F500 supporting the rival T-DMB platform, nor do we know if the DVB-H receiver is an add-on or will be included as standard in some F500 variants. (See our writeup on the Nokia N92 for a brief explanation of DVB-H).

Another unusual feature of the SGH-F500 is that it supports the DivX video codec, combined with a built-in audio player. This enables the Samsung F500 to play back MP3, AAC, WMA, DivX, MPEG4,H.264, WMV, WMDRM/MTP, DivX DRM, and OMA DRM media types. Yes, that’s a bit of an alphabet soup.. put it this way, the Samsung F500 is probably the most versatile media player we’ve seen to date.

Perhaps the SGH-F500 can be considered as the follow-on device from the Samsung P900 / P910 models, but it’s a much more elegant design. Samsung have designed the F500 so that it can be placed on a flat surface, rather that the P900/P910 which is a handheld device.

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