When you first hold the Samsung SGH-F200 in your hand, you marvel at its compact form of 90 x 33 x 20 mm. This phone was definitely designed to look good. Girls will be amazed at how adorably small it is, particularly the Sweet Pink version, while the guys will be wowed by how Samsung managed to squeeze the technology of a mobile phone into a mini candy bar. Be it size or the sheer force of its “cute” factor, the F200 is definitely an attention-grabber, making it difficult for almost anyone to walk past it without stopping to look.

Seemingly a cross between the Nokia 7370 and 7380, the F200 follows the swivel phone approach but differs from Nokia’s version given the rather boxy design that Samsung chose, which isn’t as appealing or comfortable to hold compared to the sleek, curved and organic form of the 7370.

What’s Great

The F200 is a lipstick-sized phone that’ll make you look almost like a spy when you get a call. Just one swivel and everyone will be trying to sneak a peek at that slim, shiny thing you’re holding.

And you don’t have to wait for a call to whip it out. The music player application doubles as an MP3 player and an FM radio player. The latter is cool and stylish with buttons all at the right places to facilitate use while listening to the radio. The player’s user interface operates horizontally on the phone’s screen and transforms into a compact MP3 player whenever the FM radio or the MP3 player is turned on. It seems that the F200 was created more for this function than anything else, with an entire set of buttons on the phone just for this purpose.

The battery life on this is also commendable, when used for mainly calls and messages, was turned on for 4 days and held up. Considering the phone claims to have a talk time of up to 5 hours and an estimated standby time of up to 250 hours (roughly 10 days), the actual standby time is quite satisfactory.

Samsung has also finally caught up with Sony Ericsson and Nokia with the function of saving sent messages. Other Samsung models like the D900 don’t allow you to save sent messages automatically, but thankfully, this problem is rectified in the F200.

Form vs Function

But how much did Samsung give up to create such a slender and petite gadget? Well, quite a lot. Though the tri-band gadget boasts a Bluetooth function, the F200 still doesn’t quite fulfill the needs of the current tech-savvy generation.

Firstly, there’s no trace of a camera which is a strange decision by Samsung, unless they’re trying to corner the market for National Servicemen. Nowadays, a camera is taken for granted and the only question is how many pixels. In fact, mobile phone cameras are even catching up to digital cameras with Samsung’s release of the 5 megapixel SGH-G600.

Besides the lack of a camera, the F200 loses a lot of the functionality and ease-of-use that is expected from Samsung’s mobile phones.

Secondly, this swivel phone has to be held upside down when closed for the entire phone to extend with the screen facing the right side up. (For a clearer explanation, please look at the photos A and B). It’s easier to look for missed calls or messages with the F200’s screen upside when it’s closed than to turn it back around every time the phone needs to be extended. Speaking of its screen, unfortunately, though the 262K TFT (a matrix LCD display) is a feature worth mentioning, it’s not as big a treat as you’d expect as the screen of the phone is so small that this feature doesn’t show to its fullest potential.

The keypad is cramped as all the keys are squeezed together to fit the phone, making it difficult for girls who aren’t blessed with thin and dainty fingers to use and near impossible for guys. It’s easy to accidentally press on 1 or 2 other buttons when typing a message or even just using the keys to look through the contacts list.

However, this is not the worse of it. Something that was extremely mind boggling and confusing was the fact that this small, tiny phone has 10 navigational keys and we don’t mean the keypad. On the screen part of this swivel phone, there are 5 navigational keys, which can only be used to operate the phone when the phone is opened. As for the keypad part of the F200, there are another 5 buttons, making it very confusing for the user. After testing this phone for quite a few days, it’s still difficult to decipher which middle button should be used to “select” in each situation.

On top of all of this, Samsung’s latest offering only has 2.5MB of embedded memory. This makes life very difficult for any music junkie who takes a liking to this phone, as he or she will have to purchase a micro SD card to use of the MP3 player feature.

The Final Swivel: An Army Phone It’s Not

On first glance, anyone would assume that the F200 is targeted at fashion-conscious girls who would want have small phones that are easy to slip into their handbags and pockets. But the big surprise is that this phone is targeted at a group of people far from fashion-conscious girls. The phone is targeted at National Service men, in layman’s terms, army boys. Though camera-less (a handy non-function because the Army bans camera phones), the tiny buttons and the slim physique of the phone, are both poorly suited for males who generally have bigger hands.

The F200 is a sleek phone which will appeal to most girls and a select few of guys, if getting past the “non-functionality” of the phone and buying a micro SD card are not problems. The idea behind this release from Samsung is actually quite brilliant, however, the phone was made too small and too much was sacrificed for the sake of this. For anyone who is prepared to just turn heads no matter the lack of usability, however, this is the phone for you.

Details (from CgeNa.com)

Cost: Estimated at $300 or more without contract

Specifications

Dimensions (H x W x D): 90 x 33 x 20 mm

Weight: 76 grams

Color: Red and blue

Audio File Formats: MP3/WMA/OGG/DCF/SMP

Screen: 1.46″/128x220px

Form Factor: swivel

Mode: GSM triband 900/1800/1900

Memory: microSD;5mb(int)

Connectivity: Bluetooth;EDGE;GPRS;USB;WAP