Hands-on with the Samsung Ultra Smart F700

Officially, the big news for Samsung here at CTIA was all about the UpStage music flipper, but the hot ticket at Samsung's booth was the little black slider encased in a clear plastic box. The Samsung Ultra Smart F700 is the overseas HSDPA touch-screen phone that many are calling the Apple iPhone's strongest competitor, namely because of its slide-out QWERTY keypad (versus the iPhone's virtual—and reportedly tough-to-use—on-screen keyboard). After watching me scratch fruitlessly at the F700's impregnable plastic case for a few minutes, some kindly Samsung PR reps led me to a meeting room, swung open a briefcase, and handed me the would-be iPhone killer.

Exciting stuff—except the battery was dead, so all I could do was check out the physical device. My first impression? The HSDPA-enabled F700 was actually a bit smaller than I expected, although it packed in more girth (0.65 inches to be exact) than I'd envisioned. The slide-out keypad was fine, but the little square keys felt—to my fingertips, at least—a bit cheap. The 2.8-inch screen was just that, with a small button just beneath (no one in the room could quite agree what it was for). Otherwise...well, that's about all I could glean from the experience. While it doesn't look like the F700 itself will make its was to our shores, I'd be surprised if it didn't arrive in the U.S. in some form.