Samsung SGH F-500: The DivX Phone

I’ve always wondered why most mobile phones use their own video format (3gp) when there are so many other existing ones like Quicktime, MPEG, etc. It would have been easier to view from from your PC to your phone but I guess all those DRM and licensing is getting in the way. Then, there’s the Samsung Ultra Phone.

This baby plays DivX movies! That’s it. And I’m not even gonna say it’s runs on HSDPA.

The primary screen is a little small though it’s hard to browse thru it. The other side, the bigger one, is reserved for playing music and videos. Display quality is great at 2.4″ — much like the iPod video, with dedicated buttons for playback. The sound output though ain’t that loud on speaker.

The Ultraphone also has a twistable body. At first, I didn’t know what its for but later on realized that you can twist it around at 45 to 90 degrees so it can stand on a flat surface on its own. Internal memory is 400MB but you can add more using an external microSD card. There’s also the 2 megapixel camera.

The phone also comes with a leather enclosure (casing). What’s nice about it is that it also acts like a secondary battery so you end up with two when you use it. As a result, it also makes it a bit heavier than most phones out there.

P.S.
Thanks to Samsung Philippines for lending me the unit.