Samsung is set to announce SGH-F300 model during the ITU Telecom world 2006 in Hong Kong. The event will start from Monday to Friday.

From the photo shot on the poster by sogi ?, the SGH-F300 is a slim mobile phone and focus on multimedia features. It is so thin that we can't find a trace of a slider keyboard underneath and wonder how could user input their sms text or number without a keypad. Probably that would solve by adding a touch screen and stylus? The nagivation keypad is good enough for mp3 player, but certainly not for all the mobile phone operation.

and then...

after doing some digging in the internet, engadgetmobile has a good catch on the FCC approval. The Samsung SGH-F300 was approved in October, and the product shot photo revealed its second face at the back of the mp3 player.

It turn out the slim SGH-F300 work as a nice mp3 player at one side, but a working mobile phone at the other side. A Phone/Multimedia Player mode button is at the side for you to switch to phone mode or multimedia player mode. Under the phone mode you can use the F300 as a normal mobile phone with a smaller screen but with a numeric keypad. When you activate the multimedia player mode, you will be using the bigger TFT display screen to play music (mp3, AAC, AAC+, WMA), watch your video clips, listen to FM radio or using the camera. Note that the mobile phone network connection stays on even you are in the multimedia player mode unless you choose to be offline.

The navigation keypad of the multimedia player double up as a touch sensitive button too. If you think the smaller screen on the phone mode isn't sufficient for webpage viewing and sms reading, you can always swtich the display screen and read the content on the bigger screen instead. Writing sms on the multimedia player mode is also possible. The touch sensitive button allows you to navigate through the characters by dragging left <-> right your finger. Too slow? The T9 predictive input will help you a bit on that?though.

Since the SGH-F300 does not have a back cover, expect a built-in battery. You would need to replace your battery in Samsung service center if needed. 2 side of the F300 is pretty much fully used by the sim card slot, memory card slot, headset jack, volume keys, keylock button, phone/multimedia switch key and power adapter port.

The immediate advantage of using a smaller screen on the phone mode is battery savings but it's not going to be fun if you are switching back to multimedia player mode to read your text for every sms you receive. Check out the phone body layout at next page.

Specifications:

• GSM Triband
• 2.1" 256k colors TFT LCD (176 x 220)
• 103.5 x 22 x 9.4mm
• 2 megapixel camera
• EDGE, GPRS
• Bluetooth
• Dual face and touchscreen interface
• MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, WMA music player
• MPEG-4, H.263 video player
• Bluetooth stereo music profile (A2DP)
• Stereo FM radio
• USB connectivity
• Built-in 100MB memory with microSD (up to 2GB) expansion slot

Updates: added specifications from CNet , the phone is expected to be released in 1st quarter of 2007