Jacking In

With the speaker issues aside, there is always the headphone option to consider. The clever clogs at Samsung have done us all a major favour and installed a STANDARD 3.5mm jack socket for your headphones.

This means that you can take your favourite pair of cans and enjoy the tunes like it was a proper MP3 player in your pocket. They even have enough power to drive a serious set of DJ headphones that usually require a little more power to get the full range out of them.

The supplied headphones come with a set of different sized silicone fittings to make sure you get a good snug fit in your ears. They are surprisingly responsive and bassy headphones which are perfect for taking calls or just rocking out.

At this point I discovered yet another nifty feature of the Samsung software when playing a song or a playlist in the speakers up mode. Slide the phone closed and you will lock the phone, but the music continues to play with a mini player on the home screen of your phone. You maintain all the usual functionality like skipping tracks and play/pause. The great thing is its unobtrusiveness on the screen; it remains readable at the bottom without stealing screen retail or looking ugly. Bravo Samsung!

To sum up the music features of the phone, I would say that Samsung has really made an effort here with the F400 and the whole system feels more integrated than tacked on like some phones. The Bang & Olufsen speakers are a nice touch, but unfortunately I cannot see them being the next boom-box replacement due to the lack of bass.

Next, we shall look at the phone as it should be... a phone.