Samsung is getting serious about music phones with the new F250. The run-of-the-mill 4- or 5-way navigation pad and the surrounding soft or function keys are now doing musical tasks instead. The OK button in the middle of the ex-nav pad now starts and stops or pauses a song. The ring surrounding this button forwards and rewinds tracks.

Those soft or function keys are not gone, of course. You can find them on top of the metallic keypad when you slide the bottom down. However, what you’d find missing is 1 or 2 MP of lens resolution, leaving only 1.3 MP. Also, about 0.2 to 0.8 inches is cut off the front display, so it’s only 2 inches 128x160 65K colour TFT.

There is no 3G, as it’s not a high-end model, only GSM 900 / 1,800 / 1,900 with EDGE. Wifi flavour is Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and external memory slot is microSD, which you might not need if you’re happy with 2GB of onboard memory and the FM radio.

If you have a smartphone now running Windows Mobile 6.0, get ready to upgrade it to 6.1. But, not now, be patient for about half a year of so, till May or after, next year. Right now just salivate at the new features you’d be playing with.

By looks alone this i335 from Motorola looks thin – only 13 mm – and not as tough as it is purported to be, even admitting there is some bulk. But hardy is really is, as production method is strictly military standards for dust, shock and vibration. Well, certainly the casing, especially the keypad, can withstand the first consideration, of dust. The entire keypad is one piece of moulded rubber. This, incidentally, offers a very good grip too.

Also, just because of the anticipated rough use this phone is going to endure, it has no camera lens. So no photo-taking opportunities when carrying this phone. Also no multimedia fun – no music either. It’s all just talk and talk, so very akin to a very, very basic way-back-when sort of device, like a walkie talkie.

But, regardless, the i335 does have at least some kind of wireless, like Bluetooth. And talking, or calling, capabilities extend to speakerphone, voice dialing and commands, recording, Push to Talk and even DirecTalk. One nod to the new trend of phones is GPS

The r410 is definitely not ultra-thin, what with a double layer of a black top with a normal display and keys and a black-bottom one with a full-QWERTY keyboard sliding out from the side. This is intended for the young, who are into IM or texting. They would grip the phone like a portable game machine and tap or pound away with the thumbs.

For viewing ease, the display rotates into landscape mode. Probably believing the young cannot afford a more expensive megapixel model, Samsung downgraded the phone’s camera to VGA. The good news is the price is reduced considerably. And you still get Bluetooth for your stereo headsets and a speakerphone.