Samsung SPH-S4300

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Is it a phone? Is it an MP3 player? Is it a camera? Holy Kryptonite, it's all three. Though what takes precedence was still a puzzle even after handling the SPH-S4300 at the Samsung booth over in Hall 1, at the tech expo CeBIT in Hannover, Germany. The fact that the Korean chaebol had this midget machine tucked away in its Music corner added to the confusion. Calling it the "World's Smallest Memory Stick" only conjured up images of media cards and Sony.

	Dedicated play buttons let you play music without opening the lid. (click for larger image)

Just for the record, the S4300 is a swivel music-phone. But it also manages to pack in a fair bit, including an FM radio, a video player, an external sound recorder, and a 1.3-megapixel camera. All that in a size just thinner than a chocolate bar, but twice as thick. The official specs put this device at 86 x 45 x 21mm.

The top lid flicks and swings up, extending to twice its length so you actually get a compfortable handset to make calls on. We couldn't test this, of course, but noted that the GUI is not icon based. Rather, it's like a carousel where you can see only one portion at a time. The numeric keypad is also laid out in a two-key-per-row format due to the overall design.

In its closed mode, this works as a compact MP3 device capable of supporting MP3, WMA, OGG, DCF and SMP formats, with play buttons on the front panel to work your player without having to open the lid. When we did a quick test drive on the spot of the music component via the supplied headset, the audio came through sweet and clear.

	Note the interesting two-key layout of the keypad. (click for larger image)

Audiophiles and commuters should be used to elongated LCD panels on their tiny players. This one's sized at 128 x 220 pixels, but as with most Samsung handsets, you can expect vibrant colors, and the S4300 lives up to this with a 262K-color TFT screen.

So to ask the key question, what's storage like? Sorry, we couldn't find any expansion slot on this Mini Me. But according to the specs display next to the player, there's 1GB of flash memory onboard which should be good for about 250 songs.

Just too bad the SPH-S4300 is slated for Korea, with a launch date in April.