Samsung and Apple recipe

If the short history of Apple in the smartphone market is known to all, that of the Samsung may be a little less. More discreet Apple, Samsung was not necessarily have to rule the smartphone market. Founded in 1938, the company began as a simple merchant indeed noodles. 70 years later, Samsung has become a chaebol, a conglomerate of 83 companies making 13% of exports of South Korea.

Short introduction to Samsung Mobile

2004: Samsung releases the flagship model of the year, the SGH-D500. The time when the slider phone, three years before the iPhone and the all-touch. The D500 is one of its advanced phones using Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Symbian: like most simple phones at the time, it uses a proprietary Java. He calls, send SMS, takes photos at 1.3 MP and can play some games on its color screen: it is a success, elected phone of the year at the 3GSM World Congress in 2005.

Samsung takes time to turn to smartphones. The SGH-F700, presented a month after the iPhone, marks a departure from previous models: with a full alphanumeric keyboard, is one of the first phones with a screen Samsung F700 tactile. The introduced a new interface design, UI Cross, critically acclaimed, relying entirely on the touch control. Samsung understands that the market is there, but the F700 is pale in comparison to the iPhone and its multitouch screen, the fault of a resistive screen of another time.

Samsung catching up

But the F700 gives rise to the flagship of Samsung, the series of "Player". The SGH-F490 "Player" is a derivative of F700 having lost his keyboard, and it suffers the same defects: its interface is certainly touch, but is derived from a system for use with the arrow keys. Austere (white, blue or black only) and thought for a different mode of interaction, it is more difficult to handle because of the resistive screen. 

The F490 is yet commercial success, subsidies to operators to sell at very low blow in the face of smartphones touch over € 300. Samsung review copy with the SGH-F480 "Player Style": it has indeed a smaller screen (2.7 "instead of 3.2"), but this screen displays a completely new interface, over a new proprietary system based on Java. Bit brighter, more colorful, more functional, it is called TouchWizz.