The miCoach's two-megapixel camera isn’t one of Samsung’s top class shooters. It’s a standard-issue snapper without any flash illumination or autofocus control.
The camera can take decent enough snaps in good lighting conditions, although the amount of detail you can get in images is limited. Colour rendition is pretty good, and generally vibrant. We noticed some exposure issues in trickier lighting conditions, and the camera sometimes struggles with indoors shots, deteriorating further in low light conditions. It’s an average sort of performance, in short. Video capture too is quite average, shooting at 176 x 144 pixels maximum resolution.
Drop and give me twenty
The miCoach uses Access' NetFront Browser 3.4, which offers a reasonable mobile internet experience for a non-3G device. You can get full page or mobile-tailored "Smart-fit" page views, and a page pilot function gives you an overview of pages to help navigate your way around. But some media rich pages don’t load well and are slow to render.
The miCoach coaching software is impressive, but for most of the time your phone is likely to revert to its main role as a call maker and taker. Here, the performance is no-nonsense, with solid and reliable reception and call quality. No complaints at all in our tests. Samsung’s estimated battery life figures – up to 2.5 hours of talktime, 250 hours of standby time or ten hours of music playback – are lower than you’d expect for a non-3G handset.
However, we found that with average usage, with a small amount of music listening – but with a couple of coaching runs - the phone kept going for around two-and-a-half to three days between charges. Using the music player more, when you’re running for example, will reduce those figures accordingly.
Verdict
The Samsung Adidas F110 miCoach phone is very much a niche mobile. Its miCoach personal coaching system is impressive for a fitness application designed for a mainstream consumer gadget. Both on the phone and synced to the miCoach website, it offers a sophisticated experience that could get you fit and keep you on track. Its music player is a good performer, and is well integrated with the miCoach software. Its 1GB storage, however, is limited compared to what you can get on many music player and mobiles that can use memory cards.
Samsung Adidas F110 miCoach personal trainer phone
COMMENTS
Looks Smart
As an all in one device that looks impressive, the heart rate monitor etc is very good.... i wonder what it does if you get a call whilst running though :D
I agree it's not going to be up there with the Garmin products (though i think the 305 must add 30lbs to your wrist, it's a brick!!!), but by the looks of it it moves the game on a little from the Nike+ system.... it won't be quite as accurate without GPS (neither is the Nike+) but it's all one place.
Shame neither of them have bloody Mac software though. Grrrrrrrr
@Joe K
I have been skeptical of such products. However your description of mapping a route with HR data has changed my mind. I don't know that I'd drop a ton for it but it is an excellent idea.
Running
There is no other training than running. If you want to get fit, you start to run. And when you run, you'll get fit. Or injured.
What?
No scripted-motion bespectacled black dude in flourescent yellow lycra cycle shorts and wife-beater?
I DON'T WANT ONE WITHOUT MY HOMOEROTICISM!
A nice idea...
..sadly, without GPS this thing appears next to useless once you've used a Garmin Forerunner. You can get a 305 for a little over a ton nowadays.
Nothing like seeing your routes in Google Earth, along with speed and HR data overlaid in a on-map 3d graph detailing HR , speed and elevation at whatever point.
Once you've used that, this phone appears little more than a nice HR watch.
