Samsung
F300

The F300 was first showcased by Samsung at the ITU Telecom World event in Hong Kong in 2006 with the phone being teased to visitors in a glass display case. It was officially announced in February 2007 at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona where visitors were able to get hands-on time with the phone for the first time. It started shipping in March 2007. Most notable was the unique design that had two distinct faces. On one side it was a phone with a standard numeric keyboard and a 2.2-inch QVGA display, while on the other side it was an MP3 music player with up to 1GB of storage. Offering two different usage scenarios was an ambitious and completely unique approach. Although music players were quickly subsumed into the main functionality of mobile phones, Samsung was admired for making such an innovative product and the F300 was a testament to its strong engineering and design capabilities. The tri-band F300 was part of Samsung’s Ultra Edition series of devices which were a line of high-end phones created to offer “sleek design and impressive features”. The F300 was branded as an “Ultra Edition Music Phone” and was announced at the same time as the Ultra Video F500, and the Ultra Special F700. In the US the F300 was known as the "Samsung UpStage". Samsung revealed that the F300 had been “designed in collaboration with Beyoncé”.  The singer described the product as “the perfect phone for music lovers”. It was the first time Samsung had partnered with a celebrity to design a phone and the company said the partnership was part of “Samsung’s ongoing commitment to creating innovative products that appeal to a wide range of consumers.” Other features included an FM radio, voice recording, alarm clock, calendar, calculator, world clock and games.