Samsung F110 miCoach adidas review

We review the Samsung F110 miCoach adidas fitness phone, a mobile with a sophisticated personal coaching system built in

We've seen one or two mobiles that have made an effort at fitness functionality, but none that have embraced the concept so fully as Samsung's F110 miCoach, produced in collaboration with sports giant adidas. This is a sliderphone that's been designed with personal training and fitness monitoring as its key features, with an incredibly sophisticated system within the phone and online to help get you into shape and keep motivated.

This isn't a case of adding a smattering of exercise tracking software here or go-faster stripes there. The miCoach phone comes in a package with a heart rate monitor and stride sensor which can communicate running performance information to the phone's onboard training software. You can then sync your phone online with a dedicated miCoach website to set your training goals, regulate your regime and monitor your progress.

You can create personal training plans or ready-made regimes from the website to sync with your phone. The phone itself has a sophisticated miCoach training system that offers regular voice updates as you're running, coaching guidance as you're working through a programme, and an internal database of stored training data.

The F110 miCoach isn't solely a running device either. It has a decent spread of non-3G mobile features, including a 2-megapixel camera, and an FM radio. But one of the key features is its very capable music player, boosted by 1GB of internal storage. As well as being able to tune in to hundreds of tracks in the normal way, the tune-player is fully integrated with the training system. You can listen to tunes through the supplied headset when running, and you can compile a hit list of motivational songs that will come on with a single button press.

miCoach training system
Motivation is one of the key elements of the Samsung F110 miCoach's appeal. The onboard data compiled for each run is compelling and brings out the stats geek in any would-be athlete, while the active in-run coaching makes it feel more than just a dumb exercise recorder. In some ways it is like having a personal trainer in your pocket (or supplied armband - naturally, an adidas one is packed in).

When you sync the phone with the miCoach website via downloaded PC software from www.micoach.com, you can view the data from each run graphically, and pore over your performances under various criteria. It delivers an incredibly detailed analysis of your performance.

Coaching plans can be tailored to your requirements, with a range of goals to choose from across a range of abilities - whether you want to learn to run, get fit, lose weight, train to run a race or improve race times - and you can create and download your own personal training schedule and sync it into the phone's miCoach calendar. As you go along, you can sync the phone up to feed new data back to monitor your progress.

Unfortunately for Apple Mac owners, there's no Mac version of the miCoach sync software currently available, only Windows-compatible downloads.

Design and handling
As you'd hope from a phone you'll take training, the F110 miCoach is a lightweight, compact handset. It weighs 80g and measures 101.5(h) x 45(w) x 14.5(d)mm. Its casing is made from rubber-feel plastic, with a textured back panel, and a rough file-like surface on the navigation pad designed for solid gripping by sweaty hands.

The display isn't Samsung's most complex screen, a 2-inch 176x220 262K-colour array that lacks a bit in detail when viewing images or complex graphics. The user interface adopts a mostly monochrome look, with an icon based main menu grid plus lists of sub menus; all of these come across well and are easy to use.

The slide down numberpad is contoured to help separate keys, and buttons are large and responsive for quick and easy texting. Samsung's control panel set up, with its rough surface, is roomy enough for accurate button tapping while running. As well the usual D-pad shortcuts and softkey arrangement, there are large buttons for quick access straight into the music and miCoach applications.

Tapping the runner-labelled button pulls up a carousel of miCoach options. You can set up your basic details - weight, age, etc - and then programme an assessment run, plan a workout or just set for a free run. Attach the heart rate monitor to your chest and stride sensor to your running shoe laces, and the phone will connect and register with them automatically.

On the run
You can view your heart rate and other details onscreen in neat graphics while you're running. Other options include setting up different types of workout, a calendar on which workouts and schedules are marked (you can click to get full data for each), a selection of settings options, and a photo folder for run-related images.

With earphones attached, you can start the workout you've selected and hear updates as you go along. In addition to the coaching guidance, you can decide exactly what progress details you want spoken to you - heart rate, distance, calories, time, pace, and so on. With the phone in the armband, you can pause or stop the workout using a remote control on the headset, as well as by pressing the main button through the armband. You can get a motivational song with a long press of the central navigation button, though again you'll have to locate it blind through the armband.

One small niggle is the armband design. This isn't sympathetic to the positioning of the phone's side-based earphone socket, and you can't see the phone controls or screen when it's in place. If you want to check these mid-run, you have to struggle with the headphone connector getting snagged while getting it out and in.

Still that's being picky - the overall training package the miCoach phone offers is hugely impressive. And yes, we did find ourselves reaching for the trainers every morning to build up those stats and check our progress, so a big tick on the motivational front too.

Music player
We really liked the miCoach phone's music player capabilities too. Its user interface is clean, attractive and straightforward to operate, and the audio perfomance was pretty good.

As well as the usual categories (artists, albums, genres, composers, playlists, podcasts, etc.), the music player has some running extras including a 'motivation songs' folder, a 'tempo' folder, and a 'stride' matching list you can fill. Another is favourite radio stations, so you can quickly tune in from the music player.

Tracks can be synced easily with Windows Media Player 11 on a PC or copied over using Samsung's PC Studio software via the supplied USB cable. Alternatively, you can use the drag-and-drop method with the phone in mass storage mode, or transfer files by Bluetooth. Downloading over the air is an option too, if you don't mind the GPRS or EDGE speed slow delivery times.

While its 1GB storage isn't iPod-level capacity, it's a fair amount for training and general music listening on your phone. It's a shame there's no swappable memory though. The earphones supplied are decent quality however, with round ear holders and in-ear buds to isolate noise. They offer the option to plug in higher quality headphones via a 3.5mm jack adaptor mid-way, on the remote microphone unit. Audio quality is very acceptable (and loud enough to beat the traffic noise). The loudspeaker sound however is the standard issue low quality you get from most mobiles.

We don't like the side mounted connector on the phone though, which makes normal pocket snagging more likely than a top or bottom mounted connector, and isn't ideal with the armband. You may find the earphones need slight adjustments to stick solidly in-ear when running too.

Camera
A 2-megapixel camera is usually basic requirement for any phone above entry-level range. The camera on the miCoach phone isn't Samsung's best, but photos aren't really top of the agenda. There's no autofocus system or flash for low-light shooting, and as you'd expect, photos taken in good lighting conditions come out best.

You can shoot in landscape mode, with a side/top camera shutter button for snaps, and there are a better than average range of settings adjustments to tweak from the automatic metering. The usual mobile effects and multi-shot options are on hand too.

Images are fine for this level of snapper. Colours can come across reasonably well, but we found shots were sometimes a touch soft in detail. Still for a 2-megapixel camera, it puts in an acceptable performance if you're after pleasant snaps rather than high quality images.

(To see some samples of shots taken with this camera, and read more details about its capabilities take a look at our related article, Samsung F110 miCoach Adidas Camera Samples.)

Post shooting, the phone provides a few nice touches; there are a selection of in-phone editing options, plus you can assign snaps to workouts, as well as create slideshows with various transitions. As mentioned, the screen quality is limited for viewing them to full effect, but the software works well. You can shoot averagely unimpressive video too, at 176x144 pixels resolution.

Additional features
The Samsung F110 miCoach phone has a regular mobile internet browser and a standard selection of organiser tools - including a separate calendar for non-running appointments. There's also a voice recorder, convertor app, world clock, calculator and various timer functions. A selection of Java games and demos are lined up too.

Performance
Samsung claims the F110 miCoach's battery can run up to 250 hours in standby mode, or achieve 2.5 hours talktime. These are optimum numbers for ideal network conditions, although real life usage should get you through three to four days without plugging in, depending on how heavily you hit the music player. We didn't feel it was particularly power hungry with our usual amounts of use. Vocal performance and network handling was pleasing too, with no issues with either.

The Samsung F110 miCoach adidas phone is all geared up around its superb personal training facilities, and a cleverly integrated music player that puts in a fine performance too. There's a decent enough spread of typical mobile features to make this an attractive phone without being out of the ordinary. But the miCoach coaching application is exceptional - easy to use, sophisticated, and a great trainer to have in your pocket. It's miles ahead of the competition.

Samsung F110 miCoach adidas technical specifications

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