Samsung F110 dubbed as Adidas miCoach phone

Well, the title is a bit misleading. In fact it's more of a "meet the Adidas phone (btw it's by Samsung)". The new Adidas phone is part of Adidas brand new miCoach system. It's a web-based progress report and analysis tool for your sport endeavors (running in particular). And this new system takes its data from nowhere else but the Adidas phone in question thanks to a couple of Adidas sensors.

But since we are a mobile phones website first and foremost, let us start with the mobile phone in this story. The Adidas miCoach phone (or otherwise known as Samsung F110) is a slider with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support. It's also a fully fledged music player with a stereo FM radio - pure Samsung's style. There's 1GB of storage space for your music - not that much really, and there is no word on memory card slot availability. The feature list finishes off with the 262K color TFT display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and the 2 megapixel camera.

The Adidas miCoach phone by Samsung

Yes, we know it doesn't have any high-end features, but then again it's way better than your average music player, which you might be taking with you on your track days. The most unique about the Adidas miCoach phone is that it's in the center of an integrated sports tracking system that might just leave you breathless (pun intended).

So what else is there to it? Well, for starters you also get the Adidas Heart Rate Monitor - that's a belt that monitors your heart beat straight on your chest. Well, don't know if it's just us, but we would rather prefer a wrist band than a sweaty chest one.

Secondly, you also get the new Adidas Stride Sensor. It clips to your running shoe's laces and off you go to count those winning meters. With the Samsung Adidas miCoach phone featuring a built-in accelerometer, which otherwise serves as a pedometer, that Stride Senor might be just too much - but we are no sports specialists either.

The heart beat monitor band and the stride sensor before it's fixed to a shoe

The information from the two sensors is synced automatically to the Adidas phone and it can give you real-time voice guidance during workouts based on that. The phone also encourages users with music tailored to the workout. Also thanks to the built-in accelerometer in the Adidas phone, a double-tap on the phone will read out you're your current run stats including time, distance, pace, calories, stride, and heart rate.

When you get back home you simply sync it with the miCoach website to update your progress and create training programs tailored to your goals - be it simply losing some weight, building up athletic stamina or whatever.

All-in-all we dig the idea of a totally sports-oriented handset. Adidas and Samsung are obviously trying to outrun (pun intended again!) the competition in the face of the Nike+ system by throwing a mobile phone to the equation. The new Adidas/Samsung joint venture sounds interesting enough but some of us wouldn't mind passing on this one when it comes to reviewing it - there are little things a devoted person wouldn't do for the job these days and obviously running like mad is among them. Gracias senor, but some prefer miCouch instead of miCoach.

The miCoach system will be available in two packages: the Standard one (miCoach phone, armband, stride sensor and HRM) or the Essential package (miCoach phone and armband only). You better start preparing as the miCoach system will hit Adidas and Samsung stores as well as select retail partners in Europe starting in mid-March 2008.