Samsung's fantastic fiveSamsung extends its multimedia handset portfolio with the launch of five new mobile phones today at the company's first launch event of the new year. Among the upcoming models are the G800, Samsung's powerful 5-megapixel offering with 3x optical zoom, the GPS-enabled Symbian smart phone, the i550W and the much-anticipated i780 Windows Mobile 6 handheld. Also showcased at the launch are two music-phones, the dual-sliding i450 and lightweight F250. The spotlight at the launch event held today Singapore is clearly the SGH-i780 handheld. While the 12.9mm-thick device sports a similar design as the i600 and is probably seen as the upgrade model to the popular smart phone, the two QWERTY handhelds are actually not quite the same. The i600 is a smart phone (i.e. no touchscreen display) running the Windows Mobile 6 Standard OS. The new i780, on the other hand, operates on the Windows Mobile 6 Professional OS making it a full-fledged PDA-phone with touchscreen display. It is interesting to note that Samsung has also added on the i780 a 624MHz Marvell processor, onboard GPS and optical joystick for navigation. The Symbian-based i550W is another GPS phone offering introduced by Samsung today, but it caters to those who want less PDA functionality in a handheld without compromising connectivity features such as HSDPA and onboard 802.11b/g wireless LAN. According to Samsung, the "W" refers to the wireless LAN feature and most Asian countries are expected to get this model. The i550 handset comes without wireless LAN. After launching the 5-megapixel G600 camera-phone late last year, Samsung will be releasing yet another 5-megapixel mobile offering, the G800. Touted as the world's first 5-megapixel camera-phone with 3x inner optical zoom, the G800 certainly sets the bar for camera features in a phone with its autofocus, Xenon flash, face detection and image stabilizer. Samsung also showcased two music-phones--the i450 and F250--under its new Live Loud music series. According to a Samsung representative at the launch, handsets under the Live Loud series (which also includes the F330) will sport music-related features such as dedicated music buttons, 3.5mm audio jacks and background music player. The i450 comes with a unique dual slider design that reveals a number keypad when you slide up and a touch-sensitive controls (incorporated into the speakers) when you slide down. The F250, i450 and G800 are expected before the end of January 2008 while i550W and i780 will be in stores by end February. Prices and Asian availability info are not available at press time.
Samsung's five latest handsets
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