Camera Phones Plaza

After the latest i7110, Samsung and AT&T officially announced the SGH-i907 Epix, a QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen equipped smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system. The Epix is based on the SGH-i780 that is available in other parts of the world and features the same optical joystick controller that replaces the directional pad and is found on that device as well as on the i900 Omnia.

The Epix is available exlusively to AT&T customers in the US and allows users to choose between several ways to navigate its touchscreen, including the first-ever implementation of optical mouse technology on a phone sold in the US. The optical mouse is placed in the center of the device, between the right and left soft keys, and makes navigation a whole lot quicker and easier by simply sweeping a finger over it. Thus, if you want to make a selection, you just have to click one single time and you will get to the desired location within the phone’s menus. You can also switch the optical mouse to a four-way navigation key for more traditional navigation. If you, on the other hand, prefer to interact directly with the touchscreen, then you either use your finger to navigate or the Epix’s built-in stylus for pinpoint accuracy.

The Epix has a cool silver finish and follows a long line of robust and groundbreaking crossover smartphones from AT&T and Samsung Mobile. In addition, the Epix is a next generation, sleek, stylish and compact handset.

The Samsung SGH-i907 combines impressive features, such as: Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) to connect with home or campus networks or access more than 17,000 AT&T hot spots nationwide, including at thousands of participating Starbucks locations, a built-in aGPS, which can be used with AT&T Navigator, AT&T Navigator Global Edition and other GPS-based applications for personal and business use, AT&T Video Share, the first-ever service in the US that allows users to share live video over wireless devices while participating in a voice call, Global capabilities to help user to make or receive a phone call in more than 200 countries and check email, browse the Web or perform other data functions in more than 150 countries, including in more than 60 – such as Japan and South Korea – that have developed 3G networks, 2.0 megapixel camera with video capture capabilities and a slim, light form factor.

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Moreover, users have the chance to access multiple email accounts with Microsoft Direct Push for corporate users and AT&T Xpress Mail, which includes access to most major personal email accounts. Developed with the business user in mind, “the Epix allows you to never miss a beat at the office, stay in touch with colleagues and family and enjoy entertainment”, said Bill Ogle, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung Telecommunications America.

The Epix runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, bringing a powerful personal computer experience to a compact device. Therefore, you can use Microsoft Office Outlook Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile that provides improved quick and easy Web browsing and Office Mobile, which enhances the productivity with the ability to manage Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. It also feature threaded SMS messaging, Internet connection sharing, mobile banking and Voice Command.



The communications tools aren’t everything about this new device, because the Epix is a multimedia and entertainment powerhouse also. You have access to AT&T Mobile Music, an integrated, on-the-go music experience that delivers “your music, your way”, by providing simple access to a robust collection of music content, including access to online subscription music content from Napster Mobile, XM Radio Mobile and more. You can also see thousands of video clips via streaming videos, a feature enabled by the Cellular Video (CV) from AT&T.

In addition, there are the Stereo Bluetooth technology, with stereo headset support, a 2.0 megapixel camera with video-capture capabilities, Windows Media Player 10 Mobile and microSD memory card slot for external storage of up to 32GB of data.

The AT&T BroadbandConnect 3G network is the one backing the Epix and the network’s HSDPA-based technology allows users to perform data functions and conduct a phone call simultaneously. Besides the 3G connectivity, there is a AT&T nationwide EDGE network, which is available in more than 13,000 cities and towns and along some 40,000 miles of major highways.

The Samsung Epix is available through select AT&T retail locations or at AT&T’s official website for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a mail-in rebate.

(Source SamsungMobileNews.com)

While people are still talking about the Pixon, the 8 megapixel camera phone from Samsung, the South Korean company prepares another model that already caught our attention. Nevertheless, except for a couple of photos that were leaked, there was not that much to say about this phone. Yes, it’s true, many people could make a wild (or not so very wild, some would say) guess about its features just by looking at the pictures, but now the wait has come to an end, finally, as the specs for this candybar phone have been made available.

Samsung i7110 is a Symbian-based smartphone which was recently presented at an event in London, the Smartphone Show 2008, and doubles as a navigation device. This event gathers 4000 delegates, 120 exhibitors, 60 seminars and 10 keynotes and is trying to bring together the leaders and visionaries shaping the future of mobile. The phone comes with a GPS navigation program with geo-tagging, pedestrian and driving navigators, but it also packs a 5 megapixel camera, multiple codec support, 50 MB of internal memory (expandable up to 16 GB with a microSD) and an FM transmitter to push music and driving instructions through an in car radio.

Exploiting the potential in the open Operating System based smartphone market, Samsung has invested a lot of R&D (research and development) and marketing resources in this area for the past several years. Therefore, the company has great plans about offering a wider range of open OS mobiles this year, demonstrating significant progress in open OS and smartphone technology.

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Geesung Choi, President of Samsung’s Telecommunications Business said: “I’m sure that we will see more and more demand for smartphones with open Operating System thanks to the increasing need for flexibility and customization on mobiles, and the introduction of various mobile applications. Samsung’s new Symbian OS-based smartphones shows our strategic focus on the open OS phone market”.

More than that, he is confident in their capability of reinforcing their open OS and smartphone leadership not only by providing more products, but also by opening their new developers collaboration program called “Samsung Mobile Innovator”.



Powered by the S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2 user interface with a full metal gear and only 12.9 mm thick, this newcomer isn’t somebody to mess around with. Samsung i7110 features a 2.6-inch AMOLED LCD screen, with QVGA 320 x 240 resolution, which provides a sharp and vivid image even in daylight for perfect pedestrian navigation. The display will make the photos taken with the 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash look really good. It also comes with the latest digital camera features including smile shot and blink shot functions. The i7110 also provides advanced video recording and play features, supporting multi-codes files to enable its users to easily transfer without the hassle of converting files.



On the other hand, the FM transmitter enables its users to receive the voice guides on the move by transmitting to an in car radio. Trying to offer a seamless connectivity, the phone comes with HSDPA connectivity and WiFi connectivity. For a better Web browsing experience, i7110 features an 8-way optical mouse.

It features 50 MB of internal memory, but users have the possibility of increasing the capacity storage with a microSD slot, up to 16 GB. Measuring 118 x 52 x 12.9 milimmeters, the i7110 supports a 1200 mAh battery that delivers 11/6 hours of talk time (EDGE/WCDMA) and up to 427/451 hours of stand-by time (EDGE/WCDMA).

The device is apparently designed as a mid to high-end phone, so you should expect a price of at least several hundred dollars without a subscription. However, there is no word on price and availability yet.

(Source: Gizmodo.com)

Isn’t it that you often have the impression that the world we live in is actually a realm of gadgets, where all manufacturers try their best to bring astonishing inventions on market, here and there wacky, if I may say so? But sometimes people need a basic phone, with no camera, no games, no blitz, no nothing. They need a phone that has absolutely no pretensions, a phone that doesn’t fall into the trap of having all sorts of flashy features or sporting a runway-worthy design. That’s why, the new Samsung Knack SCH-U310, available for Verizon Wireless customers, is designed to be easy to use, and it succeeds. Despite its name, the device doesn’t live up to it, not being that advanced when it comes to performance.

The Verizon Knack was released in the United States shortly after the M320 and M220 (coming from Sprint) and AT&T’s A237. Similar to these three North American Samsung devices, the Knack comes in a clamshell form factor and doesn’t bring anything spectacular as far as the design is concerned, except the fact that its microSD slot and its headset jack covers are colored in red and blue respectively.

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However, the Knack has a nicely built design and provides the user with the greatest call quality and with the most unbelievable mixture of functional features, including voice dialing. Therefore, if you were looking for a basic phone for communication, then SCH-U310 might catch your eye.

Maybe the Samsung Knack is far from being a rare beauty, but the simplicity of its style is one of its greatest attributes. As far as the features are concerned, they include: a 1 inch external display, which is a little bit small, but it shows the information you need, including the time, the battery life, signal strength and numeric caller ID, with a resolution of 96x96 pixels, a 2.5mm headset jack, placed in the right spine, colored in blue, a 2.25 inch internal display with a resolution of 220x176 pixels and 65,000 colors, a navigation array which consists of two soft keys, a dedicated “911” key, a speakerphone button, Talk and End/Power controls, a Clear key and “ICE”, the “in case of emergency” button, that can be programmed by the user, a vibrate mode, text messaging, a calendar, an alarm clock, a calculator, a word clock, a stop watch, a tip calculator, a unit and currency converter and a speakerphone.



One of the most important disadvantages of the Samsung Knack is the lack of Bluetooth connectivity and of the Web browser. The phone offers a dual-band CDMA 1X connectivity (800/1900 Mhz).

Samsung Knack weighs 3.63 ounces (102 grams) and measures, when closed, 3.78 x 2.01 x 0.74 inches (96 x 51 x 19 mm). The handset’s battery is said to last up to 270 minutes (4.5 hours) in talk time mode or up to 336 hours in stand-by mode.

Whoever is interested in the Samsung Knack, can visit Verizon’s official website, where the device is offered for the price of $39.99, with a contract agreement for two years.

(Source pcmag.com)

Sprint has just announced some new software upgrades for the users of one of the Samsung handsets they are selling, the ACE. The device, also known as SPH-i325, was provided with the latest (at least at the time of its release) Windows Mobile 6 operating system, which is also the most powerful. So it doesn’t matter if you want to surf the web, to stream the videos that you love most or just catch up on the day’s work, the point is that you will be able to do all of this with broadband-like speed.

Introduced in February 2008, the ACE now features GPS function supporting Sprint Navigation which includes more than 10 million listings. On the other hand, there’s an upgrade concerning the operating system of this smartphone. Now it runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 as well as supports Office Mobile 6.1. This means that applications are now safer to use, while the navigation is faster and easier.

If you’re not sure about the reason why you should upgrade your Samsung ACE, then read this: you’ll be able to view and edit Excel and Word files on the go, you’ll enjoy text messaging in a chat-style, Sprint Navigation with Live Search and a whole lot more. Therefore, current upgrades which are now available for ACE are Windows Mobile 6.1 and the GPS Navigation (Sprint Navigation).

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In order to upgrade the device, you’ll need to fulfill some requirements. As far as the PC is concerned, you should have one of the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2, Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista. You’ll also need the USB data cable that was included in the box with your handset, an Active Sync 4.5 or Windows Mobile Device Center and Samsung ACE handset with fully charged battery.

Having all that, you are ready to download the Upgrade tool. Now, what should you do? First of all, you should back up the data that is currently stored on your ACE. In addition, Samsung recommends that you remove your microSD and SIM cards. Then load the USB driver to your computer and wait no more than 15-20 minutes to complete the upgrade process. Another very important thing is for you to check with your company’s IT policy before updating your software.

“Sprint’s commitment to providing time-saving features, along with the freedom to access and download the content they want and have a PC-like experience, is key”, said Michael Hahn, vice-president-Customer Equipment for Sprint. “Whether customers want to update their PowerPoint presentation, find a local restaurant with Live Search, get turn-by-turn driving directions, or just enjoy the simplicity of their handset, the Samsung ACE delivers it all so customers can have what they want now”.

The enhanced capabilities of the Samsung ACE combined with Sprint’s $99.99 Simply Everything pricing plan delivers undeniable value to Sprint customers. The $99.99 Simply Everything plan offers customers unlimited voice and data and is available for any Sprint or Nextel handset. For families/group plan Simply Everything includes an incremental $5 discount per line up to 5 lines.

(Source phonearea.net)

These are some agitated days for AT&T, as they’re busy with several launches and announcements regarding phone manufacturers like Pantech or Samsung. Indeed, AT&T is preparing the release of a new lineup of Samsung phones and it seems that in this fall/winter the mobile operator puts all of its trust in this company, hoping to offer the customers all the mobility they need, at a wide range of prices, from expensive to cheap, depending on the customer’s needs and affordability.

Therefore, AT&T will supposedly be offering the brand new Samsung handset, the “Propel”, which is equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard, among other devices, such as Omnia, Eternity and Mirage. What’s very important to be mentioned is that the name is yet uncertain, as it hasn’t been officially confirmed, and the producer was tempted on various occasions to change it, but it is rumored to become available on the AT&T network, the largest telephone services provider in the United States.

Taking into consideration the so-called mystery that surrounds this device, is no wonder that little information has escaped to the public. Anyway, we’re following Propel very closely, and as soon as we put our hands on more information we’ll let you know. Until that moment, we’ll share the known facts that we have at our disposal.

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At first glance, we recognize the silhouette of another Samsung device, the SGH-i620, but the main difference consists on the fact that, unlike this, Propel is not meant to function as a smartphone. Instead, it’s a regular mobile phone destined for texters, since it’s not provided with the Windows Mobile. Still, the phones are very much alike, so some of its features could be speculated, more likely because the exterior seems to have exactly the same dimensions.

Anyway, what we know for sure is that as its bigger counterpart, i620, Propel will feature a QWERTY keypad for fast typing, and apparently it will also come with support for the AT&T Navigation service, which will run smoothly due to the built-in GPS. In addition, texters will be able to choose between the red, green and blue devices that are available for this phone.

There isn’t any official information about pricing and availability, but the device is rumored to start selling in the near future and to hit the market with an $80 price tag, with all discounts and a contract. This sounds pretty cool, if you ask me, and it might sell quite good.

(Source concept-phones.com)