With a look inspired by the iPod, Samsung X830 is a veritable MP3 player. The 1GB storage is strengthening its position as a music device. Also called Samsung SGH-X830, the phone has a cool slim design. The main theme one could see, is of a music player. Samsung X830 has an innovative flick-knife design. But the its design sacrifices some of the functions. The small dimensions - just 84×30x20mm and 72 grams - are the cause of its weakness. I know is cool to have a little gadget phone, but when it comes about the performance, I would recommend you something else.

The main advantage of Samsung X830 is the 1GB memory. You can store up to 250 songs, but you should know the memory is not expandable. The mobile supports MP3, AAC and WMA audio files, as well as MPEG-4 video files. The 1.3 megapixel camera can shoot photos and record videos. It is EDGE compatible, but there was no place for 3G or Wi-Fi. Regarding the connectivity, Samsung X830 features Bluetooth and USB connection. What I dislike at this phone is the keypad in two columns. But once again, a spectacular slim design needs sacrifices.

The X830 comes in a variety of colors - black, white, orange and pink. In some markets you will find the pink model as Samsung Blush. The name was chosen like a response to LG’s Chocolate. You can check the prices in your local stores, but as I heard in some networks the model is free with monthly contract. The phone usually costs $399.99.

Remember when I said that thanks to the iPhone from Apple, cellphone manufactures have changed their ideas on how a mobile should look and what characteristics it should have. Therefore, Samsung announced today their new Ultra Smart F700, which will be presented at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, next week.

The new model is part of the Ultra Smart series and is quite revolutionary for Samsung because of the full touchscreen display and the QWERTY sliding keyboard with VibeTonz technology that vibrates when you press a key. Brightness, volume, menu and other functions can all be controlled using the touchscreen.

Speed is something that every user needs or wants nowadays and thanks to the 7.2MBps HSDPA network, music downloading or accessing the internet through the full HTML browser is no longer a problem. Now to the high artillery! The phone comes with a 2.78-inch (440×240) TFT display with 262k colors and it measures 104×50x16.4mm. It has built in Bluetooth connectivity and has high resolution camera with auto-focus and 5.0 megapixels. The phone also comes with USB ports, Document Viewer, microSD memory slot, MP4, MP3, AAC, eAAC and Real media files. Support for MMS, Email, Java or Wap 2.0 is already a standard and Samsung Ultra Smart F700 has them.

With all these new functions, I really wonder how much will it cost. Let’s hope for Barcelona to clarify it for us.

Samsung

V Cast Mobile TV is a new service that will provide live television streaming directly on your cellphone. The technology comes from Verizon. They announced the service will be available from March 2007. The TV programs included in the service are CBS, NBC, MTV, Fox, and ESPN. There are rumours about the price for V Cast Mobile TV - $15 per month.

V Cast Mobile TV will broadcast directly to supported handsets: LG VX9400 and Samsung SCH-u620. These mobiles were created especially for V Cast TV service. Thus, the phones offer landscape display for better TV viewing, dedicated TV buttons and high-end features. Verizon announced they will produce other models in the future. Verizon promises good quality video streaming, live transmissions and perfect audio/video syncing.

[more on www.verizonwireless.com]

It can be called the world’s slimmest cellphone. With only 6.9 mm thickness it was the slimmest phone in the world at its launch. Using Smart Surface Mounting Technology, Samsung has created an ultra slim mobile without compromising its functionality.

Take a look at the list of features:
2 Megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
1.9” 262K QVGA TFT-LCD
Bluetoothâ„¢ printing
Music player (MP3/WMA/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/AMR)
Offline flight mode (listen to music or take pictures even during a flight)
Multi-tasking (simultaneous music playback and phone function control*)
Simple Search
Direct TV output+
80 MB user memory
Speakerphone
Document Viewer
- MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TXT, PDF and JPEG files
Connectivity
- Bluetoothâ„¢ 1.2 (A2DP/AV RCP), USB, MMS, SyncML (Local), GPRS Class 10, Javaâ„¢ MIDP2.0, WAP 2.0
Personal Organiser
- email client, to-do list, vCard, v Calendar, alarm clock, voice memo, calculator, currency converter

Regarding the list above, I would declare myself very pleased of Samsung SGH-X820. The great TFT display maximizes your visual experience. Furthermore, the TV-output option helps you connect the phone to a larger screen. Also the music player supports a wide range of music files. The 80MB memory is fair, but it isn’t expandable. That would be a problem for the phone, in case you want to use more of the multimedia features. The Bluetooth allows users to print or to make data transfers wireless. The price for this Ultra Slim mobile is around $330.

BlackJack is the name of a stylish thin smartphone from Samsung available in the US with a Cingular contract. The product is designed to take on the Blackberry, Motorola and Treo counterparts and to do so it comes packed with a lot of useful features.

The distinctive mark of current smartphones (might change with the new iPhone and other touchscreen devices), the keyboard is a full QWERTY one, ready to offer better functionality when you try to modify a document or type an email. The operating system on the device is the Windows Mobile v5.0, which includes an email client, an organizer that is able to synchronize with Outlook, instant messaging support and a lot of other useful applications.

Entertainment is at its full power as the device is capable of playing your music and your preferred videos. A built in digital camera is perfect for taking pictures, but there is also the possibility to record small video files.

As this phone is quad band it will work with the majority of telephony providers worldwide. This means the BlackJack is probably available in almost every country and it will be especially appreciated by the ones who have to travel a lot.

Recently, Vodafone has become the official sponsor of the Formula One McLaren Team. Using this occasion, Vodafone has launched three mobile phones inspired by the racing team. The phones are produced by Sharp (2 models) and Samsung. All three models are using the same McLaren theme with chrome cases and red accents of the team’s colors.

The phones feature exclusive images of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes racing car, movies, racing games, ringtones or themed menu interfaces. Sharp models are the 770SH, a 3G headset and GX29 equipped with 1.3 megapixel camera. The Samsung SGH-Z720M features a 3 mega pixel camera with auto focus and it supports 3G technology. Below we present you the comparison between this three Vodafone McLaren mobiles:

	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes SGH-Z720M	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 770SH	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes GX29
Manufacturer	Samsung	Sharp	Sharp
Form Factor	Slider	Clam	Clam
Band	3G/HSDPA	3G	2G
Camera	3 MP with auto focus	1.3 MP	VGA
Special Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Content	Embedded videos, pictures and ring tone	Embedded videos, pictures, ring tone, racing game	Embedded pictures, ring tone, racing game
Vodafone live! services	Access to Vodafone live! portal with news, pictures and downloads Mobile TV Full Track Music Download Vodafone Radio DJ Video Telephony Vodafone Messenger	Access to Vodafone live! portal with news, pictures and downloads Mobile TV Full Track Music Download Vodafone Radio DJ Video Telephony Vodafone Messenger	Access to Vodafone live! portal with news, pictures and downloads
Multimedia	Music and Video Player Games	Music and Video Player Games	Games
Connectivity	USB 2.0 Bluetooth 2.0 incl. stereo headset profile	USB 1.1 Bluetooth 1.1	USB 1.1 Bluetooth 1.1

The new Samsung SGH-F300 is the mobile phone with two sides (actually two LCD displays), the music side and the phone side all in an ingenious 9.4mm thick piece of jewelry. Switching between those two screens is very easy, it’s just a push of a button on one side of the mobile.

The music side of the new Samsung SGH-F300 supports MP3, WMA and AAC, and playing music is as easy as plugging a SD card into the slot or taking advantage of the 400MB built-in memory. It looks just like a real media player specially designed for that, with nice features like displaying the album of the played track.
About the phone side, which is what this cellphone is about, is actually very very tiny making it very hard to work with. You can read text messages on the big display but you will have to dial using the small one, same with adding contacts to the phone book. However don’t think that you will get a hard time browsing the cellphone because the Menu is very well built and fits the space.

It’s a nice combination with those two LCD screens, switching from one to another, a combination of a cell phone that has music player capabilities. Release date is set for the second quarter 2007 in the US and will be a CDMA phone. No price set and no carrier selected for the new Samsung SGH-F300 Ultra Music.

[via Gizmodo]

This is a slim slider extreme Samsung cellphone, already on the market. The battle for the slimmest mobile phone is extreme, and as it looks like the cellphones have gone on a diet with the Motorola RAZR V3, the slim cases became more and more popular.

The Samsung D900 was initially going to launch as D870 first time presented in March at the CeBIT fair last year and then they decided to name it D900.

The phone is almost as big as a credit card, being the flatter D600. It’s only 13mm thick. It has great dimensions 103.5 x 51 being only 13mm thick. The display is big, with 256k colors and with the dimensions 32 x 42 mm.

The main features of the Samsung Sgh D900 which in fact are the advantages of buying that phone are

• first and first is the slim 13mm stylish design
• extraordinary display : QVGA resolution
• virtually perfect keypad - easy to use
• super 3megapixel camera with auto focus
• 1000 multi-field phonebook entries
• 60 MB internal memory (up to 1Gb with microSD cards)
• GPRS and EDGE Class 10 and Bluetooth
• TV out and mp3 player
• Applications for viewing Office documents

But of course critics should say the disadvantages of the cellphone either. Therefore, read below

• tougher slider
• no 3G
• cannot save images directly to the memory card
• no infrared port
• no ringing profiles
• cannot transfer Java applications via Bluetooth
• cannot filter calls
• needed activation to visualize missed events

Though it has a great camera the phone is a bit far from the best photography cellphones which are Sony Ericsson K800 or Nokia N73. It won’t have clear details and the color saturation is far too high. Also if you don’t have enough light the pictures will blur.

The price for the Samsung Sgh D900 is quite expensive. It costs about 300 euros (can be found at about 400 dollars too). You should think really well before acquiring this phone. The stylish design and the main key features are being compensated by the disadvantages of the mobile phone, but overall it’s a very good phone.

Samsung SGH-Z720 is the latest phone from Samsung, Ultra Edition 13.8, calling it the thinnest HSDPA slide-up with latest multimedia features. With a 3megapixel camera, weighting only 80g with wide dimensions of 104,5 x 51.3 x 13.8 mm, a 2.1″ QVGA display, WAP 2.0 support, Internet Browser, Bluetooth and USB the Ultraedition 13.8 Z720 has a big advantage with the High Speed Downlink Packet (HSDPA) that offers transfer speeds up to 1.8 Mbps, much faster than the 3G UMTS Technology.

Sgh-Z720 Ultra Edition also supports the newest software from Samsung, uGo (changing date and time, display picture according to your location, adding day or night depending on the time) and uTrack (sends an SMS message to a predetermined number to alert the user of changes in the mobile’ s SIM card). The phone also supports microSD external memory.

What makes this phone different is that it’s very Googlish. You have the Google Mobile Search and Gmail (Google Mail) to check your email or to search for the needed information. The Google icon in the menu is going to offer you fast access to Google Search. It’s the best mobility in a fast slender design.

Read the press release and more about the features on Samsung.

We are waiting for your comments about advantages and disadvantages on the new Samsung SGH-Z720 Ultra Edition 13.8 with HSDPA.

The Samsung Ultra Video is the ultimate personal multimedia device. Samsung F500 is the first phone to support the DivX codec. Also the cellphone allows users to view a large array of video content including MPEG-4, H.264, WMV and AVI files. It also has a PMP function with wide 2.4″ screen as well as a 2 megapixel camera. The Ultra Video has a smart design to go with dual face and sweeping touch. One side is a phone while the other contains a large screen and intuitive controls for multimedia features. It has a unique swivel design for multimedia content. The screen swivels away from the controls to adjust the viewing angle or form a stand to place the device down. It has an internal memory of 400 MB and the memory is expandable up to 2 GB using the microSD card slot. The Samsung F500 users could view about 2 movies (each about two hours long) using the 2 GB memory card.

This smartphone is using 3G technology and supports GPRS and EDGE data transfers. It can be connected to the PC through via USB 2.0 connection. Even F500 has some great features, it doesn’t have Wi-Fi connectivity.

Samsung F500 looks very stylish and seems to be a great competitor to Nokia N92. It was announced by Samsung at the ITU Telecom World 2006 in Hong Kong, but there are no news when it will be available.