News

Excitement - a hard-disk phone! - focuses on a Korean launch -curtain raiser for GSM version. It must be the video...

Samsung has launched a new phone, whoopee. It has a 3 Gig hard disk spinning inside it. Who-hoo. It's available in Korea. Wow. Why the excitement? Ah, that's because a European version is due November. With a lower spec, admittedly - but still, a hard disk!

Exactly why a hard disk is so exciting is hard to fathom. The key to it is probably illustrated in the twist-screen picture: it works as a small pocket-video camera. And the Korean model will be EV-DO - another variety of 3G phone.

There really isn't much cause for hysteria, otherwise. It isn't even Samsung's first hard disk phone.

The SPH V7900 is a CDMA phone, with a two megapixel camera with an optical zoom - slightly better than some, but not remarkable by Far Eastern standards.

By comparison, check out the seven megapixel camera phone - the SCH-M709 - which is going to be launched outside Korea, in China, next year.

The hard disk phone is tame by comparison. Other features? Well, it has stereo speakers (that'll fill your living room... not) and USB 2.0 socket to talk to a PC - which means you 'll be able to fill the disk with music before you need a new battery.

Digital Livestyles reports the company is preparing a hard-drive-based smartphone for the European market: the SGH-I300 - "will run on the Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system and also offer a 3GB hard disk drive offering plug-and-play support."

Mobile Burn says the CDMA thing will cost $700 in Korea.

Technorati: Samsung, Samsung, SPH-V7900