After the slim and handsome L170 that Samsung unveiled these days, the South Korean company brings a new entry-level 3G phone, a clamshell dubbed Samsung J400 (or SGH-J400). The J400 doesn't come with an awesome design, like Samsung L170, but it's not a bad looking phone either - it kind of looks like an upgraded Samsung E700 from back 2004.

The new J400 is a tri-band GSM phone (900, 1800 and1900 MHz) with UMTS 2100, EDGE and GPRS Class 10. The phone weighs only 99.5 grams and, when closed, it measures 99 x 49.5 x 15.9 millimeters, which is not much for a clamshell. It packs an internal 2 inch TFT 262K color display with an 128 x 220 pixel resolution and an external monochrome 96 x 96 pixels display. The small internal memory of just 8 MB won't be enough for storing too much data, but the device also supports microSD cards, for probably another 1 or 2 GB.

Samsung J400 has a basic built-in camera that brings only 1.3 Megapixels and video capture. No Auto Focus or other features of this kind, so the pics made with it won't manage to impress anyone (not with their quality at least). There's also a secondary video calling camera, which is kind of logical since the phone is a 3G one. Other nice (although basic) features of Samsung J400 include Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, USB 2.0, MMS, E-Mail capabilities, Java MIDP 2.0 and Dictaphone. The phone's battery will provide 3 hours of talk-time and up to 10 days of stand-by time.

We don't have details about how much the J400 clamshell costs, nor about the markets where it will be available. However, the handset is clearly an affordable one and I'm pretty sure that its 3G capability makes it a good device for both Europe and North America.