Fashionable Pantech W61PT and Waterproof Sanyo W62SA Released

Pantech, the South Korean phone manufacturer, and Sanyo, the Japanese electronics company, revealed two of their latest handsets that will be launched in Japan via KDDI's au network.

The first phone, Pantech W61PT (or " Pantech - au W61PT") is a slider created to attract those who want a good looking device. It comes with a 2.4 inch LCD screen and will be available in three colors: Noble White, Midnight Black and Elegant Pink. The handset scores high on design, although the way its menu control keys are integrated reminds me a bit of Nokia's Prism phones. However, the Pantech handset also has a sliding keyboard that reveals the numeric keypad, so I don't think we can say the South Korean producer copied the Finnish manufacturer.

Pantech W61PT features a 2 Megapixel camera with auto focus, enough for good quality pictures, EZ NewsFlash for the latest news and weather forecasts, EV-DO connectivity and microSD card support for an extra 2 GB of memory. There are no details about the price of the new Pantech, but we hope that after the Japanese launch (in February), the elegant handset will reach Europe and North America too.

The Sanyo phone that KDDI will soon launch is named Sanyo W62SA and meets the IPX7 waterproof standard, hence it won't suffer any damage when in contact with liquids and it will even resist for 30 minutes at 1 meter underwater. The handset supports EV-DO and 1-seg for TV broadcasting and has an uninteresting clamshell form, as most of the Japanese Mobile TV have. Measuring 106 x 51 x 19.5 millimeters and weighing 138 grams, Sanyo W62SA packs a 2.8 inch screen with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution, a 2 Megapixel camera and microSD card support for up to 2 GB. The waterproof phone should be available starting February 2008.