14 DAY TRIAL // Bell Mobility will soon be offering its customers two new (and quite different) handsets, the LG Vantage and the Samsung Ace, both coming to enlarge and diversify the line-up of mobile phones the second largest Canadian carrier currently has.
LG Vantage (not "vintage", ok?) is a good looking slider that features a full touchscreen display and also an alpha-numeric keypad, hence its owners will be able to control the phone using two methods. Under the name of Vantage, we actually have the LG AX-830, which was released in the US about one month ago, as LG Glimmer.
Besides the 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display with 262K colors and 240 x 400 pixels, the new Canadian Vantage brings dual-band CDMA connectivity, a 2.0 Megapixel camera with flash and video, a 512MB memory card (it can be replaced with another one of up to 4GB), media player, voice dialing, handsfree, speaker phone and so on. The phone weighs 4.4 ounces (125 grams) and, when closed, it measures 4.01 x 2.05 x 0.59 inches (102 x 52 x 15 millimeters). Bell will start offering the fancy slider on the 16th of May, for $375 with a 1-year contract agreement or $275 with a contract for 2 years (the retail price, free of any contract, is $425).
Unlike LG Vantage, which is a slider, Samsung Ace comes in a candybar form factor. Its features are not too advanced but neither on the low-side. The phone sports a 2.3 inch TFT display, a 1.3 Megapixel camera, a full QWERTY keypad (good for fast-typing), stereo Bluetooth and microSD card support for up to 2GB, all "controlled" by Windows Mobile 6 Standard. The launch date of Samsung Ace is set for the 12th of May but its price is not known for the moment.
