Samsung just unveiled one of its future phones from the 2008 line-up, Samsung L170 (or Samsung SGH-L170), a handset that comes with a rare and beautiful design. Its metallic look combined with the unusual form will surely attract mobile fans who want a phone that can easily stand out. While at a first sight it might seem to be a slider, Samsung L170 is actually a candybar phone, one that packs a unique touch-sensitive keypad and a large navigation pad. Unlike the usual touch-sensitive keypads, the one that L170 brings is not flat and could be mistaken for a standard keypad with real buttons.

The phone measures 102.3 x 45.8 x 10.7 millimeters and weighs only 86 grams, thus being one of the slimmest and most lightweight 3G handsets ever created. Unfortunately, Samsung L170 has a small display when compared to other newly released phones, an 1.6 inch one that offers a 220 x 176 pixel resolution. However, this can't deny the fact that the handset really has an awesome design (for me at least, because others might not think so).

When it comes to features, the new Samsung can't be categorized as a high-end phone, but rather as a mid-end one. L170 is a tri-band GSM phone (900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) with 3G (UMTS 2100) and EDGE. It packs a 2 Megapixel camera with Auto focus, Flash and video recording, as well as a secondary VGA camera for video calls. Furthermore, the phone comes with Media Player, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, USB 2.0, WAP 2.0 / xHTML and NetFront browser, Java MIDP 2.0, FM radio with RDS, Google search, mobile blogging and handsfree. The handset provides only 21 MB of built-in memory, but it can be extended with a microSD TransFlash card, most probably for up to at least another 2 GB.

The battery included in Samsung L170 can offer a talk-time of almost 3 hours and a stand-by time of up to 250 hours - not much, but let's not forget the device's dimensions and the fact that it is 3G-enabled. Samsung L170 should hit the market until the end of 2008's first quarter, probably in both Europe and the US, for a retail price that is unknown yet.