14 DAY TRIAL // Pantech, the South Korean manufacturer, has unveiled its latest innovative mobile phone featuring bone conduction technology. The phone is named A1407PT and looks quite like its big brother, the A1406PT model, but with the bone conduction technology added. While bone conduction technology is not unusual when it comes to Bluetooth headsets or headphones, it is for a mobile phone.
The new Pantech phone transmits the sound through bone vibrations, directly to the inner ear. All you have to do is slightly press the speaker to the skull, behind or under the ear. The sound quality is much better this way, making the phone perfect for conversation when in noisy locations. Also, the phone can be successfully used by persons with hearing problems.
Being, as I said, similar to the Pantech A1406PT, the A1407PT doesn't really have great features if we put aside the bone conduction technology. The phone is a CDMA 3G handset that can provide slightly over 3 hours of talk-time, coming with a 2.4-inch screen and a modest 1.3-megapixel camera. A1407PT weighs 120 grams, features an anti-crime alarm and a built-in memory of 20 MB which is, again, modest.
But we shouldn't complain too much. As the road is open for bone conduction technology mobile phones, other manufacturers will surely follow it. It would be interesting to see a high-end Nokia phone for example with this technology. Or maybe we'll have a collaboration between Nokia and Pantech, as in the case of the 6315i handset, which came out under the Nokia brand but it is actually made by Pantech.
Back to the A1407PT, the phone is expected to be released for the Japanese market in November 2007, via KDDI, and apparently it will cost somewhere around $160. It's not that much, is it?