Good looking but with several drawbacks

May 31, 2008 10:00 GMT  ·  By

The very first full-touchscreen handset to bear the Philips name, Philips X800, has been recently approved by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which unveiled more details about the new device.

Thanks to the FCC, we now also have the first live images with the X800, which only confirm that the device is indeed good looking. But all the handset's attractivity seems to stop here, at its design, because its features are a bit far from what a full touchscreen phone usually comes with.

Philips X800 only supports tri-band GSM frequencies (900 / 1800 / 1900 Mhz), hence it's not capable of offering 3G speeds when browsing the Web or transferring data. Moreover, the handset lacks both Wi-Fi and GPS, two features that have become a standard for a high-end phone nowadays.

But besides drawbacks, the new X800 also comes with some nice things. We have a 2.9 inch TFT touchscreen display with 240 x 400 pixels, 262K colors and handwriting recognition, Bluetooth, Music and Video players, FM radio, a 2.0 Megapixel camera with auto focus, zoom and video recording, business card reader, email and Internet capabilities, file manager, document viewer, pre-installed games, microSD card support for up to 8GB, and a powerful battery that should keep the phone going for up to10 hours in talk-time mode and up to no less than 850 hours in stand-by mode.

While the lack of 3G and Wi-Fi can keep away many European and American users from buying the Philips X800, these aspects will not matter for the markets for which the handset seems to be targeted too: China and India - both countries don't have 3G networks yet.

There's no word yet about the price of Philips X800, or about when it becomes available, but the above mentioned markets will probably get the new handset in the next few months.

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Philips X800
Philips X800 in live images
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