14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung J708, one of the latest handsets from Samsung's Anycall series, was recently unveiled and also launched in Hong Kong, one of the most mature mobile markets in Asia.
The new Samsung is a slider that weighs 92 grams (3.24 ounces) and, when closed, it measures 99.5 x 47 x 14.8 millimeters (3.91 x 1.85 x 0.58 inches). The phone offers a 2 inch TFT display with 65K colors and a 128 x 160 pixels resolution, tri-band GSM connectivity (900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) with GPRS and EDGE, Music player (MP3, MIDI, AAC and AAC+ support), FM radio, Video player (H.263 and MPEG-4), email, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, mobile printing (BPP and PictBridge), USB 2.0, Java MIDP 2.0 and 16MB of internal memory which can be extended up to 2GB with a microSD card. Furthermore, Samsung J708 packs a 1.3 Megapixel camera (not that great, but it's still good for taking pictures when there's no better device available) and a battery that should provide a talk-time of up to 3 hours and a stand-by time of up to 250 hours.
In Hong Kong, Samsung J708 can be bought in two color versions (glossy metallic black and "bronzed gold") at a retail price of 1,480 HKD, which means about $190 or 120 Euros. It's actually not that much for a phone that looks quite nice. Sure, its features are not at all advanced but, on the overall, the new Samsung seems to be a good choice for users who want to have a stylish handset without paying a lot of money for it.
No word yet about the release of J708 in other markets, but Samsung will probably bring the phone to more Asian countries, as well as to Europe, in the next few months. The handset's price should be the same with the one currently applied in Hong Kong.
