Samsung just launched the first open market CDMA mobile phone in India, the SCH-F679 model, presented as Samsung Max. The slider handset comes to meet the needs of the continuous growing CDMA market and will be available in India via Tata Indicom and Reliance Mobile, two leading telecomunication providers.

Samsung Max has a nice, compact design and comes with a 1.9-inch, 262,000 colors TFT display. Its dimensions are 93 x 46 x 16.9 millimeters and it weighs only 84 grams. The slider packs a 1.3 megapixel digital camera with 4X digital zoom and video recording - not great but it is enough to take average quality pictures. Samsung Max also offers Bluetooth connectivity and MicroSD card support for up to 1GB of extended memory (its built-in memory won't be enough if you want to store more multimedia files). MP3 player and voice recorder are featured too, as well as Emergency SOS alert, FM radio, polyphonic ring tones, speaker phone and Bowling and Honey Ball games.

Besides the above mentioned specifications that any mid to low range phone has, Samsung Max also offers some features designed especially for the Indian market: Cricket Scorer, Panchang, Indian Calendar, Mobile Prayer and Hinglish SMS.

"We expect to fuel the growth of the Indian CDMA industry through the launch Samsung Max in the open market," said Hyunbai Kim, Vice President and Head of the CDMA Division, Samsung Telecommunications India Pvt. Ltd. "Fully feature loaded Samsung Max is launched to serve the Multimedia needs of the CDMA consumer. The availability of CDMA phones in the open market will provide Indian consumers freedom to choose network operator's of their choice."

For the moment, Samsung Max is available in Delhi and Mumbai only, at the price of Rs. 7,500 (about $190). By December 2007, the phone will also be available in other important cities across India.