14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung i780, one of the latest and the coolest Windows Mobile smartphones created by the South Korean producer, might soon be available for the US market, coming as Samsung SGH-i788 (or simply Samsung i788).
Why do we say this? Because the mighty FCC (Federal Communications Commission) recently approved a handset named exactly SGH-i788, which looks like the i780 and is, what a surprise, manufactured by Samsung.
Of course, the US availability of Samsung i780 / i788 is now only a rumor, but most of the rumors of this kind do come true in the end.
Currently available in Europe with tri-band GSM (900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) and HSDPA 2100 connectivity, Samsung i780 was most probably modified a bit to work on the North American networks. That's why the new i788 naming, to avoid confusions between the American version and the original one.
Aside from the GSM and 3G connectivity, the Samsung smartphone brings a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2.55 inch TFT touchscreen (320 x 320 pixels and 65K colors), built-in GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, a 2.0 Megapixel camera, secondary VGA video-call camera, Windows Mobile applications like Office Mobile and Windows Media Player, and a 1480 mAh battery to keep you going for up to 7 hours in talk-time mode and up to 400 hours in stand-by. All this is packed in a sleek and slim (4.56 x 2.41 x 0.50 inches) case that weighs 4.23 ounces (120 grams).
Softpedia had the chance to see Samsung i780 during CeBIT 2008, so in case you want to see live images with it click here for the live report.
In Europe, Samsung i780 has a retail price of about 400 Euro, which means US users will probably be able to buy the smartphone for a similar price. 400 Euro is somewhere around $630, by the way. Sure, this is the estimated price if you buy the handset unlocked, because with a contract for one year or more, the price will be lower. The only question now is which US carrier will offer the SGH-i788. We'll probably find out soon.