14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung Electronics today announced its latest Mobile TV phone, Samsung SCH-W350 (or SPH-W3500), a clamshell that comes with the ability to swivel its screen in a horizontal position, offering a better video experience.
The new handset works on GSM and WCDMA networks and comes with HSDPA connectivity for fast data transfer speeds (up to 7.2 Mb/s). The clamshell has a compact, scratch-proof design, and packs a 2.22 inch 240 x 320 pixels TFT internal display and a 1.1 inch 96 x 96 pixels OLED external display. Measuring 98 x 49.9 x 17.1 mm and weighing 123 grams, SCH-W350 is not really the slimmest phone out there, but its features compensate for this size.
Samsung SCH-W350 offers Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) and TV-out support, M-commerce function and Bluetooth connectivity. It includes an external CMOS camera for video calling and an internal 3 Mexapixel one with auto focus, multi shot, self timer and digital zoom, for taking pictures at a quality above the average. Other features include MP3 & video player with touch sensor control buttons, 2.0 WAP browser, Video On Demand (VOD), Music On Demand (MOD), Speakerphone, Voice recording, 64 bit MP3 polyphonic ring tones, e-mail, photo editor, PC Sync, downloadable pictures, animations and games, and microSD / TransFlash card support for increased memory. The phone's battery provides up to 4.5 hours of talk-time and up to 185 hours of stand-by time.
Samsung SCH-W350 / SPH-W3500 will be launched in two color variants (pearl black and cherry red), for a retail price between 600,000 KRW and 700,000 KRW ($635 - $741). It will be available only in Korea, kind of logically since Mobile TV is popular only in this side of Asia and Japan already has several manufacturers that keep on releasing Mobile TV phones.