14 DAY TRIAL // Just like LG's Secret, which got a new version for South America (KF755, as opposed to the KF750 European version), Samsung TouchWiz has been now announced in a version especially made for Asia: TouchWiz F488. The European edition of the handset is called F480 and, aside from the slightly different name, it's the same device.
Coming under the AnyCall brand (used by Samsung only in Asia), the TouchWiz F488 brings an homage to the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing that will debut on the 8th of August. The handset comes with the Olympic logo on its back as well as with Olympic-related themes for its interface.
The F488 is a full-touchscreen handset that seems to be the successor of Samsung Armani, the popular phone released back in 2007. But the F488 brings features that the Armani can only dream of. For example, the new TouchWiz packs a 5 Megapixel camera with auto focus, flash, image stabilizer, face detection and, obviously, video recording too. This camera should have no problems in offering users high-quality photos, in about any lighting conditions.
Furthermore, Samsung TouchWiz packs a 2.8 inch touchscreen display with 262K colors, a 240 x 320 pixel resolution and haptic feedback, a TouchWiz UI, highly customizable and easy to use, GSM and HSDPA connectivity, Google Maps, Bluetooth, Media player with lots of formats supported, advanced Web and email capabilities, 232MB of internal memory and microSD card support for up to 8GB. As the F480 European model, the F488 weighs 100 grams and measures only 98 x 55 x 11.6 millimeters.
The retail price of Samsung TouchWiz F488 has not been announced yet, but Asian users should expect to pay the equivalent of about 450 Euros ($690) for the touchscreen handset. The new phone was already announced for Hong Kong and Taiwan and it will soon go to other Asian markets too.
