Samsung ‘Super music phone’ SCH-B570 - released in Korea

Korean electronics manufacturer, Samsung today announced the launch of it’s feature packed ‘Super Music Phone’ the SCH-B570. Complete with advanced audio, picture in picture video and multimedia support the B570 also sports *ahem* Golf Manager (?) a tool for managing golf scores and driving distances on Korean golf courses (using its built-in GPS).

With a whopping 8Gb of memory, this has to be the largest built-in storage facility on any cell phone to date. Samsung claims the massive drive can hold:

• 1,600 mp3 files (at 4Mb per song) or
• 16 Personal Media Player (at 400Mb per movie)
• or more than 20,000 x 300kb digital photos

Specifications:

• 1xEV-DO Mobile broadband
• 2 Megapixel Camera
• 1.98“ Display 240×320 resolution, 262K Color
• Size: 112 x 48 x 19.9 mm
• Weight: 130 g

The phone sports a myriad of other features including:

8GB Hard drive disk, Satellite DMB / Picture In Picture / Personal Media Player, Motion Recognition Technology, GPS, VOD/MOD, MP3, Document Viewer, Mobile printing and TV out.

And if Golf Manager wasn’t enough, Samsung’s also revealed another curious feature:

Samsung also presented the ‘motion recognition capability’ by introducing the new ‘morning call motion detector snooze alarm’. When the alarm clock rings, users can turn it off simply by shaking the phone, then alarm will automatically alert again a few minutes later.

Other features aside, it’s hard to believe that this device doesn’t have Apple’s rumored iPod/Phone in its sights, and maybe THIS will be just the device to rattle Apple’s cage and make them announce something. Just how much storage will the new iPhone have?

The SCH-B570 will be released in Korea for around USD800 in the next few days.

Phone Friday! News & reviews on some phones

HTC release the Excalibur, better than the Q?

The Excalibur is HTC’s version of the Q, but appears to blow the Q out of the water. This thin smart phone comes with Windows Mobile and a full QWERTY keybaord. It also will have Mi-FI and Bluetooth, and like the Q it will have a method for one handed navigation. The Excalibur will have a touch sensitive scroll pad including home and back keys as well.
The Excalibur is rumored to launch with Sprint in the US by the end of the year, but no word on an exact date or price.

[Thanks for Geek.com for the pictures, and check out HTC’s website for more of their sleek phones.]

LG releases some white chocolate

Although this may not be the Chocolate, the LF1300 certianly has some flavor. The LF1300 comes with a 2-inch QVGA display, 1.3 megapixel camer, SD expansion, Bluetooth, and of course, an MP3 Player.

This slider measures 98 x 48 x 16.9mm and will be available through CYON. The LF1300 is said to be released only in Korea, and no word on pricing as of now.

[Picture and story from I4U.com]

Milk chocolate from Sony Ericsson?

Well this also isn’t the Chocolate, but Sony Ericsson has released a milk chocolate colored phone, calling it the K800i. It comes with a brilliant 3.2 megapixel camera, UMTS high-speed data, and and MP3/MPEG4 player.

The K800i will be released in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

[Picture from Gizmodo.com]

Blackberry’s Precious Pearl - 8100, no longer just a number

Employees at RIM have let details slip of the soon to be released Blackberry 8100 a.k.a Blackberry Pearl. The Pearl has a number of features that people have been longing to have included in their Blackberry’s - a camera, external storage and other multimedia goodies - the perfect mix of business and pleasure.

Features include:

• EDGE mobile broadband data services
• Bluetooth
• microSD card support
• Camera with built-in flash

Engadget has scooped the leaked RIM internal release (officially under embargo until 18 September) and has the full details. Here’s a snippet describing the new unit:

The BlackBerry Pearl is a very cool, incredibly small, easy-to-use smartphone. It comes complete with digital camera, multimedia capabilities and expandable memory. And it, of course, offers the full BlackBerry experience – including email, phone, web browser, text messaging, organizer applications and much more. This year, give your loved one the gift of freedom – with the BlackBerry Pearl they can do all the things they “have to do” and more of the things they “want to do.”

This adds just a few more reasons that will prevent “crackberries” from kicking the habit!

Due for release next month through T-Mobile first and then presumably Cingular some time later, the Pearl will have a retail tag of US$199.

[More from Engadget]

Sprint to announce building of a WiMax network

Sprint is scheduled to announce later today that it is choosing the WiMax technology to build a brand new wireless internet network. Although this will not be available until 2008, this is definitely something to look forward to. Sprint will be working with Motorola and Samsung using Intel chips to make headsets that are compatible. The service is said to be available nationwide (in the United States), and could even replace cable and DSL.

[To read more, check out dailywireless.org]

Franklin helps fill the gap with new CDU-550 USB EV-DO Modem

Wireless broadband manufacturer, Franklin Wireless, anounced on Friday the launch of their new USB 1x EV-DO modem, the CDU-550, a first for the industry.

This new modem released under a partnership with Sprint, who now have the largest mobile network in the US (Sprint Power Vision Network), offers high speed wireless internet access to laptops that do not have PCMCIA card slots, offering instead a USB interface. The card will have immediate benefit for those with new MacBook Pro laptops where a PCMCIA slot was dropped in favour of the incoming ExpressCard/34 format interface.

The Sprint Power Vision Network now covers 153 million people and services customers in 220 major metropolitan areas as well as 470 airports across the nation, the most of any carrier.

[Press release from Franklin-Wireless]

Mmm…Chocolate… LG’s VX8500 Chocolate

Monday, 31 July, saw the official release of the LG VX8500 Chocolate by Verizon Wireless.

The “Chocolate” is “Part MP3 player. Part phone. Totally sweet.” according to Verizon, and it really does look the business. They’ve gone for the stylish Nano piano black finish with stylish red accents for a stunning, sleek look.

Consumers have long been fed up with only being able to get a small handful of songs on their mobile phone handsets, but the Chocolate, with its support for 2Gb’s worth of expansion via microSD memory card allowing for the storage of almost 1,000 songs (in MP3 or Windows WMA format), makes the “Chocolate” a viable MP3 Player/Phone convergence device.

iPod like controls are available on the front panel, with the keypad concealed under the sliding top panel.

Verizon’s Chocolate music phone is also fully compatible with Verizon’s V CAST music service, which, (somewhat coincedentally), dropped it’s US$15 per month subscription fee on Monday. Chocolate lovers can now buy and download songs over the air for US$1.99 each.

Other features :

• QVGA screen (320×240)
• Bluetooth
• EV-DO
• 1.3 Megapixel camera (with video)
• Verizon’s VZ Navigator
• V Cast Music and Video compatibility (now with no monthly fees)
• Dimensions: 3.8″ x 1.88″ x 0.69″
• Weight: 3.53oz
  

The Chocolate really does look quite delicious, but c’mon Apple, show us what YOU have got!

Pre-order your Chocolate from Amazon now.

More ways to pay, the cell phone way…

A few days ago we reported on the new mobile based serviced ‘Paypal Mobile‘ that helps facilitate settling the check with your friends after a great dinner by allowing payments to be sent to your friends and other services via a text message from your phone. Well, it turns out there are many ways of using your phone for bill settlement and instant payments, Textpayme and Obopay can also help out when your wallet is devoid of the folding stuff.

Oh, and thats not all - how about using your phone to save money? Turns out downloadable coupons for your phone are making the scene and becoming increasingly popular. Dry Cleaning, video rentals, you name it. Pizza anyone?

[More from SmartMoney.com]