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.

Sprint’s Palm Treo 700wx with GPS - Vodafone/Cingular Treo 750 on the way?

Sprint are expected to release the new Palm Treo 700wx next week with a host of great new features included double the RAM from the 700w and built-in GPS. sprintusers.com has what looks to be an official specs sheet. This new PDA will operate on the Sprint EV-DO Mobile Broadband network and have access to Sprints Power Vision network services.

The 700wx is expected to be released to business customers from 27 August with an offering at retail sales outlets from 3 September.

Treo 750…

In other Treo news, the Treo 750 is expected to be released in just two weeks time 12 September for the European market on Vodafone’s 3G network. As expected, the 750 will run Windows Mobile 5.0. While no official details have been released, it is hoped that the 750 will be an antenna-less design and have built-in wifi - something that has been lacking from all Treo handsets to date.

Reuters reports:

Palm is to launch the new handset to Vodafone customers in a number of European countries including the U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy and Netherlands as it attempts to win back the confidence of a market it once dominated with its Palm Pilot device.

PDAStreet is speculating that shortly after it’s release, Cingular users should expect a US version…

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]

Big day for Sprint!

Today Sprint has released two things that every cell phone fan wants to hear.

Sprints COO Len Lauer said today they will be adding two popular lines from Motorola, the Q and the SLVR. Some analysts commented that Sprints poor quarter was due to them not selling phones from Motorola, although Sprint does have a entry level Motorola phone in their lineup. Well I think everyone can agree that it is about time Sprint adds some popular phones to their unpopular lineup.

Sprint hopes to have these phones in their lineup sometime in the fourth quarter, but an exact date or month wasn’t stated.

The other big news item is that Sprint has decided to push out is EV-DO Revision A, an upgrade to the EV-DO 3G network. This was originally not going to be launched intil January of 2007, but Sprint is more than confident about releases this sometime in the fourth quarter of 2006.

• So what does this mean for you? Faster downloads, faster uploads; and not just 3-4% faster. Sprint claims Revision A to be 50% faster for downloads, and 400% uploads than EV-DO 3G, topping off around DSL speeds.

• So you may ask next, will this reach me? Sprint plans to reach 220 major metropolitan areas and 908 airports across the United States, and hoping to reach 220 million people by then end of 2006. By the end of 2007 they hope the network will be competely updated to EV-DO Revision A.

Sprint also has released its quarter two revenues. To check that out in further detail, head over to PhoneNewz.com.

To read more about EV-DO Revision A, check out Sprint’s news release.

And finally, a little about the Q.

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.