Helio brings a Korean standout slider phone to the US
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Helio increased its portfolio of handsets today with its release of the Mysto, a slider-style device produced exclusively for US distribution by Samsung.
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BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA -- Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. plans to begin selling later this month a cellular telephone that includes a hard-disk drive. The handset was unveiled as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom Asia 2004 event began here on Monday and is the first cell phone of its kind in the world, according to the company.
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More info on that Sony handheld mockup that's been surfacing on the internet for months: The Mylo 2 looks like a cross between the PSP and a HTC-style QWERTY sliderphone. Look for a 2008 CES announcement.
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It&#39;s easy to be wowed by Japan&#39;s mobile communications infrastructure. &quot;Next-generation&quot; 3G coverage is now so ubiquitous that carriers have already stopped launching 2G phones; an impressive array of attractive handsets offer free digital TV; phones can be used to pay for goods and train rides, thanks to embedded contactless smart cards; and on the mobile information superhighway data whizzes along at 3.6Mbps. But watch out for the off-ramps.While Japan has led the world with many of the services offered to consumers, in some ways the mobile ecosystem here is downright backward as I found out last weekend when I tried to buy a new phone. A broken handset necessitated a new model and this is where my story begins.In Japan, phones are sold by carriers and not the phone makers. Companies like Fujitsu, NEC, Sony Ericsson, and a few foreign vendors including Nokia, Samsung, and LG sell their phones in the thousands to carriers. This gives carriers the ability to pretty much dictate to the phone maker what software needs to be installed.This model is one of the reasons that mobile Internet services like I-mode took off here so quickly. There was no chicken-and-egg situation with phone makers and users waiting for each other to take the plunge. NTT DoCoMo decided I-mode would be in new phones and so it was.But this model has a downside. Phones are so tightly customized to each carrier that it&#39;s not practical to keep the same handset when switching carriers, and if you see a phone you like you can only buy it if it&#39;s offered by your carrier.Back to my story. The new phone was looking quite expensive so I decided to switch carriers and take advantage of a free phone on a competitor network. Japan launched number portability a year ago, so I could make the jump without losing my cell-phone number. I&#39;d still have the hassle of a new e-mail address, but it appeared a small price to pay.Before long I had a new phone in my hands, but my phone numbers remained locked in the old handset. The new carrier didn&#39;t have a cable to hook up to my old phone so they couldn&#39;t transfer the address book and it wasn&#39;t possible to beam it between the phones. While my old carrier was gung-ho on Bluetooth, my new carrier wasn&#39;t so enthusiastic, so the new phone had no support. Similarly, while the new phone offered infrared, the old phone didn&#39;t. Heavy customization strikes again.Back home I fired up my PC and managed to get my address book from the old phone into the computer. Getting it to the new phone via a memory card seemed like an easy task ... but no! The VCard file wasn&#39;t being properly read by the new phone. Carriers, it was explained to me when I called the help line, often used custom fields in their VCards so there were sometimes problems. So much for a common standard.I won&#39;t bore you with the technicalities of how I eventually got my address book into my new phone, but suffice to say this story has a happy ending. I&#39;m now back in cruise control, enjoying all the attractions the mobile superhighway has to offer.The number portability system that enabled me to keep my phone number is coincidentally one-year-old this week. About 3 percent of users in Japan -- roughly 3.7 million people -- have made use of the system during its first year -- far less than the industry predicted, or feared.One thing that&#39;s said to be stopping users from switching is the inability to keep their e-mail addresses. While carriers fussed over the details of keeping numbers, they forgot, or perhaps ignored, the need to carry e-mail addresses between carriers. In other countries this wouldn&#39;t be a big deal because most messaging is done via SMS, which relies on phone numbers, but in Japan the advanced stage of the market has again caused hassle for consumers.
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SEOUL, South Korea - Samsung Electronics Co. has unveiled a new mobile phone that features some of the sleek design and functions of Apple Inc.'s much-hyped iPhone.
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Helio LLC said Tuesday its youth-oriented cell phone service will reach 100,000 subscribers in April and that it is now generating monthly revenue at a rate exceeding $100 million per year.
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Vodafone gets the gig Samsung's would-be iPhone beater, the F700 smartphone - aka the Croix - will come to Europe in two months' time through the Vodafone network, the company revealed today.â¦
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Within this year, tech-savvy Koreans will be able to make and receive calls through Internet-enabled phones as you would do on regular phones, at a lower cost.
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(InfoWorld) - Samsung Electronics is adding video editing and production functions to a new cellphone so users can shoot, edit, and upload videos to Internet video sites without using a PC. The phone is the second device in two weeks to take advantage of the popularity of user-generated content sites. Last week, Japan'sÂ Casio Computer launchedÂ a digital still camera with a dedicated mode for shooting YouTube videos and companion software that can upload the clips with just one mouse click. The new Samsung phone, the SCH-B750, shoots CIF-resolution images (352 pixels by 288 pixels) and includes software to edit the images and do limited production work, such as adding a caption or background music. Once done the videos can be immediately uploaded to online sites like Pandora TV, South Korea's leading user-generated video site. The camera is a 3-megapixel model with auto focus and other features include reception of satellite mobile digital TV broadcasting. The phone, which will be available in South Korea only, will be sold through SK TelecomÂ and will cost around 600,000 won ($655).
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I was pretty amazed to see 3D graphics coming to mobile phones, and now it looks like TV is coming to them too! Texas Instruments has started work on a chip that
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SEOUL, South KoreaâSamsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced plans to launch the SPH-V5400, a mobile phone that includes a tiny hard disc drive to expand available memory capacity.
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Samsung today officially launched their new Korean market 5 megapixel cameraphone, the SCH-S250. Of course we told you about the 5MP camera part already, but there is another surprise in there, too.
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Samsung makes a good PDA phone a little better, with subtle changes in design and components.
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PDA phone with slide-out keyboard and GPS, anyone?
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eBay's Skype lands a sweet mobile deal overseas.
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The phone, dubbed "Soul," is a slider-type handset that with an eye-catching touch panel under the display.
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Research In Motion is targeting European and Asian markets with a phone-and-messaging device that uses the company&#39;s new SureType keyboard design.