Samsung shows off HSDPA, WiMAX, Digital TV in your pocket

SAMSUNG WAS probably the only mobile phone vendor on the show that covered almost every frequency band or standard a mobile device can receive - and keeping those devices (or, for the health conscious, harmful radiation sources) as slim as possible. Or, as they call it, "Beautiful Technology".

The "Stylish Sliders" SGH-E950 with dual screens, and SGH-E840 with mirror LCD, are in this class. However, another phone was more interesting to me.

The Ultra Edition II model 12.1, or SGH-U700, is their first ultraslim 3.6 Mbps HSDPA phone here, 12.1 mm thick as you can guess. A 3.2 megapixel camera with "top notch" image editor should help the photo buffs, of course with some microSD storage for those photographs. Separate VGA front camera takes care of videoconferencing. An even slimmer 10.9 mm thin model without HSDPA, SGH-U600, was also shown.

Their WiMAX phone, SPH-M8100, is also surprisingly slim for an early entry with quite a few features thrown in: tri-band mobile WiMAX (2.3, 2.5 and 3.5 GHz) on top of CDMA and mobile DMB-T TV, 2.8-inch QVGA LCD, dual cameras and even TV-out port. A tri-band WiMAX PC card for the notebooks was also shown running.

Finally, a digital broadcast viewer's toy: SGH-P940, a very compact and still slim, DVB-H receiver in a mobile phone. The long thin antenna and rotating landscape screen distinguish it - not that I'd want to watch TV - digital or analogue - on a 2.2-inch screen, anyway.

Slimness is important, for cellphones as much as for supermodels. You can fit the phone then easily in the trouser pocket - risk for the genitalia? - or in the shirt pocket - a heart risk then? Jokes aside, an impressive mobile showing for the Korea's biggest chaebol - marrying this many features with Twiggy-like profiles isn't easy. µ