CES 2006
The Samsung SCH-A930 is undeniably a handsome clamshell. While it is not as thin as the A900, it certainly is sleek and very light. In fact it is so light that when I first picked it up, I had to check that there was actually a battery in the phone. Despite its feather-weight, the A930 felt well put-together and rested nicely in the hand. It also has huge keys - perfect for texters with larger hands. Between its good looks and powerful features - including access to the new VCAST music service - this is shaping up to be a desirable phone for Verizon subscribers.
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In addition to the ZX20 announced earlier this week, Samsung was also showing off a second HSDPA phone for Vodafone in Europe. Like the A930, this new clamshell was impossibly light, but this UMTS phone was also shockingly thin; it's easily a match for Motorola's 3G RAZR V3x in terms of thickness. It's more than a match for the V3x in terms of speed - Samsung was using this phone to demonstrate 3.6 Mpbs downloads. Rumors have been that Samsung will be the first manufacturer to offer a 3.6 Mbps handset in the U.S.
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Samsung also showed off a number of their European and Korean phones, most of which have already launched. Samsung had a number of new phones on display that support the new live-TV standards like DVB-H and MediaFLO. The form factor is no longer pill shaped, but more closely matches the recently unveiled E750. However the flip and rotation mechanism to change the screen to a horizontal orientation are still the same. The non-clamshell model also has a swivel display with a landscape mode. Rumor has it one of these models shown off will be modified for the US and will be Verizon's first MediaFLO phone.
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Although it is not bound for the US, the SGH-P300 is an interesting phone. It is not a new form factor - other Asian manufacturers have made "credit card" phones before - but it is still thinner than the SLVR and packed with features. The P300 is tri-band GSM/GPRS so it will work here, but has a very odd keypad layout more geared towards Asian countries than the West.
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