Samsung Electronics next week will begin selling its second cell phone to include a hard-disk drive, the company says. It also announced that it is preparing a hard-disk-based phone for the European market.
The launch of the SPH-V7900 comes less than a year after Samsung became the first cell phone maker in the world to put a hard-disk drive phone on the market. The first, the SPH-V5400, went on sale in December 2004.
Phone Specs
Like its predecessor, the new phone will be a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) model and sold in South Korea only. The hard-disk drive has a capacity of 3GB, which is twice that of the previous phone and enough space for several hundred audio files or a few hours of video.
The phone can play files in several formats including MPEG-4/H.264 video and MPEG-4 AAC, AAC+ and MP3 audio. Other features of the clamshell handset include a 2-megapixel camera with 2X optical zoom and TV output socket. The screen is a QVGA (240 pixels by 320 pixels) resolution TFT LCD.
It measures 4.1 inches by 2 inches by 11 inches and weighs 5.7 ounces. It will cost about $700 in South Korea, Samsung representatives said.
Samsung is also preparing a hard-disk drive-based smart phone for the European market. The SGH-I300 also packs a 3GB hard-disk drive and runs on the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. Samsung first showed the phone at the Cebit show in Hanover, Germany, in March this year but hasn't put it on sale yet. Current plans call for the phone to go on sale in Europe in November, Samsung said Monday.
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