Future Phones from Korea

By Tom Samiljan

The phones coming out in Korea are usually two or three years ahead of what we have in the United States, so I jumped at the chance to attend a lunch hosted by Samsung Mobile yesterday. As a bunch of us munched on stuffed flounder, Samsung execs passed around some of the cooler current and future phones in the Korean electronics giant's portfolio. Yes, most of us had seen and test-driven many phones in the new Ultra Slim line, including the Samsung x820 (also known as the T-Mobile Trace) and the very thin clamshell D830, but some of the phones were new to our eyes and certainly our hands.

One of the coolest is the SPH-P9000, a UMPC-cum-phone with onboard WiMAX capability that's set to launch in Korea early next year. When closed, the device is about the size of a small paperback book but unfolds to reveal a split QWERTY keyboard and LCD screen. Surprising that it has only a 1.3-megapixel camera.

Also on hand was the Samsung SCH-B600 10-megapixel camera phone, which was launched in Korea in October and is due in other countries some time next year. While it's almost as big as cell phones of the late to mid-'90s, this phone is capable of capturing images big enough for poster-size prints. The phone is due for release outside of Korea some time next year. After all, why would Samsung show it to us? But I wonder if any U.S. carriers would offer something this high-end. Regardless, it's quite possible Samsung would sell an unlocked version, given that it just went into the direct-to-consumer, unlocked-phone business with the ultra-slim slider Black Carbon D900, available in unlocked GSM form on Samsung's site, among other places.

For mobile TV lovers, Samsung says it will likely have a U.S version of a swivel-screen model that's been out in Korea for a couple of years. (Sorry, I can't find a model number, but I took a picture of it, with the Samsung Drift I'm borrowing from Helio.)

But cool new phones are already available. I got some more hands-on time with the P310 wallet phone that I wrote about last week. As I mentioned, it's truly credit-card sized and looks like a calculator. But the coolest thing is the wallet that doubles as a docking station and a battery. You can already get this on Dynamism, but I hope a U.S. carrier picks it up, and soon.