Posted on 03/07/2006 10:05:22 AM PST by indcons
Samsung has taken the wraps off a mobile phone that boasts what it says is the biggest hard drive seen on such a device to date.
The "candy bar"-style device, the SGH-i310, will pack 8GB of storage and run Windows Mobile 5.0. Samsung is hoping the device, which can hold more songs than an iPod Nano, will take off with music fans. In addition to its large hard drive, the device will let users sync playlists from their PC as well as store documents, photos and other information in the phone's internal memory.
The i310 is the fourth of Samsung's hard-drive phones: The device was preceded by one model packing 1.5GB of storage and two offering 3GB. For those needing more storage than the i310's hard drive can offer, the phone's memory can be expanded using micro SD cards.
The phone also packs Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera and USB 2.0. The i310 will officially debut at the CeBit trade show in Hannover, Germany, this week and is expected to go on sale in European markets in the second half of this year.
While phone manufacturers have made no secret of their ambitions to steal a little of the iPod's portable-music market share, recent research has cast doubt on consumers' attitudes toward using their mobiles as music players. According to a study by RBC Capital Markets, 70 percent of consumers have no interest in playing music on their mobiles.
Jo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.
Thanks for the pic...looks pretty nice. I was expecting a Blackberry-like device.
It depends on if the carriers cripple the ability to use your own music on your own computer instead of being forced to pay outrageous prices to download DRM'd to hell songs from their proprietary music stores...
I call them "Nerdberrys" heh
I wonder what the life expectancy of these micro-miniature hard drives are? I do computer repairs, and I see a lot more laptop drives fail as opposed to standard desktop drives due to their small size and less than adequate ventilation.
Again.
I'm wondering why they can't get a home phone to have that kind of capacity.
Maybe they do now, but last time I phone shopped they didn't have anything even close.
That's a SmartPhone. The "Blackberry-like" devices are PocketPCs. What you get depends on what your priorities are.
Thanks...I saw a PocketPC-powered HP phone at a store last week. Looked really cool. Cost $450 though; if the price comes down a bit more, I'll probably get one.
Cool...yes, but how about a simple, easy to use wristwatch phone. I've got too much crap on my belt already.
Cripes, I remember using an 8-inch ten meg hard drive for multiuser CPM machines.
I still remember the first time I heard the term "gigabyte" and thinking, "Man, that's a lot of data".
I feel old.
Wow, that's like 100 times bigger than my first PC.
Wow. I knew if I just hung around a while, a computer would go from the size of a wall to be able to be slipped in my pocket.
Now....that's a pretty device. Very pretty.
I still have a circular slide rule that I can do sums on. It does impress customers...
I remember thinking "what do I need a hard drive for? I have two disk drives!"
Seems to me that day is fast approaching when people will be saying the same thing again, with the growth of flash storage and portable hard drives.
I guess I was just ahead of my time. 8)
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