At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Samsung released their two newest music phones, the Samsung Beat DJ and the Samsung Beat Disc. Both phones feature a slew of high-end multimedia features, especially ICEpower technology from Bang and Olufsen. The improved speaker tech should help the two new Samsung phones to sound better through the small device's built-in speakers. In the past, we've heard similar Samsung phones, including the Bang & Olufsen Serenata, which Samsung designed for the high-end audio company. Bang and Olufsen exited the cell phone market recently, so these Samsung phones are the only way to hear B&O's signature sound on a mobile.
The Samsung Beat DJ
The Samsung Beat DJ is the all-touch model of the new pair of music phones. The BeatDJ will sport a 2.8-inch, AMOLED touchscreen, running at a WQVGA widescreen resolution of 240 by 400 pixels. The touch phone isn't a speaker-slider like previous Samsung music phones, but is rather a simple touch panel with a unique "Disc UI" for music playback. Apparently the phone uses a combination of touch sensitive hardware and touchscreen to create a virtual wheel for the "Spin Wheel Touch" features. The new phones also use Samsung's new "Beat DJ" software for mixing and sound effects.
Beyond the music playback features, the phone is still no slouch in other regards. The Samsung Beat DJ will use fast HSDPA for networking speeds up to 7.2Mbps. Around back, users will find a 3-megapixel camera with auto focus, smile detection and geo tagging. The Beat DJ can also record video at VGA resolution up to 15 fps.
The Samsung Beat Disc
The Samsung Beat Disc is very similar to the Beat DJ, but uses a mix of touchscreen and numeric keys for navigation. Only half of the screen on the Samsung Beat Disc is touch friendly. Based on screenshots we've seen, it appears that the bottom half of the screen will become part of the scroll wheel on the Samsung Beat Disc when it's time for music navigation. Otherwise, the phone uses the same "Disc UI" and B&O ICEpower speaker technology as the Samsung Beat DJ.
The Samsung Beat Disc uses a smaller screen, here a 2.6-inch display, running the same 240 by 400 pixels. Instead of the power-saving AMOLED, the Beat Disc gets a standard TFT LCD screen. The phone retains the 3-megapixel sensor of its impressive sibling, but Samsung conspicuously fails to note any advanced features like auto focus or VGA video recording.
Both phones will get the same fast networking capabilities, and both will be able to accept microSD cards up to 16GB large. Pricing and availability for both of these phones has yet to be determined, but we're not holding our breath for a stateside release.
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