Michael Oryl chats up Samsung's new P207 at CES, finding a world-first, much-hyped text-to-speech dictation feature which delivers on its promise - for the most part.
Samsung USA chose the 2005 CES event here in Las Vegas to unveil the world's first mobile phone that allows users to use speech to text technology to create text messages. Samsung's P207, as the device is known, relies on an advanced application called VoiceMode that was developed by a Boston based company named VoiceSignal.
While using the speech to text system isn't exactly like Captain Kirk and "Computer" on the Enterprise, it did work. Noise can be a bit of a problem for VoiceMode, but that seems to be something that can be overcome with a bit of optional voice training on the P207. After a couple of minutes worth of training, which entails saying a bunch of words that appear on the display, the P207 was capable of recognizing speech with reasonable accuracy even in the loud confines of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
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But even given the optional training, the system has its limitations. You need to speak quite clearly and pause between words. You can't just say "The cow jumped over the moon." Instead, you have to say each word separately: "The. Cow. Jumped. Over. The. Moon.", like so. Not a best case scenario, of course, but still fantastic for a first effort and plenty usable for sending text messages while driving. The VoiceSignal system can also be used for normal contact selection and number dictation for phone calls, too, just as in other devices like Motorola's V710.
Outside of the speech to text capabilities, the P207 still has a few tricks up its sleeve. For one, it is one of the first Samsung phones to support EDGE high-speed data, such as that offered by Cingular here in the States, and works on the 850, 1800, and 1900Mhz GSM bands. Inside there is a 262k color TFT display that looked quite nice, and outside a good 65k TFT sub-display can also be found.
The P207 is also a bit of a visual departure for Samsung, as it sports a gloss black body with chrome accents. This made it stand out from the literal dozens of silver Samsung clammshells that were found the company's CES booth.
Availability and carrier information have not been released as of this moment, but it seems quite probable that we will see the P207 available on Cingular's network, at minimum, due to the EDGE data and 850Mhz GSM band support.
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