It's hip to be square - and round. We get up close and personal with Samsung's newest music phones, the clamshell SCH-A930 and SCH-A960, both of which sport external track displays, microSD and more.
Samsung SCH-A960 hands-on impression
Samsung’s elegant SGH-A960 music phone boasts speedy network capabilities, a 1.3-megapixel camera, an integrated music player and a perfectly round external display. While it wasn’t officially on display at CTIA last week, we still managed to get a sneak peek.
Design
Talk about class: with its black-and-silver design and round external display that’s tucked in the upper-right corner of the phone’s face, the A960 makes a great first impression. The small external OLED displays the time in a variety of formats, including an elegant Roman-numeral analog clock and a red-and-blue digital clock, as well as song info when you’re cranking your tunes, while a small silver button just below the display lets you pause your music. Flip open the phone and you’ll find the navigational keys and the numeric keypad; we liked the sleek, rounded design of the keys, which are (thankfully) big and flat for easy tapping, while the sharp, detailed 262,000-color, 176 x 220-pixel internal LCD does an impressive job of displaying snapshots. At 3.5 by 1.8 by 1 inches and 3.5 ounces, the A960 fits nicely in a jeans pocket.
Features
The A960 comes loaded with a strong feature set, including EVDO capabilities for speedy Web browsing and music downloads, a microSD flash-memory expansion slot, Bluetooth, PictBridge photo printing, and a speakerphone. Even better, the A960 comes with motion-detecting sensors that will, for instance, let you roll the dice in the handset’s dice game with a flick of the phone, according to a Samsung rep (we weren’t able to test this feature on the show floor, unfortunately).
Pricing and availability
The A960 is set for release in the second quarter of 2006 (despite the Sprint branding, no U.S. carriers have been officially announced); pricing has yet to be determined.
Samsung SCH-A930
Music fanatics who want an MP3-player look-and-feel from their music phones should check out Samsung’s SCH-A930, a new clamshell handset with a long, vertical external OLED that makes it easy to read track info for your tunes. We fired up the A930 on the CTIA show floor and cranked the volume.
Design
While this black-and-silver clamshell is almost exactly the same size (3.6 by 1.9 by 1 inches) as the A960, Samsung’s other new music phone, the A930’s clunky design makes it feel a bit more bulky, and at 4 ounces it’s about a half-an-ounce heavier. The phone’s vertically oriented external OLED sets it apart from the pack; while the long, monochrome display certainly didn’t blow us away in terms of resolution, it does a good job of displaying full track names and artist info (much like the old-school MP3 players of yore). A trio of buttons just below the display let you play, pause and skip your music tracks, while the swiveling camera lens up by the clamshell’s hinge makes it easy to snap self portraits. Flipping the A930 open, we liked the crisp 262,000-color internal display, and our fingers had little trouble with the big, flat numeric keys.
Features
The A930 comes with all the features we’d expect on a music phone, including EVDO for fast music downloads, a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, a microSD flash-memory expansion slot, and a speakerphone with dual stereo speakers.
Pricing and availability
The A930 is slated for release sometime in the second quarter of 2006; while the phone’s interface looked suspiciously Verizon-like, no carriers (or pricing details) have been officially announced.
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