Samsung has announced a new entry level mobile phone for India, in the form of the Samsung Mpower 699. A very interesting part about this CDMA phone is that it is first mobile phone in the world to use the OMH (Open Market Handset) technology. The phone has been manufactured in collaboration with Qualcomm, and the phone’s OMH technology will allow it to work across the networks of all CDMA operators in India.
Mpower 699 will be available in the market by March next year, and will be priced at nearly INR 7100 or $145. The phone comes with a 1.3 MP camera, video recording, audio and video playback, FM Radio and microSD card support along with an included 2GB card. Samsung intends to introduce five more OMH phones to keep the 699 company. The phone as well as the range Samsung is putting around the OMH technology is very likely to be a success, as it will give consumers an easy way to choose a network, and make migrating from one network to the other less of a hassle.
The android based Archos 5 isn’t scheduled to be available by the 15th of September, and its prices were to be kept under wraps until the said date. But slip-ups always find a way to happen, and a certain little mistake by B&H did spill the beans, albeit for a short time. Currently, they are showing the tablet as to be soon available in a number of different memory options, with price currently listed as TBA, but the mistake earlier probably put the price up as well.
Screenshots posted at the forum ArchosFans show the Archos 5 listed with the marked prices. Going by these screenshots, the Archos 5 Internet tablet 16GB SSD will sell for $294, the 32GB SSD tablet will sell for $370, while the 160GB and 500GB HDD variants will be priced at $320 and $420 respectively. Going by the looks of things a $130 DVR station will also be available. The shots seem pretty concrete, but we’ll have to wait till the 15th to get to know the real deal.
Samsung has announced a new camera, and the feature packed device is scheduled to reach store shelves in the USA in October. The newly announced HZ25W will be called WB5000 in Europe, and will be available for US$400. The camera seeks to combine the form factor of compact pocket cameras with the larger zooms that are seen in the DSLR range, an attribute that obviously puts it between both these ranges.
Samsung has endowed the HZ25W with 24x optical zoom coming from a 26mm wide-angled lens. The 12.5 megapixel camera can record 720p HD video in H.264 format, handle uncompressed RAW images (JPEG images of course work too), and there’s a list of (mostly usual) goodies to augment its manual controls. HZ25W has automatic adjustment for color, brightness and movement, and then there’s optical and digital image stabilization, face recognition and blink detection. What’s lacking here is an HD output, presence of which would have made the pot sweeter.