8-gig cell phone: iPod killer?

8-gig cell phone: iPod killer?

Samsung's announced a Windows Mobile-based phone equipped with an 8-GB hard disk. The SGH-i310, similar in appearance to Samsung's long and straight i300 (launched last year), will include dual speakers, an amplifier, a Bluetooth stereo link, and, of course, a digital music player. Will memory-packed cell phones be the beginning of the end for the portable audio player? Don't start cursing your unlucky stars; if you're living stateside, the $250 you dumped on an iPod nano wasn't a waste — at least not yet. Samsung plans to start shipping the i310 to Europe in the second half of 2006, but has made no mention of a U.S. release, reinforcing once again that "cutting-edge" isn't part of the American cell-phone vernacular.

Samsung will launch a Windows Mobile-based mobile phone that packs an 8GB hard disk, hitting European markets in the second half of 2006, the company said on Monday.

The SGH-i310 is a long and straight handset that looks similar to the i300 hard-disk drive phone launched by Samsung last year. That phone was centred around mobile music and the new handset also includes a music player in addition to dual speakers, an amplifier and Bluetooth stereo link. The music player supports the MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV and Ogg music file formats.Other features include a 2-megapixel digital camera, Bluetooth printing and a video output connector.

Handset makers plan iPod battle

The phone is Samsung's fourth to include a hard disk. The company was the first in the world to show a mobile phone with embedded hard disk when it unveiled the SPH-V5400 clam-shell model in September 2004. That phone had a 1.5GB hard-disk drive and was followed by two additional handsets, the SPH-V7900 and SGH-i300, that each had 3GB hard-disk drives.

The number of mobile phones using hard disks is expected to climb over the next few years as more handsets pack functions that require a large storage capacity.

Cornice, a US-based maker of 1in drives that are used in portable music players and mobile phones, expects the mobile phone disk drive market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 325 per cent between 2004 and 2009.

Will mobiles eclipse digital music players?

cornice expects about 72 million mobile phones with embedded drives will be shipped in 2009 out of a global total of around 1 billion handsets. At that level the mobile phone market would be larger than the personal storage and portable audio player markets, which Cornice expects will stand at 10 million and 43 million shipments, respectively, in 2009.

Samsung plans to unveil the new phone later this week at the Cebit show that begins on Thursday in Hanover, Germany. No pricing for the handset was announced.

The phone is compatible with the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) technologies and runs the Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone operating system.