As the CommunicAsia conference gets ready to open Tuesday in Singapore, Samsung has announced some additions to its popular Omni smartphone line, including the Omnia Pro slider and the Omnia II, as well as a new 12-megapixel camera phone and the Samsung Jet.
Also know as the B7610 Louvre, the Omnia Pro features a 3.5-inch, 800×480 WVGA AMOLED screen, as well as a QWERTY keyboard and 5.1-megapixel camera with LED flash.
‘Pretty Much Every Category’
While some details have emerged on the company’s Korean Web site, Samsung has not yet released the full specs of the Omnia Pro in English. According to news reports, the Pro will include an 800-MHz processor, a gigabyte of internal memory, HSDPA, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, TV out, FM radio, and support for H.264, DivX and WMV video.
The Pro will run Windows Mobile 6.1, upgradeable to 6.5 when it’s out.
Ken Dulaney, vice president for mobile computing at industry research firm Gartner, said Samsung, like Nokia, is covering “pretty much every category in smartphones.” He noted, however, that Gartner’s research has shown that Windows Mobile devices have declined in market share in favor of more “touch-centric” phones.
The Android operating system, though, is growing, and Samsung is showing its i7500 smartphone with that open-source operating system. It offers a 3.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a five-megapixel camera, 8GB of internal memory, and HSDPA. It was first announced in the spring.
The Google-backed Android OS has begun to appear on selected phones, following a strong launch of the first one, the T-Mobile G1. More than a million G1s have been sold, and major manufacturers have announced plans to offer an Android device. Android phones generally offer Google services, can be customized by the hardware maker or carrier, and can draw from a growing library of third-party applications.
12-Megapixel Pixon
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