PhoneTalk

New at CES

Samsung releases two-faced cell phones

By Joni Blecher Follow me on Twitter | Monday, January 08, 2007 (permalink)
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Samsung released two Ultra cell phones: Ultra Video and the Ultra Music. Can you guess what they do besides make calls? Seriously, the interesting thing about Samsung's new Ultra phones is that they have one function on one side, flip it over and you've got an entirely different device.

The Ultra Video cell phone sports a cell phone on one side, with a full numeric keypad and approximately a three-line screen that is all about the text messaging and cell phone functionality. Turn it over and there's a widescreen horizontal display. It supports a plethora of video formats, so you'll likely be able to play back just about anything you want. But don't get too excited, there are no plans to bring the the Ultra Video to the United States.

You can, however, begin to salivate over the Ultra Music phone (SGH-F300) because that one is expected to arrive stateside the middle of this year. Like the Ultra Video model, the Ultra Music has a numeric keypad and smaller screen on one side and a large screen and entirely different controls on the other.

In this case, on the music side of the cell phone the controls are touch sensitive: this is one time when you should be thinking the iPod scroll wheel, only it's a bit more on the square side. You can store about 2,000 songs on an optional 2GB media card. It will playback Apple's AAC format, MP3, and Microsoft's WMA music files. Since the cell phone is GSM, possible carriers include T-Mobile and Cingular.