Tech Shout!

Samsung has launched the X830 Phone which doubles as an MP3 player in Korea.

The ‘Mini MP3 X830 Phone’ features a 128×220 pixel TFT LCD display and 1 GB built in memory. The Samsung X830 looks like any other MP3 Player, but its phone capacities get revealed through its top that slides and rotates to unveil a keypad, while the display orientation changes to offer phone features. Text messaging through the phone may get a little difficult since its keypad is in an unusual 2×8 arrangement instead of the conventional 3×6.

The Samsung X830 phone is a tri-band GSM/GRPS/EDGE handset and also packs in a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, plays back MP3/AAC/WMA and video in MPEG-4/H.263 formats, Bluetooth and USB 2.0 with mass storage for drag and drop of files. There is no microSD/TransFlash memory card slot, but 1 GB of memory seems enough to replace a regular flash memory-based MP3 player. It comes in black, pure white, oasis blue, candy pink, orange and lemon green. The Samsung X830 can store 250 songs and allows users to download audio files from CNN or BBC websites. “This mini MP3 phone’s portability and compactness does not compromise the ease of use for its various multimedia functions,” Samsung said.

Kitae Lee, president of Samsung Telecommunication Business said, “The X830 shows Samsung’s strategy to focus more on music segment. Samsung will launch various music phones targeting which focused on perfect balance between innovative design and various functions. We will continue to introduce cutting-edge multimedia phones to satisfy the mobile phone users.”

The phone would be released in Europe by the end of this month. No details on pricing yet.