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Smartphones, Multimedia Phones Debut

New York
– Retail buyers might have focused their attention in recent days on the
introduction of

Microsoft’s
Kin cellphones

and

Apple’s
iPhone 4.0 OS

, but other handset makers are also making some news.

New cellphones include HTC’s Droid Incredible, which is Verizon’s
first Android smartphone with 1GHz processor. Another new phone, SonyEricsson’s
unlocked 3G Satio multimedia phone, incorporates the highest resolution camera
to date of any cellphone in the U.S.,
at 12.1 megapixels. Also for the Verizon network, Samsung is rolling out the
Reality multimedia phone, equipped with 3-inch touchscreen, horizontal
slide-out QWERTY keyboard and data-plan subscription requirement. And for
AT&T, Pantech rolled out a quick-messaging phone that also requires a text
or data plan.

The

Droid Incredible

,
available through Verizon-owned stores on April 29, will retail for $199 after
$100 rebate with two-year voice/data plan. The rebate takes the form of a debit
card. Preorders became available April 19 at Verizon’s web site.

The Incredible features touchscreen but no hard QWERTY keyboard
or dialing keypad. It uses the newest version of HTC’s Sense user interface,
which consists of a seven-panel home screen and a selection of interactive
widgets. And it comes with Friend Stream feature that unifies Flickr, Facebook
and Twitter updates. Soon after the device becomes available, Verizon will
offer its NFL Mobile and Skype mobile apps for the phone.

Other Incredible features include 3.7-inch WVGA (480 by 800)
AMOLED capacitive touch display, optical joystick, and dedicated touch-sensitive
home, menu, back and search keys. It also features proximity sensor, light
sensor, digital compass, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and 3.5 mm headset jack.

Another Verizon phone,

Samsung’s
Reality

, is a multimedia phone with 3-inch WQVGA (240 by 400) touchscreen,
horizontal slide-out QWERTY keyboard, customizable one-touch widgets and
multiple messaging options. It will be available April 22 in red or piano black
through Verizon stores and the carrier’s Web site. It will be priced at $79.99
after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year contract for a talk and text
plan and a data plan starting at $9.99 per month for 25MB of data with mobile
email.

 Including the Reality,
Verizon offers nine non-smartphone devices, or 3G multimedia phones, that
require a data plan, a spokesperson said. The others are the LG VX8360, Nokia
7705 Twist, Samsung Alias 2, LG Chocolate Touch, LG enV Touch, Samsung Rogue,
LG enV3 and Casio G’zOne Brigade.

The phone, which uses the Symbian Series 60 version 5 OS, operates in 3G W-CDMA mode in the U.S. 850/1900MHz bands used by AT&T and in the foreign 2.1GHz band, the company said. The
3.2-megapixel camera features night shot mode; single, multi, panorama, mosaic
and frame shot modes; and video capture capabilities. It also features
corporate email support for Microsoft Office Exchange. A MicroSD card slot
supports up to 16GB cards.

A new phone not available through Verizon or any other U.S.
carrier is the 3G-enabled SonyEricsson
Satio
, an unlocked smartphone that boasts 12.1-megapixel camera with Xenon
flash, integrated Facebook and YouTube applications, 16:9 3.5-inch touchscreen
display, Wi-Fi and stereo FM tuner.

The phone, which uses the Symbian Series 60 version 5 OS,
operates in 3G mode in the U.S.
850MHz band used by AT&T, the company said. It’s available only through
Sony Style stores and at SonyStyle.com for around $650, which includes stereo
Bluetooth headphones, 8GB M2 memory card and USB connector cable.

Camera features include Xenon flash, Sony’s Face Detection and
BestPic technologies, image stabilization, red-eye reduction and video capture.
A Geo-Tag application and pre-installed Google Mapslet users view the location
where photos are taken. The Satio phone’s 16:9 ratio screen shows videos and
photos in more than 16 million colors.

The phone expands the selection of unlocked SonyEricsson phones
available in the U.S.
to six. All are distributed in the U.S.
by Sony Electronics, which is the only authorized distributor of unlocked Sony
Ericsson Mobile Communications (SEMC) handsets in North
America.

At the other end of the price spectrum, AT&T is making the 3G
Pantech Link quick-messaging phone
available for a limited time at $9.99 after rebate with a two-year contract
requiring a voice plan plus a minimum $20 per month messaging or messaging and
data plan.

The Link features full QWERTY keyboard, thickness of less than
10mm, Web browsing, and AT&T Social Net app that can be used to quickly
view and update online profiles from one hub.

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