CTIA 2005
The SCH-i730 is the highly-anticipated successor to the Samsung SPH-i700. We covered it when it was first revealed, and again at CES, but at CTIA we learned some new facts about it that we're sure many people will be interested to hear...
For starters, the first version likely to hit the market will have Wi-Fi (802.11b), but will not have a camera. It will also have a 520 MHz Intel Bulverde processor and 128 MB of flash memory. The Bluetooth features support version 1.1 of the standard, and the OBEX profile. I was told it probably will not support the DUN (dial-up-networking) profile.
Additional hardware features include 3D stereo speakers, and a handy dual-purpose slide switch on the side for quickly locking the keys and turning the display on or off.
On the software side, Samsung has chosen to really pack the i730 full of useful software to make this baby a real powerhouse.
First of all, it will most likely ship with BlackBerry Connect for push-email support. Next, the Picsel Browser will provide an alternative to Internet Explorer, and also supports viewing all major file formats, such as PDF. Sprite Backup is also included, which lets you back up absolutely everything on the device to an SD card and encrypt it.
VoiceSignal software provides speaker-independent voice-dialing. It's fully integrated with the hardware, with a dedicated button on the side, and full support for voice-dialing via a Bluetooth headset.
Finally, Remote Control software is included to make use of the full-spectrum infrared (IR) port. Yes, the i730 can control your whole home-entertainment system:
The i730 is currently planned for launch around May or June, although as always, carrier testing and tweaking can cause delays.
Oh, and one more thing... although they couldn't make any official promises, the Samsung engineers I spoke with said the i730 was specifically designed to be forward-compatible with the the next version of Windows Mobile (Magneto), and pending carrier approval, (which is not guaranteed,) Samsung does plan to offer a software upgrade to that OS for the i730.
CES 2006
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