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As more consumers demand a bigger screen and as carriers push sport on 3G handsets Samsung has chosen to try and grab market share by introducing a new video phone with DivX code capability.
Samsung Electronics plans to release a mobile handset in January that is designed for watching video and supports the DivX video codec.
Both the high-end and video-ready Ultra Video F500 and the Ultra Audio F300 handset, which also plays some video formats, are being shown at the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecom World 2006 exhibition and conference being held this week in Hong Kong.
Information on where Samsung will sell the handsets was not immediately available.
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The Ultra Video F500 is a candy bar-shaped handset with a TFT LCD screen that offers 262,000 colors and resolution of 240 pixels by 320 pixels. The screen can also swivel, allowing users to find the optimal screen angle for watching video in one of several formats: DivX, MPEG4, H.264, and Windows Media Video.
Samsung claims the US$350 phone is the first to support DivX, a video codec based on MPEG4 that allows a DVD to be compressed to a much smaller size, allowing longer videos to be downloaded more easily.
Along with video, the Ultra Video F500 handset supports several digital music formats–MP3, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), AAC+, e-AAC+, and Windows Media Audio (WMA). AAC is the file format used with Apple’s iTunes music download service.
In addition to playing a range of music file formats, the Ultra Video can be used with music download services that support WMA digital rights management (DRM) and Microsoft’s Media Transfer Protocol. Other features include a microSD slot for a removable Secure Digital memory card, support for Bluetooth version 2.0, and a 2-megapixel digital camera.
Although the handset is on display at Telecom World, it is not switched on and visitors are not able to test its features.
Ultra Audio F300 Specs
Samsung also showed off its upcoming Ultra Audio F300 handset, which will hit the market in January, priced at $250. Shaped like a candy bar, the Ultra Audio does not support third generation (3G) networks and has a slightly smaller screen than the Ultra Video. The Ultra Audio’s screen measures 2.1 inches across the diagonal.
Ultra Audio F300 supports the same audio file formats as the Ultra Video. It can also play back MPEG4 and H.263 video files.
