Slashdot Mirror
Samsung's UpStage Looks To Trump iPhone
bj sends word of Samsung's recently unveiled cell phone, called UpStage. It will ship April 1 (no fooling) for $300, or $150 with a 2-year contract from Sprint Nextel. "...the UpStage is a candy-bar style handset that's less than half an inch thick and not much taller or wider than an iPod Nano. Other multimedia-friendly cell phones struggle to balance the sometimes-conflicting requirements of a conventional handset and a music or video player; the UpStage solves this quandary by simply putting phone functions on one side of the device and the multimedia functions on the other side."
It has a smaller screen, and what sounds like (to me) a more confusing UI that will really get fingerprints and palm prints on the device since you are always turning it over in your hands... And it has its own software for sync. Chances that is better than iTunes?
Also, as you get into pure touchscreen devices (which the media side of this is) then the in-phone UI is crucial, and Apple has shown they can do a good job with consumer UI in small devices.
Now what does sound like a kind of good idea, is the battery pouch where it recharges its smaller battery. That is an interesting ide to keep the device size down while keeping battery life good and shifting some weight to your hip where it an be borne easier.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is a solution, but I wouldn't say it's the solution. I currently have a PDA-phone and though the touchscreen is nice for the PDA aspects, having to use it for dialing is a pain. Having to a) look at the screen and b) use two hands to do almost everything (as opposed to dialing single-handed and without looking on a normal handset, for example) is a pain. I'm glad cell phone makers are not all on-board with the touchscreen thing because I still think there keypads make for far superior phones. If I didn't have a phone provided through work (hence the lame PDA-phone), I'd possibly consider one of these things.
Did you catch the part where the lady from Samsung is showing how you can flip the phone - one side for PDA / playing music and the other for making calls? The Gizmondo guy asks "There's no way to get both, right?", to which she replies "No, you wouldn't want them both.". Oh, really? So if I'm in the middle of a phone call and want to lookup a piece of information, or take down a piece of information, or do something as terribly extreme as using a calculator app, then I'm out of luck? I just love the way these marketing people dictate what people are supposed to want. Instead of saying "No, there is a technical limitation" or "We just couldn't get that flexibility into the first generation" she responds with something more along the line of "People smarter than you decided this is how you are going to use this phone".
Sorry, that just really jumped out at me.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.