Will Two Sided Be Enough To UpStage The iPhone?
04.25.07 - 12:05pm
With the iPhone soon to be live onstage, cell phone makers are scrambling to come up with products that will rival their competitor, and Samsung has devised an all-in-one wireless device that gives two-sided uniqueness.
Samsung is labeling it the UpStage perhaps in the hopes that it will upstage the iPhone - whether it will or not we will have to wait and see. What we do know is that the UpStage does have some very cool aspects to its two faced design.
Weighing in at just 2.57 ounces, with 1.73 inches in width, 4.07 inches in height and 0.37 inches in thickness the phone has a small sleek design. It also comes with a faux-leather carrying case with a built-in second battery. This makes the phone’s initially good 2.5 hours of talk time jump up to 6.3 hours.
Two sided makes this phone very unique - the way it works is one side has a 2.1-inch TFT display that features a touch screen and works the MP3 music player while the other side has a 1.4-inch TFT display that works the phone.
With the MP3 player you are linked to an internal microSC card slot. You can plug in stereo headphones into the 3.5mm jack and you can download music files directly from the Sprint Music Store, or watch Sprint TV, On Demand content, and stream music from Sirius, VH1, MTV and Sprint Internet radio stations.
The phone has advanced stereo Bluetooth, a 1.3-MP camera with a 5x zoom, SMS voice, Text messaging, PictBridge, enhanced voice recognition, speech dictation and voice memo capabilities.
To change from the phone to the MP3 player you simply press a small FLIP button on the side panel. Battery life is saved by the display on one side turning off when you turn on the other.
Whether or not these features will be enough to sway customers from the iPhone has yet to be determined, but one thing that will attract many is the price. The Samsung UpStage is available for $149 with a two year service agreement along with a $50 credit for new activations if you purchase the phone on Sprint’s website.
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