By Jo Best, 7 March 2006 12:15
NEWS
Samsung has taken the wraps off a mobile phone that boasts the biggest hard drive seen on such a device to date.
The 'candy bar' device, the SGH-i310, will pack in 8GB of storage and run Windows Mobile 5.0. Samsung is hoping the device, which can hold more songs than an iPod nano, will take off with music fans. As well as its large hard drive, the device will let users sync playlists from their PC or store documents, photos and other information in the phone's internal memory.
The i310 is the fourth of Samsung's hard drive phones - the device was preceded by one model packing 1.5GB of storage and two offering 3GB. For those needing more storage than the i310's hard drive can offer, the phone's memory can be expanded using micro SD external memory.
The SGH-i310 will pack in 8GB of storage.
The phone also packs Bluetooth, a two megapixel camera and USB 2.0. The i310 will officially get its debut at the CeBIT trade show this week and is expected to go on sale in European markets in the second half of this year.
While phone manufacturers have made no secret of their ambitions to steal a little of the iPod's portable music market share, recent research has cast doubt on consumers' attitudes to using their mobiles as music players.
According to a study by RBC Capital Markets, 70 per cent of consumers have no interest in playing music on their mobiles.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
"70% have no interest in having music on their phones?" The 30% that do probably have Ipods and love them. Maybe Ipod shoud put a phone in their players!
2. AlyceAnn Jula Aber
I am one of the 30% who DO want this! The 70% don't even know what they are missing! Why carry around multiple electronics when you can carry around one??
3. anonymous
?? 70% of ppl have got it wrong then! ?
i've been using pocket PC imate (cell phone) for 2years with a gig of music in this wee device and its been amazing! ONE DEVICE ? :+)
4. henry
Now my mobile phone is an MP3 player, a DC, a USB disk, aGPS device. I hope it can be a shaver in future!
5. Christian Donner
Why multiple devices? I have no interest in playing music on any portable device. The problem is, there hasn't been any music recorded in the last 5 years that would be worth listening to.
6. anonymous
Then don't buy one. Nobody's forcing you to buy a device that will play music if you don't want one. Move along....
7. Steve Johnson
the 30% that do is a HUGE market - easily big enough to make it worthwhile.
After all only 50% of us buy men's shoes (and of course 50% womens) -
Yes ok I have opened this up for puns but the maths work the phone makers will integrate these tools and later when many have been integrated the device will be 'something else' which will attract another market percentage