Samsung's SGH-i600: an HSDPA and WiFi Smartphone at last

by Thomas Ricker posted Sep 5th 2006 at 9:26AM

Sure, you like the Motorola Q but hate the fact that it's missing WiFi. And the lack of 3G on the HTC Excalibur is also a deal breaker. Well, look no further for your QWERTY fix brother, 'cause our favorite maker of boxy black devices is showing off their SGH-i600 Smartphone at IFA in Berlin. This tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 baby brings it all: HSDPA, EDGE, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel cam with another up front for video calls, a 2.3-inch, 65k color, 320 x 240 TFT display, Microsoft's Push Mail, and 128MB ROM / 64MB RAM with MicroSD expansion all powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone on a TI OMAP 1710 processor. The phone looks small enough for single-handed operation, can pull double-duty as an HSDPA modem and can even be switched into USB mass storage mode for easy drag-n-drop data transfer off your PC. And yeah, it's FCC approved so the estimated Q4 2006 release date is certainly do-able. Now sop-up the drool and click-on for more pics.

[Thanks, Martin]

Filed under: Handsets, Samsung, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS

Tags: excalibur, hsdpa, HTC excalibur, HtcExcalibur, motorola Q, MotorolaQ, Q, samsung, sgh-i600, smartphone, wifi, windows mobile 5.0, WindowsMobile5.0, winmo 5, Winmo5

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Tyler @ Sep 5th 2006 9:50AM

Looking for a mobile phone with serious PDA features, but don't want to hold a Pocket PC Phone Edition to your ear? For phone-centric users who need a phone first and a PDA second, Microsoft Smartphones make a great deal of sense. They're no larger than the average cell phone, feature one-handed operation, have standard phone creature comforts yet can sync easily with your desktop and offer slimmed-down versions of standard Pocket PC built-in applications. MS Smartphones do not have touch screens, nor can they run Pocket PC software. Instead you'll use buttons on the keypad to navigate the phone's apps and controls, and you'll need to get MS Smartphone versions of 3rd party apps if you wish to add software to the phone. Both Pocket PCs and MS Smartphones are part of the Windows Mobile OS family, and you will likely feel at home with an MS Smartphone if you're comfy with Pocket PCs.

Neutral

Geir @ Sep 6th 2006 10:37AM

Looks like a nice phone, but why tri-band --that is a deal breaker for me. I also have concerns over the relatively small screen.

Tyler, use a Pocket PC Phone Edition with a [bluetooth] headset instead of holding it to the ear. :-)

Neutral

Eric Chan @ Sep 5th 2006 1:12PM

Does this thing has 3G. I mean UMTS 3G. The author seem to have implicated it with the comment about the Excalibur but it doesn't show anywhere that it is UMTS.

I think I will appericate the smaller width compared to my E61 but Windows Mobile... yuck

Neutral

adam @ Sep 5th 2006 1:58PM

eric, yes it does have 3g. he does not mention umts, but hsdpa was listed in the specs, and hsdpa is the next generation of umts, heres an sat style analogy :)

EDGE is to GPRS as HSDPA is to UMTS (3.5 vs. 3 and 2.5 v 2)

Neutral

aaron @ Sep 5th 2006 4:20PM

is this phone thicker than the i320?

I guess now we know why the i320 wasn't released in the US.

Neutral

Andrei Zimiles @ Sep 5th 2006 4:53PM

I found some more info on this badboy-http://www.handcellphone.com/archives/samsung-sgh-i600-cellular-phone-kick-blackberry-pda-butts

Looks like it is actually Quad Band and will be almost as thin as the "Q".

Neutral

ElectroGeek @ Sep 5th 2006 5:56PM

If it actually is a quadband that would be a big plus! I currently own the Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) and it's a thick pig. Good phone/Pocket PC but thick. I would love to find a device with all the features of the 8125 and WM5 but in a thinner form factor such as this.

Neutral

Howard @ Sep 6th 2006 1:43AM

The link in post 5 doesn't mention quad-band (which would be adding 850MHz).

And what is up with the phone keypad? They are spaced 2 columns apart.

Neutral

crispeto @ Sep 5th 2006 10:52PM

So will I be able to use this with my Tmo account here in the US?

Neutral

Houdini @ Sep 5th 2006 9:50PM

Samsung sucks! They design awesome phones like this one (and the i320) but they're only TRI-BAND. Get with the program Samsung. Quad band please! This phone would be perfect for my needs except that without 850 MHz, it won't even work in my house and many other places in Toronto.... one day maybe.......

Neutral

Nizam Rahman @ Sep 5th 2006 11:10PM

Houdini rather than labelling Samsung, who makes phones for the Korean market first, Asian second, and the rest of the world third, sucks, why not you tell your carrier to get with the program and use the damn GSM band proper.

/rant done

Back to the phone, damn it is one awesome phone. If it does have 3G UMTS, then I'm definitely gonna get one. WinMo5? WiFi? 3G? QWERTY? Better looking design than the Motorola Q? How can you go wrong?

Neutral

Rob Knight @ Sep 6th 2006 5:30AM

Looking at the specs on another site, this only appears to support 2100 Mhz UMTS (and therefore HSDPA). Since the US uses 1900 and 850 Mhz bands, then no 3G or HSDPA will be possible if this device is used in the US?

Neutral

dstrauss @ Sep 6th 2006 10:03AM

#10 - you push the two adjacent keys to get the number press for dialing. The original i320 design had little blue squares drawn around the two adjacent keys so you could see this better. It gives you a bigger "target" for dialing.

That said, WHAT IN HEAVENS NAME IS WRONG WITH THESE GREAT GSM PHONE DESIGNERS NOT INCORPORATING 850mhz? Phones like this could blow away the US market save for the missing phone bands. You could use an unlocked version on Cingular, T-Mobile, and smaller local GSM carriers.

WAKE UP OUT THERE!

Neutral

mo @ Sep 7th 2006 4:15AM

Still looks like a calculator I used in the 5th grade. But it's the right size and has the right specs and I'm imagining that it looks sexier in person.

Neutral

a-bomb @ Sep 7th 2006 9:52AM

So GSM or no GSM, is this phone def. being released in the US?

Neutral

Angelo Pedinotti @ Sep 21st 2006 1:46PM

When it can be on the European market ??

Neutral

thebill @ Dec 4th 2006 2:19PM

Does this thing have touch screen or not?

Neutral

misfit @ Jul 11th 2007 2:04AM

anybody knows HOW TO USE THIS PHONE AS A MODEM? so that i can connect my PC to the internet?

my pc's network places will register a windows mobile based network but i cant get it to work with 3g connection and access the net.

Neutral

misfit @ Jul 11th 2007 2:14AM

basically how to set the PC and i600 so that the PC will use the phone as a modem and connect to the internet. Active sync will only synchronize data.. it wont establish connection and i seem not to see any application in the driver CD that will.,

thanks.

Neutral

misfit @ Jul 11th 2007 2:10AM

Neutral

nv @ Nov 15th 2007 9:01AM

i want a samsung mobile witha largr handwriting

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