Europhone Smartphone

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://europhoneusa.com/Newseurophone.htm' target='_blank'>http://europhoneusa.com/Newseurophone.htm</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Phone-Products-SG4000.gif" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/><br /><br />"ICT Technologies, Inc. (Symbol: ICTT) and EurophoneUSA, Inc., strategic partners of Uroa Tech, a leading research, development, and design group in Korea, are announcing the introduction of several new cellular phones. Since October 2003, Uroa Tech has been working on a series of GSM, CDMA, and TDMA cellular phones to be introduced into the worldwide marketplace by ICT Technologies, Inc. and EurophoneUSA, Inc. during the first and second fiscal quarters of 2004. Won June Lee, Chief Marketing Officer of Uroa Tech stated, "We are excited to be a part of these new product launches. We believe that our partnership with ICT Technologies, Inc. and EurophoneUSA, Inc. shall yield products and ideas that shall redefine the phrase 'capture the imagination.'" <br /><br />ICT Technologies, Inc. shall begin its introduction and delivery of these high-end cellular phones in Europe, during the 1Q fiscal year 2004, with the EG 3600, dubbed "Elegance," a Tri-band GSM/GPRS phone. Also to be introduced and delivered in the same quarter in Europe is "Hermes," or EG 4200, an ultra light GSM/GPRS camera phone with a 260,000-color TFT LCD display. "Hermes" shall be available in two Tri-band configurations (Europe: 900/1800/1900 &amp; America: 850/1800/1900) culminating in a Quad-band configuration (850/900/1800/1900) for worldwide ease of use. ICT Technologies, Inc. also announced that its intended product launch and delivery during the 2Q fiscal year of 2004 shall begin with the EG 4000, dubbed "Remo." The "Remo" is a lightweight, Quad-band, GSM/GPRS, sliding smart phone with a 1.3-mega-pixel resolution camera and built-in flash and many additional features that shall be announced in the near future. "It shall be perfect for people who want more features in a smaller and lighter handset... We are excited to be introducing and delivering these high-end phones to the marketplace and we are equally excited in our partnership with Uroa Tech, which I believe will continuously yield superior products to the worldwide marketplace," said Joshua Shainberg, President of ICT Technologies, Inc."<br /><br />Now this looks like an interesting device! It has the slide-out keypad, which I've seen in concept before, but never on a shipping phone (keeping in mind that where I live, interesting phones aren't very common). This looks like an aggressive phone in terms of hardware features - MPEG4, integrated TV tuner (perhaps?), and a 1.3 megapixel camera with a flash. Impressive! What's not so impressive is that there's no metion of Bluetooth or even an SD slot (which seems like an error). Anyone know anything more about this phone?

[Mike Temporale]

Your local Rogers isn't carrying the Siemens phone with a slide out keypad? Here's what we're seeing all over the place here. They sure are pushing it hard.

http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wireless/content/phones/Phone_Details.asp?name=Siemens%20SL56&number=59

Back to this new smartphone...

I'm sure they just left out the SD card. Where would the camera pictures be stored otherwise? What concerns me is that the camera has a flash. That should really drain the battery FAST!

I find it interesting that it says the OS is "Smart phone 2003" and not "Windows Mobile 2003".

All things considered, this is one cool looking phone.

[freitasm]

Outside the North American market there are some "sliders". Kyocera has one that is only a few cm long, pretty funky, but it's only a CDMA mobile phone - nothing special:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/images/news/kyocerase47.jpg (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=1788)

What about this one in the posting? Is it Windows Mobile?

[Janak Parekh]

Outside the North American market there are some "sliders". Kyocera has one that is only a few cm long, pretty funky, but it's only a CDMA mobile phone - nothing special:
Actually, Virgin Mobile sells that phone in the US (http://www.virginmobileusa.com/catalog/phoneDetail.do?skuId=VMSE47KYKITMTN). ;)

--janak

[Arne Hess]

For any reason it reminds me pretty strong on a mix between the Siemens S55 and SL55:
http://www.mobil.ru/content/news/869/img_med.jpg
IMHO it seems to be a vaporware as long as I haven't seen it anywhere announced beside on some PowerPoint slides...

Also it misses the typical Smartphone keys like Home and Back.

BTW: The slider concept is a pretty old one and were introduced anytime in the last century ;-) by Siemens also with their SL10 (which already included a 4 color screen :lol:):
http://www.asiapacific.com.my/kts/sl10-siemens.gif

[TANKERx]

Not forgetting the Nokia 7650 smart phone

[encece]

Is it me or is every site that mentions this phone not seeing that it probably isn't a Microsift Smartphone.

The screen is not of the MS OS.
There is no SD Card mentioned.
The button configuration is wrong.
the specs dont even metion the PIM functionality or anything related to the Smartphone OS.

It's a nice phone....and may be a Smart Phone....but I dont think it's a Smartphone.

[rbrome]

I think some people have been jumping to conclusions about this phone. I don't see "Microsoft" mentioned anywhere, and "Smart phone 2003 O/S" is ambiguous at best.

As others have mentioned, the buttons are wrong for Windows Mobile, and the OS shown on the display is actually Linux. It's the exact same interface and OS as the Motorola A760 Linux phone sold in China. Here's a photo of an A760 for comparison:

http://www.phonescoop.com/img/misc/a760_shot.jpg

...which is kind of a sweet OS, by the way, but it's pen-driven, and has nothing to do with Microsoft Windows Mobile.

[possmann]

Cool looking phone - but until I see the press release mention something like "running the Microsoft Smartphone OS 2003" it's just another marketing ploy. Seems like everyone is developing and releasing a "smart phone".

I'll wait for the motorola :wink:

and don't even get me started on why Europe always gets the cool gadgets first... :really mad:

[Macguy59]

and don't even get me started on why Europe always gets the cool gadgets first... :really mad:

This is incredibly frustrating

[Jason Dunn]

Indeed, you could very well be right - "smartphone" is a generic term, so it's very possible this will be running a custom OS.

Quite often I wish Microsoft had chosen a different name for this product. :roll:

[Joff]

Oops, I jumped to the wrong conlusion :oops:
The display does not look like anyhting like an MS smartphone.

Looks like you are right guys

[mores]

Quite often I wish Microsoft had chosen a different name for this product. :roll:like "pocketpc" and "smartphone" ?
that's funny. it happened twice in a row.

the screenshot vs operating system thing reminds me of an article in some german mobile magazine, where they printed a picture of a ms smartphone, but with symbian operating system (UIQ, same as p800/p900)