Filed under: Laptops

PCMag got their hands on the top dog in Averatec’s “ultra portable” – although at 4.2-pounds and 1.43-inches thick, we would classify it as more of a thin-and-light – 2200 series, and the verdict seems to be a resounding “meh”. The AV2260-EK1 sports some solid specs, like a built-in DVD burner, 1GB of RAM, 80GB of storage and a 12.1-inch WXGA screen with Averabrite, but the AMD Turion 64 MT-32 can’t keep up with most of the new Core Duo machines and dropped battery life to a pitiful 1 hour 42 minutes with the included cell. You can add an extended life battery for an extra $100, but that puts a hurt on the $1079.99 retail price, bumping it to about the same level as the thinner, faster Macbook or Dell’s shiny M1210. All that plus a “cramped” keyboard lead us to believe we should keep scrimping and saving until we have enough for something truly ultra-portable.

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Filed under: Handsets, Others, Vodafone, GSM

9.9mm might not be close to breaking any records these days, but Toshiba’s TS30 candybar is thin enough to confortably slip into pretty much any nook or cranny you had in mind. With a QVGA display (quickly becoming par for the course in Europe and Asia), music player, MicroSD slot, and FM radio, SmarTone-Vodafone customers in Hong Kong shouldn’t find much missing when the phone hits for HK$1680 (about $215) unsubsidized. Rumor has it the tri-band GSM TS30 will eventually find its way to Taiwan and Europe, though possibly under a different moniker — but per protocol, no US launch plans are in the works.

[Via MobileBurn]

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Filed under: Cellphones

If the true measure of a company was the thickness of its products, Samsung would have a lock on the title. Besides the “world’s thinnest phone” – the SGH-X820 that you can virtually hide by turning it on its side — our South Korean friends are rocking the “world’s thinnest slider” as well in the SGH-D900. Apparently, the FCC is cool with that, as they’ve just given the thumbs-up for the D900 stateside. The phone manages to pack in some reasonable specs despite its size, bringing a QVGA display, 3.13 megapixel camera, A2DP, 80MB flash, and MicroSD expansion to the table. Most importantly for our US readers, this is a quad-band EDGE phone, meaning there might be some actual weight to the FCC grant for a change of pace.

[Via Unwired View]

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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola

What’s a lazy Friday afternoon without a bit of completely unsubstantiated rumor mongering? Sure, it’s possible that Ed Zander himself wrote this SCPL mockup on a napkin over a recent lunch, but we’re thinking it more likely the doings of a fanboy with too much time on his hands. Anyways, the specs are as set above: 0.2-inches thick (compared to the 0.27-inch chubster X820 from Samsung),QVGA display, 512MB flash memory, microSD slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM radio (pushing it), Bluetooth 2.0 and a titanium-alloy build. We’d be pretty happy with about half of that, but we’re sure this won’t be the last savory rumor to drool over before we find out for reals.

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Filed under: Handsets, LG, GSM, GPRS

The folks at LG are no stranger to slim phones, and they look to have a winner with their new KG320. Beyond the 0.39-inch thick form factor (the same as Samsung’s recently launched T509) the LG phone features a 2.2 megapixel camera, 176 x 200 pixel screen, Bluetooth and a whole 128MB of memory. Playback isn’t bad neither, with support for MPEG4, MP3 and AAC files. It’s just a tri-band GSM unit, but the phone is headed for Europe in addition to the usual Asian targets, so here’s hoping for a US launch.

[Via MobileKorea.TV]

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Filed under: Handsets, Pantech, Verizon Wireless, CDMA

Forgoing the traditional methods of actually announcing their products, Pantech is content to let the FCC do their PR for them, with the latest example being the PN-320 clamshell. It's not going for the world record or anything, but the 0.9-inch thick PN-320 is still fairly slim for a flip phone, and it's not too hard on the eyes neither. Otherwise, the CDMA phone is pretty lame, with a mere VGA camera and 262k color LCD, ala its PN-315 sibling. There's no branding visible, but the phone looks to be headed for Verizon like the PN-315, thanks to some Verizon-specific wording in the manual. We just hope Verizon users can contain themselves for joy, and the FCC is getting reimbursed somehow.

[Via phoneArena]

Filed under: Handsets, Samsung, T-Mobile, GSM, GPRS, EDGE

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia

Nokia has been gaining a bit of a reputation for being on the chubby side of the thin phone wars. So the 14-mm slim, 6126 flip which the FCC just approved, still passes for thin these days in the Nokia camp of plumpsters. Other than the 32MB flash and 16MB RAM we now know this thing packs, the filing doesn't tell us more than we already knew: quad-band GSM/EDGE, a 2.2-inch, 320 x 240 external display, 1.3 megapixel cam, and microSD slot for storage expansion. Worth the wait we guess, if you're a Symbian Series 40 fan.

Filed under: Storage

We've seen plenty enough units claiming to be the "world's ____ flash drive," and while we think most of the size awards can safely go to the iDisk Diamond, it's hard to begrudge the title of "world's thinnest flash drive" to a 3mm thick unit that features a whopping 16GB of storage. The new U510 from PQI in Taiwan takes its credit card form factor seriously at 3.3 x 2.12 x 0.1 inches, and the USB 2.0 device features a thin retractable USB jack. No word on pricing or availability, but we're guessing it's not going to be cheap.

[Via New Launches]

Filed under: Handsets, Samsung

Samsung just knocked a couple more phone models outta bed to show-off their new SCH-V890/SPH-V8900 cellphone. This slider measures in at 13.8-mm and 85-grams and features a 2.12-inch, 240 x 320, 262K color TFT LCD, Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel shooter, MP3 player and that Nate Drive service popular in South Korea. We're not sure, but we'll bet you can even hold it up real close to your pie-hole for making calls. At least it better for that roughly $525 US equiv.

[via Akihabara News]

Filed under: Handsets, Reviews, Samsung, GSM, GPRS, EDGE

We’d generally expect that you’re going to give up some functionality, usability, or both when attempting to cram a phone’s worth of electronic wizardry into a 6.9mm-thick package. In testing Samsung’s X820, though, phoneArena found otherwise — not only is the phone’s screen surprisingly bright (though impossible to read in direct sunlight) and the speakerphone loud and clear, but the keypad apparently provides some solid tactile feedback, too. Menus lagged a bit during normal operation, but frankly, we’ve experienced the same phenomenon in much thicker phones, so we can’t much fault the X820 for that; now if they’d only throw in a little GSM 850 action, we might be willing to give this thing a ringing endorsement ourselves.

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Filed under: Handsets, Others, CDMA

As a phone manufacturer, it could be argued that one of the first steps you’d better take to get yourself out from under the financial gun is to release some quality products. That’s exactly what VK Mobile looks to be doing here — or trying to do, anyway — in offering the VK-X200 for Korea’s SK Telecom. The smart-looking X200 clocks in at 9.9mm, slim by all but the most extreme standards, and apparently rocks a 2-megapixel cam and media player. Good luck to ya, VK; we hope this thing sells like hotcakes.

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

We’re always willing to sacrifice a couple millimeters to add 3G data to our handset, particularly when said handset clocks in at a positively anorexic 6.9mm thick. Samsung’s hoping its European customers agree, taking their paper-thin X820, adding UMTS, and rechristening it the SGH-Z370. Besides the addition of some wicked fast data, the Z370 throws in a microSD slot for good measure, all while adding a mere 1.5mm to the thickness of the phone — that still leaves it a good 2.6mm thinner than a SLVR, for the record. We don’t expect the Z370 to come in an American flavor, but for what it’s worth, it did just hop the FCC fence this week.

[Thanks, TC]

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Filed under: Handsets, Others, GSM, GPRS

There are slimmer phones on the market, sure, but the 7.7 millimeter, Asia-only Smart S100 has that poorly-faked-iPod look that Samsung simply doesn’t have anywhere in their product lineup. With the exception of the unfortunate dual-band 900 / 1800 GSM radio with nothing more than GPRS to feed it data, the phone’s specs aren’t half bad, with a 160 x 128 OLED display, 2-megapixel cam, and that Nokia 3650-style circular keypad we all love (or love to hate). Without even a single US-friendly GSM band, we think we’ve probably spent too much time on this thing already, but it’s fascinating to know that a no-name phone can beat virtually every major manufacturer in the slimphone game.

[Via Slashphone]

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