Samsung's new SCH-A790 sports both CDMA and GSM radios for roaming to nearly any country in the world, although its home turf is Verizon in the US.

Samsung has announced the release of its first dual-network phone, the CDMA/GSM SCH-A790, complete with color screen, camera, and other standard features.

The clamshell-designed SCH-A790 measures 86.3 x 50.8 x 25.4 mm and weighs in at 119 grams, a bit heavy for a phone. Its main feature, of course, is that it runs a dual-band CDMA 800/1900 MHz radio for use in the US as well as a dual-band GSM 900/1800 MHz radio for use in Europe, Africa, the Pacific, and the Mid-East. Verizon Wireless has partnered with Vodafone to provide international GSM coverage. Data service is via CDMA 1xRTT in the US.

Other features of the phone include a built-in camera with support for digital zoom and MMS (within the US only). The phone offers a 260,000-color internal TFT display as well as an external 16-bit color TFT display for picture caller ID. Besides MMS it also supports SMS and EMS messages as well as speaker-independent voice recognition for voice dialing. It also supports Verizon's Get It Now service for downloadable games, ringtones, and themes. The phone includes 10 MB of RAM to support all of those downloads as well.

The included Lithium Ion battery is rated for 2.9 hours talk time and 141 hours standby when using CDMA, or 4.7 hours talk time and 145 hours standby when using GSM. An extended battery is also included for longer talk times.

The roaming ability will not come cheap, however. Most calls outside the US will cost $1.29 USD per minute. Sending an SMS message will cost $0.50 USD, while receiving one will cost $0.05 USD. Calls and messags placed from within the US will be billed at the same rate as any other phone, depending on the service plan.

The SCH-A790 will be available in September from Verizon Wireless for $349.99 USD with service agreement.


Source : InfoSyncWorld