Samsung showcases dozen of phones at IFA 2008, wins by sheer numbers

Samsung took the opportunity to showcase some of its latest phones at the IFA 2008 consumer electronics show that's held annually in Berlin. Some of the devices are not yet officially announced, others have their official announcements, while still others are already available.

The huge list covers a dozen of handsets so be prepared as there is a lot of reading. The new Samsung handsets are the Samsung M3510 Beat, B2700, M200 and B210. The devices that have already been announced but are showcased for the first time are the dual SIM Samsung D980, S7330, P180, M150, and the B130. And finally, the showcased cellphones that are already available on the market are the Samsung E215, B510 and B300.

Let's start off with the new additions to the company portfolio. Although images and specs are yet scarce, we think we can shed some light on them.

Samsung M3510 Beat

The Samsung M3510 Beat is a slim music centric bar, that's already been rumored quite a lot. It's got a Bang&Olufsen ICEpower audio chip as well as dedicated music keys and a 3.5mm audio jack. A really novel feature in the Samsung portfolio is the Shake control that we've already seen in Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. The built-in accelerometer can also be used in other applications such as the image gallery.

Samsung M3510 Beat

The Samsung M3510 Beat also has quad-band GSM support, a 2-inch QVGA display and a 2 megapixel camera - all that's packed in a body that's only 9.9mm thick. A microSD memory card slot, stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) and FM radio with RDS are also on board.

Samsung B2700

The Samsung B2700 is the next new and interesting bar by Samsung that was showcased at the IFA 2008 even before an official announcement. It's a heavy duty phone with IP54 certification for dust and water splashes resistance - it's the same level of resistance as the one of Sonim XP1 that we reviewed recently. Currently, we don't know if the B2700 is also shock resistant.

Samsung B2700

The Samsung B2700 is a quad-band GSM device with UMTS support with video calls (thanks to the front-facing secondary camera). The B2700 also has a 1.8-inch TFT display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and a 2 megapixel fixed focus camera. Overall it's a really nice package that has some nice looks despite its ruggedized exterior.

Beside that toughened look, the Samsung B2700 also offers a digital compass, a digital altimeter, a step counter and a dedicated LED flashlight.

It so happens that we have a B2700 unit at our office and we are more than happy to give you several live shots of the device.

Samsung B2700

Samsung M200

The Samsung M200 is a lower-end quad-band bar-shaped device with a 1.3 megapixel camera and a TFT display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. Data transfers are secured by GPRS, EDGE and stereo Bluetooth. A microSD card and a FM radio with RDS are also on board.

Samsung M200

Samsung B210

Samsung B210 is the next lower-end candybar that was first presented at IFA 2008. The dual band B210 doesn't have a built-in camera and its 65K color display has a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels. FM radio is also present on board.

Samsung B210

Next up follow the Samsung handsets that have already been announced but the IFA 2008 is their first official public appearance. This group is led by the dual SIM Samsung D980, closely followed by S7330, M150 and the B130.

Samsung D980

The Samsung D980 reminds much of the Samsung F480 Tocco - it has the same form factor, full touchscreen display and intuitive TouchWiz (not to mention the 5 megapixel camera on the back). But the biggest selling point of the D980 will be its dual SIM functionality, which is so hard to find these days in the portfolios of renowned manufacturers such as Samsung.

Samsung D980

Unlike the F480, the Samsung D980 has a smaller 2.6-inch QVGA display (as compared to 2.8 inches) and it doesn't have UMTS functionality at all. The D980 supports microSD cards with up to 2GB of capacity only, which sounds rather lame. And finally, the D980 is good 5mm thicker than the F480. Still the dual SIM functionality may appeal to many people.

Speaking of the dualSIM functionality, it's got to be noted that the Samsung D980 sports tri-band support for both the SIM cards - unlike the Samsung D880, which had tri-band support for the first SIM and dual-band support for the second one.

Samsung S7330

The Samsung S7330 is a somewhat budget-minded U900 Soul twin. It's got a 2.2-inch 16M color TFT display and uses a touchpad for directional navigation throughout the interface. The S7330 slider has a 3 megapixel auto focus camera and UMTS support with HSDPA.

Samsung S7330

A microSD memory card slot, stereo Bluetooth and a FM radio add to the feature list. Luckily, we can show you several live shots pf the S7330 taken straight from our upcoming review.

Samsung S7330

Samsung P180

The Samsung P180 is an entry-level clamshell with VGA camera and 14MB of internal memory, and yet it's UMA-enabled, meaning it sports Wi-Fi to allow making calls via the Internet as well. Our guess is that the Wi-Fi functionality won't be available for web browsing, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Samsung P180

Besides that the tri-band P180 supports EDGE for data transfers and has an external display with a resolution of 64 x 64 pixels.

Samsung M150

The Samsung M150 is another handset that has already been announced. It sports a 12.7mm thick bar-shaped design and has a 256K color 1.77-inch display with a 128 x 160 pixel resolution.

Samsung M150

The low end device doesn't have a memory card slot, but it has Bluetooth and a VGA camera.

Samsung B130

The Samsung B130 is a mate of the low-end B100, which is already available. It has the same dimensions and design but is some 10 g lighter. It also has smaller internal memory of 400KB, and a smaller battery of 750 mAh.

Samsung B130

The Samsung B130 should also be available in several new colors such as white, red and grey but there is still no Bluetooth or FM radio.

And now finally, we move to the group of handset that not only have been showcased at the IFA 2008, but they are also already available on the market.

Samsung E215

First off it's the Samsung E215, which is already available in some regions - it's a low-end clamshell that uses the attractive design of the Samsung E215. It's got quad-band GSM support and has a VGA camera.

Samsung E215

The main display of the E215 is a 65K TFT one with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels. The external display is a lot smaller with a resolution of 64 x 64 pixels. The E215 also has a microSD memory card slot and a FM radio.

Samsung B510

The Samsung B510 is an unassuming slider that comes in several colors. Otherwise it's pretty much low end as most of the presented cellphones. It's got a 1.77-inch CSTN display with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels.

Samsung B510

The Samsung B510 doesn't have a camera or a memory card slot and there are 4MB of internal memory. Still, Bluetooth and FM radio are available.

Samsung B300

The Samsung B300 is a low-end clamshell without an external display. It's already available in several colors and it has a 1.52-inch 65K color CSTN display with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels. The B300 has only has 2MB of internal memory but a microSD memory card slot would allow to expand it. The FM radio and the MP3 music player complete the feature list.

Samsung B300

Well, that's about all the handset presented by Samsung at the IFA 2008 expo in Berlin. We enjoyed this article as some of the handset are new to us too and we hope to see more of them in the close future.

Aditional image source: GSM HelpDesk