Samsung i8510 Cell Phone is the Nokia N96 Cell Phone Killer

If you think Nokia’s upcoming N96 would shake the cell phone arena with its various multimedia and professional features, you should take a look at Samsung’s newly announced i8510. This handset offers the following awesome features:

• 8 megapixel auto focus camera with dual LED flash. Camera functions / modes include Smart Reader, Image Stabilizer, Auto-Panor ama Shot, Smile Shot, Blink Shot, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), and Face Detection. The camera can also capture video at VGA (30 frames per second) and QVGA (120 frames per second) resolutions. On board software for editing images and videos (Movie Maker and Storyboard applications) are available.
• Dimensions: 106.5 x 53.9 x 17.2 mm.
• 2.8 inch, QVGA screen with 16 million colours.
• Integrated GP S with support for A-GPS.
• Integrated accelerometer sensor used for automatic screen rotation.
• Optical sensor, taking the form of a touch pad (as on laptops) like control in the centre of the D-pad.
• 16GB of internal flash memory and a microSD card slot support cards up to 16GB in size (SDHC).
• Support for HSDPA at 7.2 bps (3.5G) connectivity on 900 and 2100 Mhz WCDMA bands, quad band GSM, Bluetooth 2.0 (including A2DP support), WiFi and USB 2 (Full-speed). WiFi will enable DNLA (UPnP) support for audio and video.
• 3.5 mm audio jack, support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA (including DRM), AMR and RealAudio audio formats, stereo FM radio (with RDS) and DNSe audio technology. Digital Natural Sound engine (DNSe) is an audio enhancement technology used across a portfolio of Samsung products and helps to produce higher quality surround sound.
• Video playback formats: DivX, H.263, H.264, WMV, and MP4.
• Runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2.
• Will ship with 2 embedded games: FIFA 08 (EA) and Asphalt (Gameloft).
• Battery: 1200 mAH with quoted talk time of up to 300/510 min (3G/2.5G) and stand-by time up to 330 / 310 hrs (3G/2.5G).
• The phone will be released in Europe during August and in the rest of the world during September.

Just compare i8510’s 1200 mAH battery with N96’s 950 one and you’ll notice the difference. Also, the Samsung handset – which is called INNOV8 – has an 8MP camera compared with the 5MP camera of Nokia smartphones including that of the N96. To be honest, it’s the first time I can’t find Nokia at the very forefront of high-end smartphones, but I’m sure Nokia will come up with something soon. Moreover, the manufacturing of such non-Nokia handsets is good for the S60 platform as this phenomenon will convince more developers and users to gravitate toward the OS. Last but not least, it would be interesting to see how the I8510 and the N96 will compete on the market. Both are to reach customers in August/September so stay tuned for a good number of hands-on reviews.