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Samsung takes a second stab at a dual-hinged phone

Samsung's SCH-U740 aims to best the previous SGH-D307.

Kent German Former senior managing editor / features
Kent was a senior managing editor at CNET News. A veteran of CNET since 2003, he reviewed the first iPhone and worked in both the London and San Francisco offices. When not working, he's planning his next vacation, walking his dog or watching planes land at the airport (yes, really).
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Kent German
Samsung SCH-U740 Samsung

After its previous attempt at a dual-hinged flip phone fizzled, Samsung tried again with its new SCH-U740. Similar to the D307, the U740 features a full QWERTY keyboard (thankfully with better navigation controls this time) and can switch from portrait to landscape mode to quickly compose text messages and e-mails. But unlike the D307, the U740 ditches silver for a unique black and champagne color scheme and this time, the carrier will be Verizon Wireless instead of Cingular.

Though it's not a real smart phone since it doesn't run a third-party operating system, it still should offer a set of worker bee-friendly features, including Bluetooth, a MicroSD card slot, a speakerphone, and EV-DO support for Verizon's V Cast multimedia service. And in an improvement over the D307, the U710 is set to offer a 1.4-megapixel camera with video recording and playback.