Samsung i900 sneak peek

Samsung has been hinting to us that a hot new release has been waiting in the wings, perhaps to be announced at Communicasia 2008 in the middle of June. While the rest of us had been left guessing, our friends at CNET Asia managed to get a bit of face-time with this sexy new model.

All that glitters...
With its shiny stainless steel finish, the i900 sure looks the part of a top-shelf PDA-phone. Its minimalist design will no doubt spur on comparisons to other popular touchscreen phones.

Screen-test
The i900 will apparently feature a 240x400 resolution display and a new custom interface, which Samsung is keeping tightly under wraps. It's not obvious from this picture but the i900 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1.

Hectic haptic
The CNET Asia team had a chance to use the on-screen keyboard with haptic feedback — where the phone vibrates to register a touchscreen command. Their impression was that it made the on-screen keyboard feel more like a mechanical keypad.

Sideways
Side-on the i900 looks pleasingly slim and not likely to stretch your jeans pockets too far.

Dodge this
We can clearly see the i900 is packing a heavyweight 5-megapixel shooter, with a flash and auto-focus.

Play it again
The battery cover of the i900 appears to be a glossy piano black; however, the texturing should keep it relatively free from fingerprints.

Sexy specs
Samsung has packed 16GB of storage into the i900, an FM radio tuner, and for those of us who prefer mechanical input over touchscreens, the i900 also has the same optical trackpad Samsung employed on the i780 recently.

Phone face-off
Side-by-side the i900 seems smaller than the iPhone and the display noticeably duller. Hopefully, Samsung's custom interface can match the iPhone — the phone which proved that interface is king.

Keeps going and going
Battery life will also be a major point of comparison. The iPhone's battery life is currently challenged only by BlackBerrys, but then both phones are yet to be released with HSDPA models.

Watch the waistlines
Perhaps it's our eyes but the i900 looks to be slightly chunkier than the iPhone, but not by much.