Samsung plans 8GB HDD cell phone

Samsung Electronics will launch a Windows Mobile-based cell phone that packs an 8GB hard-disk drive, hitting European markets in the second half of 2006, the company said Monday.

The SGH-i310 is a candy-bar form factor handset (long and straight) that looks similar to the i300 hard-disk drive phone launched by Samsung last year. That phone was centered around mobile music and the new handset also includes a music player in addition to dual speakers, an amplifier, and Bluetooth stereo link. The music player supports the MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and Ogg music file formats.

Other features include a 2-megapixel digital camera, Bluetooth printing, and a video output connector.

The phone is Samsung’s fourth model to include a hard-disk drive. The company was the first in the world to show a cell phone with embedded hard-disk drive when it unveiled the SPH-V5400 clam-shell model in September 2004. That phone had a 1.5GB hard-disk drive and was followed by two additional handsets, the SPH-V7900 and SGH-i300, that each had 3GB hard-disk drives.

The number of cell phones using hard-disk drives is expected to climb over the next few years as more handsets pack functions that require a large storage capacity.

Cornice, a U.S.-based maker of 1-inch drives that are used in portable music players and cell phones, expects the cell phone disk drive market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 325 percent between 2004 and 2009.

It expects about 72 million cell phones with embedded drives will be shipped in 2009 out of a global total of around 1 billion handsets. At that level the cell phone market would be larger than the personal storage and portable audio player markets, which Cornice expects will stand at 10 million and 43 million shipments, respectively, in 2009.

Samsung plans to unveil the new phone later this week at the Cebit show that begins Thursday in Hanover, Germany. No pricing for the handset was announced.

The phone is compatible with the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) technologies and runs the Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone operating system. It measures 112 millimeters by 48 mm by 20 mm and weighs 120 grams.