Samsung MITs M330 Smartphone Announced in Korea

Posted By: Ed Tuesday, September 17, 2002 2:36:28 PM

A Korean wireless service provider has posted a page on a new Palm OS-based smartphone from Samsung. It's named the MITs M330, with MIT standing for Mobile Intelligent Terminal. It has a 160 by 240, STN screen that can display 256 colors. As a smartphone, the M330 has both wireless voice and data capabilities. It uses CDMA 2000 1X networks and supports gpsOne. It has 16 MB of RAM and runs Palm OS 3.5.3.

This isn't the first time we've seen the M330. Samsung has been showing it off at tradeshows for most of the year. It was originally scheduled to appear in the U.S. this Summer, though obviously this didn't happen. At this point, it is not yet known when this smartphone will be available in the U.S. or at what cost.

The M330 is an updated version of the i300, which is already available. The M330 is 4.9 by 2.2 by .7 inches and weighs 5.3 ounces. This makes it lighter and thinner than its predecessor.

It runs off a rechargeable battery and has 4 hours of talk time and 100 hours of standby time.

As mentioned earlier, this device uses CDMA 2000 1X wireless networks, which offers an average of 144 kbps packet data. It also supports gpsOne, which uses signals from the GPS satellite constellation and from CDMA cell towers to locate the wireless handheld. This will allow for location-based services.

Samsung has several accessories available for this handheld, including a keyboard and tiny digital camera.

It will come with a selection of software, including the HandStory Suite, PocketMirror, and some games.

This isn't the only Palm OS smartphone Samsung has on the drawing board. In June it demonstrated one that uses a clamshell shape under the code name Bluechip.

Related Information:

PIC: Rumor: Samsung SPH I330 Coming this Summer (February 27, 2002)
PIC: Samsung Demoing New Smartphone (June 21, 2002)

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Clamshell I think is better.

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 2:50:32 PM #

The clamshell form, in my opinion, is much better for a smartphone.

Flaky Website

Ed @ 9/17/2002 2:48:46 PM #

The AnyCall website where the information is hosted is a bit odd. It crashed both my and Ryan's Web browsers repeatedly while getting this info and we had numerous connection failures. Possibly some of our problems are related to the fact that the site is in Korean.

If you can't get to the page referenced in the article, try going here first:
www.anycall.com
Then click on the link in the article.

---
News Editor

RE: Flaky Website

popko @ 9/17/2002 2:59:06 PM #

Well, it looks just fine on my PC (IE6 on Win2K). Maybe you have somthing on your system that is not Korean friendly?

RE: Flaky Website

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:10:04 PM #

The pop up product demonstration and slideshow make this thing look very cool. I don't know if it's that spectacular, but they make it look very appealing.

RE: Flaky Website

jjsoh @ 9/17/2002 11:32:34 PM #

Are you on a Mac, by any chance? If so, then performance when viewing any Korean web site (regardless of encoding) can be problematic and most likely slow for Mac users. This is because Machintosh computers are almost non-existent, so most (if not all) companies/web developers probably do not optimize for Mac-friendliness. This is from both a personal and professional point of view.

I occasionally visit Korean sites (to brush up and improve on my horrible Korean ^_^) and never seem to have trouble. I use a PC most of the time, but every time I use my wife's iMac, it's horribly slow to load. Not to mention that Koreans love using Flash animation and a lot of graphics whenever they can. Even if they succeed with presentation, performance suffers.

Then again, if you're viewing from a PC, I have no other suggestions right now. Did you try rebooting? ;)

Jim

RE: Flaky Website

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 10:07:00 AM #

Well, the Mac(OS9) in our lab can show Korean web pages, as well as Chinese/Japanese pages correctly without installing any language kit by Netscape 4.79 with corresponding fonts setting.

RE: Flaky Website

jjsoh @ 9/18/2002 5:09:45 PM #

: Well, the Mac(OS9) in our lab can show Korean web
: pages, as well as Chinese/Japanese pages correctly
: without installing any language kit by Netscape 4.79
: with corresponding fonts setting

Actually, that's a good point. For me, Netscape has always displayed pages better than I.E. on a Macintosh, even on OS X (though I'm technically using Mozilla). This goes for both Korean and English sites. Can't vouch for C/J, but maybe same rules apply?

Regardless, I hope Ed is having better luck with the sites because I still have no problems navigating at Anycall's site. Just a bad day, perhaps? :/

Jim

text entry?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:14:51 PM #

color me stupid, but where's the grafitti area? does this have virtual grafitti?

RE: text entry?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:21:57 PM #

Based on the pictures, it's virtual.

RE: text entry?

Ed @ 9/17/2002 3:22:11 PM #

Yes, it has virtual Graffiti. Take a look at the first picture and you'll see it. The Samsung i300 also has virtual Graffiti. However, the only application that I'm aware of that takes advantage of this is the built-in phone dialer. From what I've heard, Samsung doesn't encourage third-party developers and so it doesn't put out an SDK to allow them to create apps that would make use of the virtual Graffiti area. Too bad.

---
News Editor

RE: text entry?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:26:01 PM #

TealDoc supports the full screen on the i300, and a developer on www.sphi300.com (Jake) has reverse engineered the code for full-screen use and graffiti area with custom overlays. Oh, and he also managed to patch Blazer to make it work full-screen.

RE: text entry?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:49:10 PM #

HandStory also takes fully advantage of the full screen, too.

os

UZI4U182 @ 9/17/2002 4:12:08 PM #

Palm OS 3.5.3? Doesn't OS 4 or 4.1 exist in korea?

--Devan--

www.tavern.2ya.com
Palm OS apps, news, reviews and such

RE: os

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 4:52:18 PM #

Just some thoughts...
Samsung is the outsourced manufacturer of HandEra 330. It *might* be no surprise that their first SmartPhone was the second PalmOS device after the 330 to sport a virtual graffiti area. And the suspicious might wonder if there was some exchange of services between HandEra and Samsung. If that's the case, it shed's some light on why Samsung may be using OS3.5.3, which coinsidentally, so is the HandEra 330. Having said that, on the HandEra, many of the bug fixes and major OS4 features (like VFS) have been backported into their custom OS3.5.3 (like Sony did with their S320 with OS3.5.3). These days you can't judge a book by it's cover, or an OS by it's revision number. Each licensee has some latitude in what they include and backport. So one can't make assumptions about what an OS does and doesn't include in the way of features and bug fixes by it's revision number. Which is why PalmOS/PalmSource SDK guidelines say you poll for OS features not OS revisions. You don't make the assumption a device doesn't have VFS if the OS version is <4.0 (Strong hint to developers).

Having said all that, one might imagine there'd be no impediment to Samsung releasing it with OS4 even if some code was licenced from HandEra. The QVGA virtual graffiti prototype that Symbol showed at PalmSource, and PIC ran a thread on, announced itself as HandEra OS4.1 to anyone at PalmSource who cared to notice when it was handed to them.

Jeez

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 4:35:27 PM #

My money is going into the first freakin company that can create a battery that will last. These products would be so much better with 320x320 and Palm OS5 with 200+MHZ and companies cannot integrate this with the crappy battery life that would result.

Sux

RE: Jeez

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 6:11:29 PM #

Me too. Make it just a little bigger and stuff it full of battery.

Boring...

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 4:44:30 PM #

There is nothing on this model to even make it vaguely attractive.... low-res, brick design, no battery life, etc...

Until they can build it correctly, one wonders why they even bother...

Boring Poster....

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 10:25:09 PM #

>>There is nothing on this model to even make it vaguely attractive.... low-res, brick design, no battery life, etc...

Not knowing what they plan to do with this - its a little premature to be dissing it. Perhaps, having less features then other smartphones means that Samsung is going to make this a 'low end' smartphone - that would be a first. As for 'brick design' - i don't consider 5.7 ounces a 'brick. for a smartphone. The Kyocera - both old and new - those are bricks. Having said all of this however, i'd still prefer a kyocera 7135 - but I KNOW its going to cost me more then this Samsung.

RE: Boring reply

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 12:39:33 AM #

Hey chuckles, here's what we know: it's huge -- plain and simple. It has a crappy 160x240 display. There is nothing new here and I'm disappointed to see these things still being developed.

I don't want a low-end "smart phone." I want a treo with hi-res, 3G, and analog coverage as a start. On top of that, double (or triple) the RAM and give it a larger, brighter indoor and outdoor display. Until then, my trusty 1 year old Clie will fit the bill.

RE: Boring...

drw @ 9/18/2002 2:35:37 AM #

Doubt any treo will be made to those specs. You'll have to wait for the quattro. I bet buyers could be found for the 330 if they sold it for $199.

---
David

Although I won't see it

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 6:13:19 PM #

For a second, I thought it competed with the Kyocera 7135, but 256colors, OS 3.5.3, and a non-flippy (I.E. Scratch-prone) screen is keeping me away. Although, someone might like it.

For the Korean market...

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 8:28:07 PM #

For sure, this M330 was for the Korean market. Although Samsung made I300 (M330's older sibling), they never introduced it to its own market. They are finally releasing the basically same model with a few added features (40-poly MIDI unit, for example).

There have been rumors as to whether 330 will be available in the U.S. I tend to agree that with I500 and 7135 supposed to come out before the end of the year, why would Samsung USA want to release this a bit outdated model?

Hong.

Are there real buttons?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 10:14:06 AM #

It looks like the number buttons is virtual on the touch screen. Is it not convenient? Is it required to dial a number with stylus? I personally prefer "real" dail bottom on cell phones.

RE: Are there real bottoms?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 10:34:44 AM #

Yes, the dialpad is virtual. It probably has the same dialing options as the I300...use stylus or fingertips to dial on virtual keypad, one-handed dialing from address book, voice-dialing, and speed dial.