Samsung move into VoIP with the Samsung EW-700 WiFi smartphone

Samsung, the world’s third largest mobile phone manufacturer, have announced the Samsung EW-700, a mobile phone that’s not.

More specifically, the EW-700 features everything most mobile phones do, except the ability to connect to mobile phone networks. Instead, the EW-700 harnesses WiFi to offer full VoIP connectivity whenever you’re near a WiFi hotspot, but omits the seemingly essential GSM/3G connectivity normally expected of a mobile phone.

More details of the Samsung EW-700 smartphone after the jump.



The Samsung EW-700 is very much like a normal mobile phone. It’s a smartphone and features 2 megapixel camera, camcorder facility, web browser, messenger, MP3 and movie player, and a raft of smartphone applications.

It’s based on Samsung’s own Post-PC mobile multimedia processor, which it developed in conjunction with Eidicom.

However, despite its WiFi connectivity and obvious mobile phone heritage, it’s not a mobile phone as we know it. This I find a bit of a strange decision, as many mobile phones are now being released by the likes of Nokia, and even Samsung themselves, that offer WiFi and GSM/3G connectivity, giving you the best of both worlds.

With the EW-700, however, you have no connectivity options unless you’re near a hotspot. So, useful if you’re near your local intranet or home network, but not so useful otherwise.

Yet it’s not a full PDA either, as it has no QWERTY keyboard. Bit of an odd one, this Samsung EW-700!

[Source: Aving.net]