Samsung had a better CTIA than most of the other manufacturers. They started off showing the Samsung Upstage, which is a rebranded Samsung Ultra Music phone, which will coming to Sprint in the US later in the year.

The Samsung Upstage is a super-thin candy-bar phone with two faces: the front, which provides traditional mobile phone keypad layout (see pic on left), together with a small screen; and the, er, front, with a larger screen and dedicated music buttons (pic on the right).

The Samsung Upstage price will be $149 with contract, will accept up to 2GB flash cards, and will feature over the air (OTA) music downloads (which, ironically, you won’t be able to use as ringtones!)

Samsung had a few other goodies to show off at CTIA 2007, as you can see after the jump.

Samsung UbiCell

Samsung were also showing off the Samsung UbiCell, which a nifty device for providing WCDMA/HSPDA access in areas where there’s no mobile phone coverage. The UbiCell is what’s known in the trade as a femtocell, and acts as your very own basestation that your mobile phone connects to.

Now, connecting to your won basestation is all very well, but if you want full mobile network access, you need to connect out to the phone network itself. The UbiCell does this over the Internet. The UbiCell comes with a 10/100 Ethernet connector that you plug into your network, over which your mobile phone calls are transported, eventually ending up at your mobile network provider.

The UbiCell is the perfect device for user in remote locations who want full mobile phone access, and is also perfect for the mobile operators, who no longer need to install complete (and expensive) basestations across in remote locations, just to serve a few dozen people – they can rely on their customers buying their own basestations, and effectively building out the network operator’s coverage to the locations where it’s needed most.

Simple, yet brilliant!

Samsung Ultra Phones coming to the US

Another most important announcements for US readers was that Samsung’s entire Ultra range of super-slim phones (the U600, U700, U300 and U100, which is the world’s thinnest phone) is now heading for the US. Previously these phones were destined only for Asian and European markets, but Samsung have now seen a golden opportunity in the US, too.

So, no new phones from Samsung at CTIA 2007, but a few interesting announcements, nonetheless.

[Source: Gizmodo, Engadget]