As you may have read previously, today was the official launching of the Samsung Jet in Malaysia. It was held at the KL Convention Centre this morning, and was emceed by Owen (forgot his surname) and Xandria Ooi, both local celebrities. Samsung Malaysia only launched the Jet today, read below for other smartphones that other readers have been asking about. The Jet, whose tagline is “smarter than smartphone” was launched here around a month after it was made available in Singapore (which also hosted one of the venues of the Jet worldwide launch last month). It retails for RM 1,888, and is available from shops starting today, if you’re keen to purchase the phone.
The model on sale here is the S8003. It does not have a GPS navigation built in, unlike models for Europe, which has the Route66 GPS navigation software built into the firmware. I was further informed that one cannot install the Route66 software separately, even if one can find an installer floating around somewhere. So, you’re restricted to using Google Maps on the device for your navigation needs. Widgets can be downloaded from Samsung’s widget website using an application on the Jet itself. Samsung is currently working on its App Store, akin to the Apple AppStore, or Nokia’s Ovi Store, and it is scheduled for launch sometime this year; no precise timeframe was provided.
I have put down my name for a review unit, and hope to see one before too long. Fingers crossed, eh?
Here are other news that emerged out of the event, supplemented by my discussions with some Samsung representatives:
- the Samsung Jet is the flagship device for Samsung Mobile Malaysia for 2009. Not the Omnia 2, not the i8910 HD – it’s the Jet that’s the flagship.
- the Omnia 2 (Windows Mobile), i8910 HD (Symbian s60v5) as well as the i7500/Galaxy (Samsung’s first Android phone) is scheduled for release “sometime” in August; again, no precise timeframe was provided. I suspect the earliest would be mid August, since we’re already in mid July and there is little point scheduling two launch events so close to one another.
- no pricing was given, not even “rough idea pricing”, for the Omnia 2, i8910 HD and the i7500.
- the i8910 HD will ship with the latest firmware which will incorporate a fix for the audio codec during HD video recording. The audio codec has been one of the i8910 HD’s Achilles heel to date, with many users complaining of poor audio quality when recording video in HD. The new firmware changes the audio codec from the AMR codec to the AAC codec.
- the pricing of the i8910 HD has not been determined. It’s not RM 2,899. Nor it is RM 2,799. There is no indication whether both the 8Gb and 16Gb models will be offered, or only the 16Gb (I suspect only the 16Gb will be offered, as it appears that the “de-facto” standard for smartphone storage has just gone up in the wake of the Nokia N97’s and iPhone3GS’ release.
- a review unit of the Pixon or M8800 with the 12 megapixel camera was also on show. I didn’t play with much as it ran the same operating system as the Jet – TouchWiz 2, as my interest is more in smartphones.
- I provided some feedback on the pricing for the smartphones that will make an appearance next month. Not that my opinion counts for much since I am a nobody, but I gave it anyway.
- expect to see some more exciting phones in the fourth quarter of this year. If I’m reading between the lines correctly based on the speech and answers during the Q&A session with the senior Samsung executive team, we will see more touchscreen devices from Samsung.
That’s about it. Post any unanswered questions you have in the comments and I’ll try to answer them if I can.
In case anyone is interested, if you were following my tweets and was wondering what equipment I used, it was the iPhone3G. I used Tweetdeck as the Twitter client, and pictures snapped in the tweets were all taken using the iPhone3G’s camera. The tweets were sent over the DiGi Broadband network, in GSM mode, not in 3G, as that would have killed the iPhone3G’s battery quickly. And no, none of the companies mentioned sponsored any equipment nor services, although I wished they had.
Here are some pictures I took of the launch event. Please, no insults on my photography skills! The dapper gentleman in many of the pictures is the MD of Samsung Malaysia, Mr KH Yoon.
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