Samsung shows thin slider-type cell phone

Samsung Electronics has taken the wraps off a new slider-type cell phone, its thinnest yet, at this week's Korea Electronics Show.

The SPH-V8400 follows a trend for thin phones that was kicked off with Motorola's Razr but unlike that handset and several imitators, which have all been clamshell models, the new Samsung handset is a slider type. Despite the change in style, the new phone is much the same size as its clamshell competitors.

It's 15.9 millimeters deep, which makes it thicker than the 13.0mm thick Razr and Samsung's own SCH-V740 thin clamshell phone, which is 14.5mm deep. The length is slightly longer at 101.5mm compared to 98mm for both the Razr and SCH-V740, but it's in the width where the new slider scores. The phone is 45.4mm wide, which is less than the 53mm wide Razr and 51mm wide SCH-V740. It weighs 92 grams, which makes it the lightest of the three handsets.

The phone is designed for use on South Korean CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) networks and includes a 1.3-megapixel resolution camera, a 260,000-color TFT (thin film transistor) LCD (liquid crystal display), an MP3 player, and the Picsel file viewer software for PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and text files. It is compatible with the Pictbridge printing system.

It will be available in South Korea from late October or early November and will cost between $700 and $800, said Erin Lee, a spokeswoman for Samsung in Seoul. The same model won't be available overseas.