Samsung unveiled a new smartphone for the U.S. market today at CTIA that combines the company’s latest hardware with content such as books, full-length movies, augmented-reality browsers and an integrated social-networking hub.
The pairing of hardware and content is a recognition by the U.S.’s largest handset maker that you can no longer rely on hardware alone to differentiate. In fact, Samsung’s head of mobile, JK Shin, said they now factors three things into making smartphones: screen, speed and content. Samsung used a dazzling and dramatic story-telling technique to show off the features of the Galaxy S in a press event just following the morning’s keynote. The presentation is the second splashy event in just two months, showing how much resources the Korean handset maker is dedicating to the space.
In an intense 15-minute multimedia event at CTIA, Samsung showed off a day in the life of the new phone, called the Galaxy S, through the eyes of a young, active business professional. A ton of the features were highlighted including the phone’s maps and navigation abilities, the HD video recorder, the smart alarm that wakes you up to chirping birds, and the augmented reality browser that overlays thousands of points of interest on a map. Paramount Pictures went onstage to say it will contribute full-length movies to the phone; however, details on those services are still forthcoming. More content relationships coming with e-reader applications from Skiff.
While content was the star, the hardware was not neglected one bit. The Android-based phone has a large 4-inch display, a very bright “Super Amoled” screen, a 1 GHz processor, a 5 megapixel camera, HD video recording a play-back, TV remote control functionality and 16 gigabytes of internal memory. The phone won’t be available until this summer. No details on pricing or carrier partnerships.

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