Samsung P240 DuoS

When Samsung introduced dual SIM D880 DuoS phone, it had targeted Eastern Europe market first.

And Samsung was right - there were a lot of people that for various work and personal reasons were carrying several handsets with them all the time, and were glad to switch to a phone that allowed them to connect to two networks at once.

Consumer buying habits, prevalence of retail channels and lower reliance on carrier subsidized handsets there helped too, since no network operator would willingly promote a handset allowing the use of competitor network as well.

The only problem with D880 was it’s price of $700. While it was a hit among businessmen and a well-off consumers, it left a very important market segment untapped. The youth and other people who were using multiple handsets in order to save on network fees.

My niece here, in Lithuania, actually carries 3 mobile phones. One for each mobile operator, and uses 3 prepaid cards to talk and text her friends on each network, because per minute and SMS charges inside one network are several times cheaper or even free. Saving on operator fees and shelling out $700 for a phone was not an option for her.

Now Samsung has decided to approach this youth market with a cheaper dual SIM card phone - Samsung P240 DuoS.

Samsung P240 DuoS specs include:

* Philips PNX5230+OM6357 chipset
* Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 connectivity
* 2″ 176×220 px TFT LCD
* 2 megapixel camera
* FM tuner with RDS
* Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0
* Mpeg4 capable media player
* 25MB of internal memory
* microSD memory card slot
* 1200 mAh battery
* Dimensions: 115.1×48.6×15.7 mm

Samsung P240 DuoS price is expected to be around 270 EUR.

The news about this handset was revealed to Russian site Smape by head of Samsung Russia, Yoonsoo Kim.

He also confirmed that Armani lookalike Samsung P520 DuoS touchscreen phone has been canceled, due to the incompatibilities between full touchscreen UI and Dual SIM technologies. Switching between two SIM cards via touchscreen was not working.

YooSoo Kim also confirmed that Samsung is working on a Windows Mobile based business DuoS smartphone, due in late 2008. Symbian DuoS is also a possibility, though they don’t have plans for one this year.