Sprint and Samsung unveil Jesus Phone lookalike
Dead ringer
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CTIA Wireless This summer, Sprint and Samsung will offer a touchscreen wireless handheld that dares to compete with the Jesus Phone.
When Sprint president and CEO Dan Hesse unveiled the new Samsung Instinct during his keynote speech at CTIA Wireless this morning in Las Vegas, he didn't actually mention the Jesus Phone. But he didn't have to. The Samsung Instinct looks like this:
Jesus Phone knockoff
And this:
Jesus Phone knock-off on its side
Nonetheless, Hesse insisted on calling the Samsung Instinct "truly unique".
You see, Dan Hesse believes that his new device - slated to hit the US sometime this summer - puts the iPhone to shame. "This device is like no other touch-screen phone. Period. None are faster. None have more content pre-loaded."
Then he listed some of the Looks Like Jesus Phone's other attributes - and made another reference to speed.
"We'll make it easy-to-use, bringing applications and contacts within a single finger tap. We'll provide data at blazing speeds on our mobile broadband EVDO Rev A network. We'll offer applications that customers want: high-speed web access and entertainment services like music and TV. And some other things that others can't deliver, like GPS navigation and over-the-air downloads."
Hesse even went so far as to say that Sprint is the stuff of science fiction. "The end result is that the wireless company of the future exists now," he said. "Speed. Content. Industry leading applications. Simplicity. All of this will be available at a very competitive price this summer."
Presumably, this means the Instinct will be priced along the lines of the $399 Jesus Phone. Some are reporting that the Looks Like Jesus Phone will sell for less than $300, complete with 3.1in touchscreen, a two-megapixel camera with camcorder, and 2GB of Micro SD memory.
Sprint may be the wireless network of the future. But it's not the wireless network of the recent past. In January, the also-ran US wireless carrier axed 4000 jobs and closed 8 per cent of its stores, and its fledgling 4G WiMAX network was on the verge of ruin before a late save from Chipzilla.
Even now, some people argue that WiMAX is rubbish.
Of course, the Samsung Instinct won't run on WiMax - which Hesse described as "a network to mobilize the internet, not a voice network". The Instinct will run on EVDO. And there's no denying that EVDO is a step up from the AT&T EDGE network serving Jesus Phones here in the States.
To summarize: Sprint believes it will soon deliver The Second Coming. But this may be sacrilege. ®
Bootnote
For all the news on the CTIA Wireless trade show see our CTIA roundup.
COMMENTS
mhm
"Phone durability? My cousin accidentally dropped his 18 inches of the sofa, onto a laminate floor and the entire top half of the screen shattered! "
And Mine has been dropped repeatedly from waist height and its still just fine.
Only broken screen I've seen was run over by a car.
@jeff
Looks the same doesnt mean copy. You could argue it looks like the HTC, or any other touch phone that existed before the iphone.
Im soooo patenting the clamshelll phone, oh wait....
@Micheal C
Apple fanboy alert!
iPhone durability? My cousin accidentally dropped his 18 inches of the sofa, onto a laminate floor and the entire top half of the screen shattered! Many moons ago my old 3310 survived being repeated thrown across a room and my latest PocketPC phone thing doesn't seem to mind being dropped from a normal 'held' position onto concrete/tarmac floors (Its been subjected to that several times on nights out). Yeah, its got a few dints and scratches now but still works (same goes for my old LG phone).
What use will ANY of the iPhones 100s of apps really be? Apple will ban all the really, really good stuff 3rd party developers could do with the phone and then Apple will nick all the best ideas and implement them themselves in their "Look what we did, we invented it! Well, it doesn't have all the functionality [of what the other developer wanted to do] but you won't notice that because look, look all you magpies... its nice and shiny..." way. So, by all means, have fun with your 20 variations of slick looking calculators, currency convertors and such forth! iPhone apps are going to be nothing more than the raft of java crap that is currently available for 'normal' phones.
As far as other phone manufacturers operating systems go I think the likes of Samsung, Nokia, LG and a few others have pretty much figured out what they are doing by now! You do realise that Apple didn't invent the mobile phone do you? Apple haven't even revolutionised the mobile phone! Apple just appealed to all the fanboys, hairdressers that drive convertibles, 'fashion concious' pretty boys (and girls) and the odd business who's desperatly trying to look cool and 'in' and got you all hook, line and sinker!
I don't know anyone who after initially being very smug about owning an iPhone hasn't eventually admitted "Yeah, its not that good really... Yeah it looks real nice and swishy but its still a little rubbish". Unfortunately they still continue to leave it in plain sight on tables at the first opportunity or insist on screaming into it (Dom Jolly style) "Hello? Yeah, I'm on my iPhone"
Christ, I'm bored of fanboys... I'm gonna find an XBox360 article and start bestowing the virtues of the PS3...
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