Samsung plans to release next year a cell phone that includes support for mobile WiMAX networks, a company executive said.

The upcoming dual-mode handset, which will pair WiMax with support for GSM networks, underscores Samsung’s backing for mobile WiMAX technology, said Hwan Woo Chung, vice president of Samsung’s Mobile WiMAX Group, in an interview at the CommunicAsia exhibition in Singapore.

According to the company executive, Chung, the first model will come during the first half of 2007.
WiMAX is a wireless technology that offers the promise of high-speed connections over a greater area than is possible with Wi-Fi. Fixed-wireless and mobile versions of the technology are being developed, with the fixed-wireless version seen as a replacement for wired broadband connections, such as cable and DSL. (more…)

South Korea’s Samsung said it will sell the slimmest cell phone in the United States, aimming to compete with the US market leader Motorola’s popular Razr line.

Equipped with a color screen for playing videos and an external memory slot, the silver, candy bar-shapped t509 is 9.8mm thick, which make it thinner than the 11.5mm popular Motorola’s Slvr.

The new phone, which is too thin to squeeze in components for photo taking found in most advanced cellphones, will hit the store shelves in the second quarter along with the d807, another skinny phone with a sliding lid.