Samsung Launching i320 Smartphone in Europe Soon

Samsung has announced that the SGH-i320 will be available in Europe before the end of this month.

This device is clearly this company’s answer to the Motorola Q, as both have ultra-slim form factors (0.45 inches thick) and the same general design: a QWERTY keyboard below a 320-by-240-pixel display. Each also uses the the Smartphone version of Windows Mobile 5.0, so neither has a touchscreen.

Both the i320 and the Q have a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth.

There Are Some Differences

The major difference between these two turns out to be which cellular-wireless networking standard they use, which greatly effects where they are available, at least for some months to come.

The i320 is a GSM/GPRS/EDGE device, and Samsung has said it will officially be released in Europe and Asia, but not the Americas.

On the other hand, the Q is currently available only from Verizon Wireless in the United States, and therefore it uses the CDMA standard. However, Motorola has said that a GSM version of the Q will eventually be available, and that this smartphone will be much more widely available.

In addition, the Q offers EV-DO, a 3G cellular-wireless standard, which means it can transfer data significantly faster than the i320, which uses EDGE, a 2.5G standard.

Samsung has been showing the i320 off for several months at tradeshows. Ben Stafford from TechnologyGuide.com had some hands-on time with this smartphone, and his first impressions of the device can be found in this article.