This article is also contributed by Sutlej Soin.

Samsung's Latest Handsets for 2008

Samsung began the year by announcing its mobile phone line-up for the first quarter of 2008 at St. James Power Station where a total of five phones were unveiled to the media. Designed to help users express themselves through sight, sound and smarts, the new models will reinforce Samsung's growing foray into the music, imaging and smartphone categories of mobile phones.

At the top of the list, Samsung's new flagship is the Ultra Imaging G800 boasting the world's first 5MP camera phone with 3x optical zoom. Expect availability from end of January.

The Ultra Imaging G800 camera phone sports a 2.4-inch QVGA LCD which allows users to view their photography subjects comfortably like a dedicated digital camera and even has face detection with auto-focus and wide dynamic range optimization to better balance the extreme bright and dark scenes. Another highlight of this HSDPA camera phone is its mobile blogging support with respective functions supporting it. The G800 is a true new age phone for the new year.

The SGH-i780 is an Office Mobile GPS smartphone (operating on Windows Mobile 6 Professional) fitted with both Touchscreen features and a full QWERTY keyboard to meet the needs of even the most demanding mobile warrior. Connectivity options include HSDPA and Wi-Fi and the phone is only 12.9mm thin! Expect this model to be available from end February.

Unlike the SGH-i780, the SGH-i550W is a multimedia Symbian smartphone that acts as your digital map with its GPS system. Touting its multimedia pedigree, it has a better 3.2MP integrated camera (versus the 2MP unit on the i780), a more vibrant 262K color screen (versus the 65k color screen) and FM radio. Available from end February onwards, this phone should appeal to the younger generation.