Samsung's latest DMB phone, the SCH-B250

Seems like every other week we're hearing about portable DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting—a primarily Korean standard) devices overseas, but Samsung's multimedia-centric line of phones always seems to be the cream that rises to the top. We can't say the SCH-B250 is any exception, what with the rotating screen, 2 megapixel camera, 128MB memory, and built-in Office/PDF functionality. While the approximate $735 pricetag might be a little hard to swallow, but it's not like you'd ever buy one for North American use anyway, so for now let's all just sit back and watch what wonders they can work outside our antiquated American gadget market.

[tallfella @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Now, THAT's ET

[hummeriah @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Forgive me for asking, but obviously every sweet new device coming out is always noted as "not being released in the US". Why do we have such a hard time getting the good stuff? Import taxes? Customs? The stuff is made in the East with little or no distribution channel? I get that we don't see stuff in America for months after everyone else or sometimes not at all, but why?

[Tamon @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Man ... we never get the good stuff in the USA!!
Oh well ...

[daniel @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Ur the lucky one!
I live in australia and everything comes out like four months after you people who live in the US gets it.
It's so annoying.
I actually think that phone looks good. However, the front LCD is a stupid. Too small. But I guess it's understandable seeing the screen rotates.

[Swift @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

America is so far behind with technology that many of these gadgets would be useless here anyway. American companies are not willing to take the financial risks necessary to build the infrastructure for things such as this, and the fact is that much of our population still would never use them because our rate of adoption tends to be very slow. DMB would take too long to catch on here, so companies see no short term profit, and I don't know if the demand for it would ever reach the level at which their profits would show long term either. Most gadget fall under a similar category here in the US. Even if they could be utilized her, there aren't enough wealthy tech heads to give companies incentive to send their gadgets over here.

I'm sure there are other reasons too, so don't flame me for missing the point, but that is one of the reasons. We simply don't have enough demand here whereas some other countries are very technocentric and have people who are just waiting for the next new tech toy to play around with.

It's funny because I'm an early adopter and I am a media junkie, but I still don't know if I would actually ever care to use DMB. It just doesn't seem all that useful to me. I still want that phone though.

[arkowi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Lets just think about putting in the infastructure to support wireless HD television on cell phones. Japan is 145,840 square miles where the US 3,537,441 square miles. This causes a bit of logistical problem here in the states. Japan is roughly the size of the state of Montana.

[Alex Chinn @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

While I agree that the issue is infrastructure, this is satellite DMB, so it really wouldn't be that much of an issue. If it was terrestrial DMB, it would be near-impossible to set up a network in the US (both due to cost and amount of work). The real issue is that 31 top S. Korean companies got together to make this tech. work, paid for the satellites etc. There's no way you'd see Verizon, Cingular, Motorola, and T-Mobile joining forces - but that's exactly what the Koreans did. Samsung, LG, Pantech, SK Telecom - they all got together for this one project.

Also, I don't think the article mentioned it, though arkowi did in passing - this phone's DMB display is HD. Now that's something else.

[Swift @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Are you sure it's HD? Thats an awfully small screen to fit an HD resolution onto. Also, would you even really notice the difference in image quality on such a small screen for it to be worth it? I mean, of course some people would, but I'm in love with HD and I don't even think I'd care. Small screens tend to look pretty good at lower resolutions.

[arkowi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

i did not read the article. the original post on engadget did say HD but they removied it. i am just making a point that in japan you have far less infatructure to deal with for implementing some of this stuff.

[HJ @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Korea is much smaller than Japan.
And S.Korea is half of Korea. S.Korea Population is around 50million. How many people in Montana?
But nothing matters to satellite DMB tech. Satellite is satellite. Almost every S.Korean use the satellite GPS enabled cell phone when driving a car. Interesting eh? In such a small area, why need GPS?

[HJ @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Korea is much smaller than Japan.
And S.Korea is half of Korea. S.Korea Population is around 50million. How many people in Montana?
But nothing matters to satellite DMB tech. Satellite is satellite. Almost every S.Korean use the satellite GPS enabled cell phone when driving a car. Interesting eh? In such a small area, why need GPS?

[Bah Boom @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

And they say the next-gen consoles are expensive...

[Ryan Block @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

arkowi,

I don't know why you're claiming we printed it as supporting anything HD, but we did not, nor has this post been revised. You must be mistaking us for some other site.

Best,
Ryan

[macsucks @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Montana sucks. Quit using that state for reference. It'll be the last state to ever get any technology outside of a Dodge RAM truck.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Yeah I think arkowi may have been thinking of what he saw on gizmodo. They said it's HD, and I can't help but still be very skeptical of the validity of that. I saw it mentioned nowhere else and I just don't think full HD is necessary for watching tv on such a small screen.

[arkowi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

yeah, i did see it on gizmodo too and get them confused. both posts had the same pic. sorry about that. thanks for pointing it out.

anywho, my point about services still stands. if you have to implement some new wireless technology its a lot easier to blanket a much smaller area with the infastructure. that is my point. the end.

[yazzoo @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I agree that our large land mass means that we can't roll out these technologies throughout the country, but there's no reason that it can't be done in the cities.

The density in cities is about the same everywhere, in fact some cities may be higher than areas of Japan and Korea that tend to favour single family houses.

[Tee-Pee @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

These things seem kinda nice in theory. Here's a roadtest from Seoul that proves they actually work:

http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/archives/2005/10/satellite_tv_ph.html

[joe skeats @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Who said DvB was HD? We in the UK are due to get this phone sometime in 2006, and our satellite TV providers will only then be bringing out HDTV. DvB is the format that our terrestrial broadcasters use for digital broadcasts and equates to better than our european PAL TV standard. So although not HD if thE handset comes out in the States it will be a whole lot better than NTSC.