Samsung's Ultra A717 and A727 get a date with AT&T

Hey Cingular subscribers, get ready to get your thin AT&T on. Samsung just announced the prices and availability of their SGH-A717 and SFH-A727 slimsters. Sure, those model numbers aren't overly appealing until you remember that these are members of Samsung's 3G Ultra lineup for Stateside consumption: the 12.9-mm thin A717 clamshell and 9.9-mm A727 candybar. So we're talking quad-band GSM, dual-band 850MHz/1900MHz HSDPA data, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD, and MobiTV and MobiRadio. Sure we've run those specs before but it just feels so good we can't help but repeat. Expect the A717 to hit on June 4th for $150 with the A727 to follow in the "coming weeks" (June 16th judging by the date in those pictures) for $100 -- after 2 year contract and $50 mail-in rebate of course, which you'll probably forget to send in. Anybody else feeling a touch nostalgic at seeing the AT&T logo on an all black phone?

[ryanworrell @ Jun 1st 2007 9:05AM]

can anyone say SLVR and RAZR. The imitations are getting old.

[carlo @ Jun 1st 2007 9:33AM]

So now any thin phone is a knock off of a Razr or Slvr? Motorola wasn't the first to create thin phones.

[thudson @ Aug 23rd 2007 12:25PM]

Carlos is right on this one. Samsung is a leading designer of ultra-thin and other types of phones with plenty of innovation awards under its belt. Just because thin candybar and clamshell phones happen to be a trend in cellphone design doesn't mean these are Motorola knock-offs.

--Travis Hudson, MWW Group on behalf of Samsung

[Travis @ Jun 1st 2007 9:28AM]

"can anyone say SLVR and RAZR. The imitations are getting old."

Please give it a rest. There are two popular types of phones, flip and candybar. Just because a company makes them thin does not mean they are copying them. Do you expect them to just start releasing fatter phones? Oh but then you would accuse them of copying older, thicker motoroloa phones. The flip phone looks nothing like the RAZR.

[nikster @ Jun 1st 2007 9:34AM]

Apart from the fact that Samsung's Ultra line looks a lot better than the MTRLs... That said the Sony 3G slim Walkman phone looks even better.

Thumbs down for dorky double-branding. Why, ATT, why? It just makes the phones look uglier. Why would you want to do that?

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 1st 2007 8:57PM]

Only if Sony hadn't screwed buttons in 880... I would already bought it :(

But now I'm waiting for the Samsung.

Plain phone. Normal screen. Normal buttons. Not overloaded with left stuff. Thin and light. What else to ask?

[Sean @ Jun 1st 2007 9:57AM]

Took them long enough. Had my Ultra edition 9.9 on "cingular" for almost a year now.

[RT @ Jun 1st 2007 10:00AM]

Samsung releasing phones on AT&T...where's the VZW love? Where's the i760?!!

[jmills74 @ Jun 1st 2007 10:04AM]

I have had the Softbank version of the A717 for almost a year here in Japan. It sucks. Battery life is weak and the camera does not hold a candle to the AU Sony Ericsson models. I would not recommend the piece of garbage at all.

[ryanworrell @ Jun 1st 2007 10:13AM]

No. But look at the keypad. Looks exactly like a slvr. I granted the flip is a lil longer but the keypads look very very similar to the morotola's. And yes you can make sleek, thin nice looking phones w/o making RAZR/SLVR knock offs

[fashionista @ Jun 1st 2007 10:20AM]

isn't the flip a Sprint M610?

[Jeff @ Jun 1st 2007 10:24AM]

I don't understand the point of the 727. How does it improve upon the 707? Oh, right - by making the external screen really, really tiny and removing the external playback controls.

wtf?

[Rynth @ Jun 1st 2007 10:26AM]

That ultra thin one's been out over here in the UK for a while now and there OK, though I did snap mine..

[David @ Jun 1st 2007 12:48PM]

yeah, the A717 looks pretty much the same as my M610, which is an amazing phone and so much better than the RAZR/KRZR.

The M610 is also only like $80 from Sprint now btw.

[Kirk Rheinlander @ Jun 1st 2007 6:48PM]

None of the phone mfg seem to understand, that, like the iPod, it is not the hardware, but the software that establishes the device as a must have.

Except for Smartphone, e60, BB, Palm, no phone has software that is worth a crap. Give me a usable PIM, and the phone is complete, not something that is impossible to navigate. THINK through the software implementation .... arrrgggghhhhh!!!!