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The Samsung Katalyst, T-Mobile's latest Hotspot @Home phone
The rumored t739 Katalyst from Samsung has gotten official today for T-Mobile, shoring up a Hotspot @Home lineup that presently features the lowly Nokia 6086 down in the basement and the BlackBerry Curve 8320 up top. The t739 is the first slider certified for T-Mobile's WiFi-enabled calling service, giving it an instant dose of street cred among folks that love the UMA concept but can't stand clamshells. In fact, with a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and a 220 x 176 display, the Katalyst is essentially a slider rendition of the t409 with the addition of a microSD slot. Yeah, we'd still like to see a little more meat in the lineup -- a 3.2 megapixel camera and 3G would get us to shut up, just as a fr'instance -- but in the meantime, we're always happy for a little choice of form factor. Grab it for a penny shy of $80 on a two-year contract.
The Samsung Katalyst: T-Mobile's next @Home handset?
As cool as T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home service may be, it's been hampered so far by a pretty milquetoast phone lineup -- BlackBerry Curve notably excepted, of course. It looks like Samsung's t739 "Katalyst" is getting groomed to fill the rather substantial gap between @Home's t409 and Nokia 6086 flips and the Curve on the high end, featuring a music player, Bluetooth (which hopefully doesn't self-destruct in mortal conflict with the integrated WiFi), EDGE data, and a 1.3 megapixel cam with video capture in a slider form factor -- an @Home first. Mobiledia likes it for the fourth quarter (and we're hearing December 3, to be specific), so folks looking to take the leap into UMA might want to hold tight for just one hot minute to see whether this thing actually materializes in the next few weeks.[Thanks, Frank A.]
