It looks like the Summer of 2008 will be the cell slinger’s season of bliss. All mobile-phone companies have lined up some smart offerings for the Indian market and one could possibly end up being spoilt for choice.

To its sleek designs and mind-blowing LCD displays, Samsung has now added an edge, rectifying its traditional weakness—sound quality. The new SGH-i450 comes with a 3D surround sound powered by ICE power amplifiers by Bang and Olufsen. So users can look forward to a mobile theatre experience. In this dual slider, the two slide form factor enhances the ease of controlling music and other phone functions. But SGH-i450 is not just a juke box, it’s a smartphone. As it runs on Symbian S60, it can host applications like document reader/ editor and check e-mails quickly. It comes with a 60 MB internal memory, which is average, but it has a microSD slot up to 4 GB. The EDGE-enabled phone has an impressive 2.4-inch LCD screen and a 2-megapixel camera. The price is surprising—a very affordable Rs 15,000.

While a 5-megapixel camera is considered a must for any high-end phone, the G800 from Samsung’s Metal Series combines a sleek digital camera and a multimedia handset into one device. The SGH-G800 is unique in its class thanks to its 3x optical zoom, face detection, auto-focus assist lamp, xenon flash and image stabilisation. Like other camera phones, the G800 also suffers from shutter lag, so trying to capture moving objects will be a problem. This handset is equipped with an ultra-small card slot with microSD and expandable microSDHC flash memory support, so 4 GB or 8 GB microSDHC should be the ultimate storage solution. The G800 is priced at Rs 21,799.

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