CeBIT 2006. VK Mobile releases amusing products

It’s always interesting to keep an eye on manufacturers competing in creating the “slimmest”, the “best”, in short the “best all-round handset”. Large manufacturers have it their own way, rather bother themselves with such things, while it’s the only way for small companies to stand out. It’s evident, that having produced a model with something “best”, one can publicly declare that Samsung and Nokia don’t feature something like this. However neither quality nor demand for these functions and even lack of common logical base, don’t stop developers – being the first makes all the difference for them. In VK Mobile case, the “best all-round handset” is VK2200, as it features a 4 Mpix CCD-camera for the first time on the European market. Though “for the first time” regards only the already announced products. Obviously, we don’t count the products with 5 Mpix matrixes, for example, by LG – as a matter of fact VK2200 pioneers the use of a 4 Mpix camera. We got intrigued and decided to figure out how the matters stand with memory, incorporated into this very model – and that’s the place where the most critical part is concealed in. The title on the label says literally the following: «128х64 + 1Gb NAND Flash Memory». I find it difficult to explain what the first numbers stand for, though after interrogating the booth man, I managed to find out, that 1Gb abbreviation means Gigabit, but not Gigabyte and there no way it’s a misprint. I suppose that’s enough to draw a conclusion.

For many regions, this model will remain an exotics, although it will appear on the Russian market. The other specifications are not of big interest – a display with the resolution of 128x160, capable of displaying up to 262K colors, TFT. The polyphony is 64-toned; the device supports MP3, AAC, AAC+ formats and thus features a media player. The handset connects to a PC via USB 1.1.

The next model VK2010 is the “slimmest” one – actually its depth is 8.8 mm, thinner than Samsung P300 by 0.1 mm. This achievement deserves some attention, even though its meaning is somehow hidden from us, since P300 resides in a higher price bracket and, consequently, is of higher class, both in terms of functionality and applied materials and life time. An amusing handset with nice color solutions – nothing more.

VK220 clearly demonstrates they way one should copy not only RAZR, but also SLVR by Motorola. The same keyboard and concept are positioned as a music device due to bigger internal memory (256 Мб). Memory cards type, used by the handset is microSD.

Model VK7000 is one of the first UMTS-handsets by the company. It features a 1.3 Mpix camera, support for a not very popular standard of flash cards - microMMC. Among the unusual things for this manufacturer, we will note capacity of working with OMA DRM v2.0, and presence of a Flash-player. The other characteristics are common.

VK5000 handset is just another compact and slim product, featuring a MP3 player, 1.3 Mpix camera and Bluetooth. The screen in this model has the diagonal of 1.5 inches and capable of of displaying 128x160 pixels (262K, TFT).

A slider, going by the name of VK700C has an interesting design – the navigation keys are placed on the lower part, while the display occupies the entire upper sliding part. The concept is rather fresh and handy in use.

For the Korean market the company created a model in Rotate form-factor, which provides horizontal shell orientation in closed condition.

The other photos taken at VK Mobile booth Другие фотографии со стенда VK Mobile convey everything on their own.

Eldar Murtazin ([email protected])
Translated by Oleg Kononosov ([email protected])

Published — 14 March 2006

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