The Samsung Blade is now available on Vodafone. This is a great phone for those budget-conscious consumers who still want a stylish and fully functional touchscree phone.

The Blade is available  on the following tariffs.

Tariff Details:
Examples of some of the price plans which the Samsung Blade is available on:
Handset cost – FREE
£20 – 100 minutes and 500 texts
18 month agreement
Handset cost – FREE
£15 – 100 minutes and 500 texts
24 month agreement
Handset cost – FREE
£25 – 300 minutes and unlimited texts *
18 month agreement
Handset cost – FREE
£20 – 300 minutes and unlimited texts *
24 month agreement
*Fair usage policy applies to unlimited texts capped at 3000 per month

Specifications

Click here for more information and to purchase. Don’t forget you can also take advantage of Vodafone’s free underwater camera offer when purchasing via Vodafone, click here for details.

 The Samsung Star and the Samsung Preston

Samsung are clearly eager to grab a share of this competitive and lucrative market and are clearly not about to give up despite the fact that they have already sold a staggering 20 million handsets since the advent of their first touchscreen enabled model which was of course the Samsung Omnia and since providing consumers with a host of other great products including the Tocco, the Tocco Ultra, the Tocco Light and the BeatDJ.

As for the phones themselves, the Preston is a good, compact  multimedia contender with the following  features. 

Users can also customise the homescreen of the phone with their favourite widgets nad take advantage of the rather decent camera which can record at up to 15 frames per second. In terms of multimedia capability the Preston is compatible with just about every format and it comes with such pre-installed apps as a photo browser, Google search and Gmail.

The Samsung Star is not massively different to the Preston and has very similar specifications apart from its slightly larger 3″ screen with resolution of 240×400. The Star however is not 3G enabled.

It is fair to say that both of these phones will be/are targeted towards consumers with more modest budgets but it looks the lower price will not be a compromise on quality and functionality which is great news for all who want a touchscreen phone without paying a small fortune for it. Go Samsung!

News has reached Touchscreen Fones that both LG and Samsung, irrefutably two major players in the touchscreen phone market, have both reported sales of 20,000,000 touchscreen units each. This staggering figure is due in no small part to the excellent features and functionality of such models as the Samsung Tocco and the LG Arena, both of which are featured here on Touchscreen Fones. Read on!

Here at TSF we have never ever underestimated the value and potential of the touchscreen phone market, so it is of no surprise to us that such milestone sales figures have been reached and indeed surpassed. Of course the manufactures of these great products can also clearly see the potential, with most if not all mobile phone manufacturers now introducing touchscreen enabled phones into this ever growing market. Both LG and Samsung began exploring this niche around two years ago and are clearly reaping the rewards now. If you do the math, it becomes clear that such sales figures over a two year period equates to the sale of around 1.6million handsets per month.

With such demand it is little wonder why it is projected that 500 million handsets will be sold worldwide by 2012. Amazing! 

For more information or to buy LG or Samsung phones head over to Dial a Phone who have an excellent selection of phones on a wide variety of networks and tariffs.

Samsung unveil their second 8MP cameraphone in the shape of the Samsung Tocco Ultra 8300. A 12.8mm slider with a duralumin anti-scratch, anti-fingerprint casing, the Tocco Ultra boasts an 8MP camera that comes with a dual LED flash, autofocus and video recording. A 2.8-inch touchscreen display ensures you can make the most of Samsung’s TouchWiz finger friendly interface – featuring various widgets for a customisable home screen too! With 3G and HSDPA support at 7.2Mbps, get up to speed an online in an instant, and thanks to the built in accelerometer, viewing web pages couldn’t be easier! The Samsung Tocco Ultra also manages to cram in a music player, FM radio, GPS, 12-key keypad, and microSD card slot for expandable memory!

Features

• 8 Megapixel camera
• 2.8″ Touchscreen
• Haptic feedback user interface
• 3G (HSDPA), EDGE, GPRS, and HSCSD
• HSDPA packet data service with a maximum transmission rate of 7.2Mbps
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• GPS with geo tagging
• microSD Card Slot (TransFlash) (up to 16GB)
• Scratch resistant surface
• MP3 Player
• Dimensions: 110 x 51.5 x 12.7 mm
• Weight: TBA
• Standby Time: Up to 350hrs
• Talk Time: Up to 4hrs

Click the link below to view more information and buy…

The M8800 Pixon is the latest big-touchscreen, big-megapixel camera phone from Samsung. Using a tweaked TouchWiz operating system previously seen on the Samsung Tocco, the M8800 may not have smartphone credentials but it remains easy to use, finger friendly and suitably powerful. All this would mean little if the Pixon didn’t have the features, however this phone manages to pack everything from SRS Virtual Surround Sound to GPS in!

Features

Why You Should By the Pixon
The Pixon sports a beautiful 3.2″ touchscreen with a resolution of 240×320 and the ability to display 256,000 colours, it’s a resistive item so Samsung have included a stylus in the box to assist, however this is attached to a lanyard rather than hiding away in its own little slot on the casing, Not to worry though, as the screen is nicely responsive and the TouchWiz system provides sensibly sized options for easy finger pressing.

Of course, the standout feature of the Pixon is the excellent 8 megapixel camera. The lens is housed inside a raised circular section on the rear panel and has the usual flash, autofocus and video shooting (at a healthy 30fps WVGA) capabilities. To reinforce its camera-first, phone-second reputation, the Pixon has many features found on a regular point-and-shoot camera such as auto-panorama, face/smile and blink detection and an advanced shake reduction setting. All this adds up to the Pixon taking pictures filled with colour and detail, with a sharpness unaffected by over-zealous in-camera software enhancements.

The media side of the Pixon is also very impressive. The wide screen lends itself perfectly to playing videos and the onboard player is set up to play most of the popular file types including DivX, XviD, H.264 and MP4. The music player has the same level of versatility and like may other of the Pixon’s special features can be accessed by one of the clever widgets which are dragged from the sidebar on to the main home screen, making it unnecessary to dig about inside the menu system. A 3.5mm jack plug adaptor, TV-out and the unusual virtual surround sound cement the Pixon’s claim to being a full-on mobile media powerhouse.

Rounding out the feature set on the Pixon is the Assisted GPS receiver, MicroSD card slot for a memory increase, an accelerometer which amongst other things, makes viewing your photo album a lot more fun than usual and an FM RDS radio. The Pixon’s 3G HSDPA connection returns excellent data speeds, however the lack of Wi-Fi is a shame.

Summary of the Samsung M8800 Pixon.
Supposedly the little brother of the Samsung INNOV8, the Pixon more than holds it own in the range thanks to brilliant music and video, excellent build quality mixing metal and plastic, the responsive and innovative TouchWiz and of course, the mighty 8 megapixel camera. The M8800 Pixon is another great high-tech media mobile from Samsung.

Click the link below to view more information and buy…

Slim, sleek, and bursting with features, the Samsung i900 Omnia provides the ultimate in mobile technology. Rivalling the iPhone and Touch Diamond, the awesome i900 offers a superb 3.2″ touchscreen with patented TouchWiz UI, 5MP camera with face detection, HSPDA at 7.2 Mbps, and a mind blowing 8GB memory. That simply scratches the surface! Based on the most up to date Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS, you’ll also find Pocket Office, GPS including navigation and geo-tagging capabilities, a host of connectivity options, multi-codec support and more. All this in 12.5mm – what a fantastic phone!

Features

Click the link below to view more information and buy…

The original Armani may have pre-dated it, but the Tocco F480 was the model where Samsung came of touchscreen age. Although they both share similar looks, the Armani’s innovative but flawed Croix interface has been dumped in favour of the far more user-friendly TouchWiz system, which is also found on the Pixon. In fact, thinking of the Tocco as a Pixon-lite wouldn’t be far off the mark, as it gives the 8 megapixel monster a serious run for its money!

Features

Why You Should Buy The Tocco!

Created using glossy plastic and shiny metal, this 100 gram, 11mm thick handset is a thing of beauty!

A 5 megapixel camera lens can be found on the rear of the handset.

It’s a 3G handset with 7.2Mbps HSDPA support.

An FM RDS radio plus a music and video player for entertainment.

The main attraction of the Samsung Tocco has to be its touchscreen. It’s a 2.8″ screen with a resolution of 240×320 and although that may sound a little small for a touchscreen device, it does the job perfectly well thanks to its brightness and sharp colours. This is the first Samsung to feature the TouchWiz interface, a clever little system which consists of a sidebar on your main screen filled with widgets. Dragging these widgets from the sidebar on to the main screen with your finger activates them, displaying everything from a clock to your music player and making it a quick job to activate your favourite features. The Tocco also has haptic feedback.

Click the link below to view more information and buy…