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Samsung to launch a Snapdragon 808-based clamshell smartphone

Not all phones are black glass rectangles, y'know

We don’t get clamshell smartphones in the West, but China's love of keypads means that Samsung sells them over there - and the first Sammy to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor is just such a phone.

Samsung_SM_G9198_clamshell

The Samsung SM-G9198

The SM-G9198 has just got approval from China’s telecoms regulator, TENAA, which should see it on the market soon.

According to testing website gfxbench, the Samsung SM-G9198 has a 64-bit hexa-core Qualcomm 808 processor running at 1.8GHz. There is a 4.6-inch, 1280 x 768 touch screen and a 15Mp camera.

With a relatively small screen and GPU-supported processor, it gives good graphics performance.

Samsung fanboi site Sammobile reports that the screen is a bit smaller at 3.91 inches, although there are two of them – one inside and one outside of the clamshell.

The phone is reported to run Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with 16GB on-board, expandable with a microSD card slot of up to 128GB, and has LTE compatibility.

Two screens make for a thick phone, at 119.7 x 66.6 x 16.7mm, and at 191g, it's also chunky. Dense phones always feel good to hold and with a decent hinge it should have an air of quality which many phones seem to be lacking.

Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely that Samsung will sell the SM-G9198 outside of China – its SM-G9098 predecessor was only for the Chinese. Phones with keypads tend to be associated with those who have visual impairments – devices such as the Telorion add-on for Samsung phones and the Kapsys Smartvsion. ®

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