CeBIT 2006 Pantech’s mission: Russia

Pantech is not very active on most European markets, and it was supposed that CeBIT 2006 will become the place where new expansion strategy for these regions will be announced. However this did not happen, mostly because of complicated situation in Russia, it became unclear for the company, especially because one of the main distributors forced the company to give them unexampled discounts. I think that in nearest future other distributors will demand same conditions for themselves, this will affect Pantech’s business negatively not only in Russia, but on the whole as well. So far Pantech has 6 months to keep its positions with the help of sales through one company, after this period of time price strategy discussion will most likely be raised again.

Specially for Russian market, where the company has pretty good sales several budget models were prepared. One of them is candybar Pantech G-1405. Its specifications are simple: 65000 color STN display with 128x128 pixel resolution, 40-tone polyphonic ring tones, VGA camera. Nothing more complicated is required for this segment.

A more complicated variant is called G-1900, it has improved polyphonic ring tones (64-tone), support of mp3 files. Built-in memory size is only 2.5mb, but it has microSD memory card slot, which makes the phone a simple mp3 player. In case price policy will be correct and adequate this can become an interesting solution. The price around 140-150 USD can turn this model into a hit, sort of budget mp3 phone.

A big interest was raised by model named G-3700, it is extremely successful. Clamshell’s size is 95x47x14.9 mm, weight – 85 grams. The external display is placed into lower ledge, instead of flipping part (the construction is similar to RAZR). The external OLED display supports only two colors (blue and yellow), it has two text lines. This is enough for showing caller’s ID. The construction on the whole is pleasant and convenient. The phone is slim, its design is on a pretty high level, combination of silver and black colors is very unusual. You can see 1.3mpx camera on the back side. 64-tone polyphonic ring tone is present together with mp3 player support. There’s microSD memory card slot. I’d like to point out that the player can work in minimized mode, which allowed the company to name this phone as multi-task supportive. Support of Document Viewer looks unusual, it allows viewing office documents right on your mobile phone’s screen.

Model G-6200 is reanimation of GI100’s idea with built-in finger-print scanner. This time it is brought down, instead of taking space of navigation key, this is very logical. Another technological addition is movement sensor (6 directions). Demand for this feature is pretty much relative, that’s why the phone itself is not very interesting. Its design is unusual.

G-3800 is related to middle class clamshell segment, approvable screen, pretty large size and neat polished front panel. There aren’t any peculiarities though.

Patntech entered Japanese market with quite cheap model A1405PT, it has pretty typical specifications, and the only feature worth mentioning is security signal, you can activate it in case you are robbed, being killed and stuff of the kind. The phone starts screaming about it so that everyone around would hear it.

Model PC-73000L was designed for CDMA/AMPS-networks, it looks pretty interesting, since there aren’t many sliders for this market. The specifications are not very outstanding – 65k STN-display, 32-tone polyphonic ring tones, USB-connection.

The company is releasing more and more models for American market, one of them is PN-320. Clamshell which supports BREW 3.1, 72-tone polyphonic ring tones, VGA camera. The internal display is 1.9”, its resolution is 176x220 pixels, 262000 colors are supported.

Various concepts of future devices were rather interesting and unusual:

Eldar Murtazin (eldar@mobile-review.com)
Translated by Alexandr "Lexx" Zavoloka (lexx@frag.su)

Published — 14 March 2006

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