Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.
One of the biggest drawbacks many people have been seeing with one of Toshiba’s latest big releases – the TG02 – is that despite the phone being powerful and coming with a capacitive touchscreen it lacked a tactile element brought about by QWERTY keyboards. While not all users need QWERTY to survive it can still be a deciding factor for many consumers, so to complement the release of the TG02 a similar QWERTY version was recently announced as well – the K01.
Housing a powerful combination of hardware and software just as the TG02, the K01 adds in a full-sized sliding QWERTY keyboard that nestles beneath the huge capacitive touchscreen, meaning users have the flexibility to use whichever they prefer at any given time for either direct touchscreen-based input or a more familiar keyboard approach.
The addition of the QWERTY keyboard has done nothing to limit the power of the K01, however, and just like the touchscreen on TG02 the K01 comes packed with power and capabilities to keep its users connected and empowered wherever they may be. At the heart of the K01 driving the machine is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, helping ensure that every aspect of the phone operates quickly and effectively. Many people believe this is actually a necessity rather than a nice addition, however, due to the fact that the K01 is a Windows Mobile device and this operating system is well-known for being a resource hog on whatever machine houses it (as even HTC’s HD2 released last year demonstrated). Still, a 1GHz processor is enough to power the phone under most normal settings and the added functionality Windows Mobile brings to the system is well worth any potential lag time it may bring with it.
A major selling point of the K01 is, for many people, its pure size and power coupled with a 4.1 inch high-resolution touch screen. Toshiba has even announced that the screen utilizes many of the same features that are found in their Regza line of flatscreens, meaning higher resolution and clarity under different lighting situations and from different angles in order to help ensure visibility from all angles.
For those worrying about other hardware specs for the phone storage is able to be expanded comfortably using microSD cards and can allow the phone to handle up to 32GB at any given time. This would most likely be best suited for use with various other media such as music or movies as pictures snapped by the phone won’t take up much space given the limited 3.15 megapixel camera. The plus side of the camera, however, is that the phone comes with a built-in photo editor to allow direct manipulation of whatever photos you take along with GPS geotagging for sharing with your friends and family online.
For those who are socially inclined as well the K01 comes with a wide range of connectivity options found in most modern smartphones (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPRS, etc.) in addition to applications to allow you to keep directly in synch with various social networking applications such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This is an excellent feature for both social aficionados that like to keep their peers or followers up to speed on their current activities at any given time as well as professionals who utilize social networking for marketing purposes.
As for the actual expected release date of the K01 that is still uncertain, though many industry analysts believe that it will come hand-in-hand with some of the other releases recently announced by Toshiba and should be seen sometime in early to mid 2010. Most likely the phone will hit the shelves in the second quarter of the year, though this is still to be determined by Toshiba at this date.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
