New Samsung Ultra Editions: a little bit of ooh-la-la
0 Comments Published by bill hilton on Sunday, September 03, 2006 at 12:08 PM.
Samsung held the European product launches for the new 3G phones in their Ultra Edition range last week. These are basically riffs on the 'so slim it bends' design of the Ultra Edition phones the company launched back at the start of this year, though none is as spectacularly skinny as the X820s, which at 6.9mm thickness, ain't going to be beat for quite some time.
The Z720 (13.8mm) is positively chubby compared to its slightly older cousin, but it remains the thinnest HSDPA slide-up cell phone on the market. The Z370 and Z260 are a bit narrower, using Samsung's advanced materials science to make them thin but strong.
So much for the detail. What's really interesting is the place they chose for the product launch: the Louvre, Paris. Launch location is the sort of thing that brand managers lie awake all night thinking about. So what does this choice tell us about the way Samsung wants us to view its new mobiles?
Well, before the French Revolution the Louvre was a royal palace - but presumably the Korean guys don't want us to associate their technology with an old, decadent, inefficient, despotic, uncaring organisation staffed by bewigged, puffy-faced autocrats. These days the Louvre is an art gallery containing famous pieces such as the Mona Lisa, so it's more likely they want us to consider the Ultra Edition phones as works of art, instant design classics that will live in our collective imagination for generations.
Maybe branding people just get carried away. Check out the Samsung Ultra Edition 3Gs. Whether they're works of art is a matter of opinion, but each one is a pretty damn fine cell phone.
The Z720 (13.8mm) is positively chubby compared to its slightly older cousin, but it remains the thinnest HSDPA slide-up cell phone on the market. The Z370 and Z260 are a bit narrower, using Samsung's advanced materials science to make them thin but strong.
So much for the detail. What's really interesting is the place they chose for the product launch: the Louvre, Paris. Launch location is the sort of thing that brand managers lie awake all night thinking about. So what does this choice tell us about the way Samsung wants us to view its new mobiles?
Well, before the French Revolution the Louvre was a royal palace - but presumably the Korean guys don't want us to associate their technology with an old, decadent, inefficient, despotic, uncaring organisation staffed by bewigged, puffy-faced autocrats. These days the Louvre is an art gallery containing famous pieces such as the Mona Lisa, so it's more likely they want us to consider the Ultra Edition phones as works of art, instant design classics that will live in our collective imagination for generations.
Maybe branding people just get carried away. Check out the Samsung Ultra Edition 3Gs. Whether they're works of art is a matter of opinion, but each one is a pretty damn fine cell phone.
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