Pantech has just announced their fledgling Android effort, the Sirius IM-A600S, will be launching on SK Telecom in Korea by the end of April. Readers in the U.S. and Japan should pay attention as well though as Pantech is in talks with AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. and KDDI in Japan.
A more complete specs list can be found at the bottom of the post, but the major bullet points are:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon (QSD8250) 1Ghz
- 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED Screen (800×480)
- 5MP Camera w/flash
- HDMI out
- Android 2.1
- 500 MB ROM
- Optical Joystick
Snapdragon has definitely become fairly commonplace for new Android releases; although I haven’t gotten sick of seeing that 1GHz listing yet. The optical joystick/trackpad is another feature that we are coming to expect from these devices, so no ground won or lost for the Sirius there. I suspect that HDMI out is going to be mainstream by this fall, but for the time being that is definitely a nice way to differentiate this from the Nexus One, Desire, and Droid Incredible that share otherwise similar specs.
On to the few possible dark clouds on the horizon for this device.
- The amount of RAM wasn’t announced, with the device cleared to output 720p video it seems unlikely that they skimped there, but it would be nice to see the number.
- Pantech has a skin running on top of Android 2.1, as you can tell from the somewhat iPhone lookalike homescreen, but it isn’t clear what it offers or how deep it runs in the OS.
- According to the Pantech site there is a stylus included which thus far has meant a resistive touchscreen.
I tried reaching Pantech for confirmation on some of the missing specs, but they have yet to respond. I will update the post when they do get back to me.
I realize if this is resistive touch then it is DOA (at least for our readers), but what if they have slipped a capacitive friendly stylus in there? Does anyone else think that might be useful at times?
| Model Name | Sirius (IM A600S) |
| Launch | 2010.04 |
| Operator | SK Telecom |
| OS | Android 2.1 |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon (QSD8250) 1Ghz |
| Display | 3.7-inch WVGA(800X480) AMOLED |
| Size/Weight | 123.5 x 63.5 x 11.5 mm /128g |
| Qwerty Keypad | No |
| Mobile TV | T-DMB |
| Touch-Screen | Yes |
| Camera | 5-megapixel |
| Bluetooth | Yes |
| Wi-Fi | Yes |
| Battery | 1150mAh / 1400mAh |
| Internal Memory | 500MB |
| External Memory | 8GB, Up to 32GB |
| Feature | DviX, HDMI, SNS Manager (Twitter, Me2day), Optical Joystick |
