Although bone conduction is nothing new in headphones and Bluetooth headsets, not very many cellphones incorporate it into their feature sets. Pantech’s KDDI A1407PT in Japan does have this bone conduction loudspeaker, and channels sound through your bones from your ear (or just behind your ear), which helps you hear in noisy environments. Other than the boning factor, this $165 phone is pretty plain, with a 2.4-inch screen and a 1.3-megapixel camera. Put the bone technology into a great phone and we’ll start getting excited. [Digital World Tokyo via Uber Gizmo]
The Pantech Duo, seen previously as the Helio Ocean, has just been spotted in the wild by a tipster. He takes some sample shots next to his V3xx RAZR, which should give you a good idea of how large it is in comparison. If it’s as thick as the Ocean, prepare to be either appalled or flattered when your friends comment on your third testicle. [Update, added side shot]
Look at this Pantech C180 that Boy Genius Report just uncovered, branded AT&T and looking a whole lot like a smaller and thinner Helio Ocean. But this Pantech slider runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard, and just like the Ocean, it has that appealing dual-sliding arrangement, where a horizontal slide reveals a QWERTY keyboard and a vertical slide uncovers a number pad. Take the jump for a look at it in its horizontally-sliding form.
If you thought that AT&T was becoming a high-end boutique cellphone shop with handsets like the iPhone and the HTC 8925, Pantech’s latest addition to their roster will straighten you out. The C150 is a pretty nice looking low-end cameraphone with a VGA camera, Bluetooth, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Windows Live Mail support, MP3 ringtones, picture and ringtone caller ID and not a whole lot else. It’s a candybar phone that measures 4.1 x 1.7 x .49 inches with a 128×160 pixel screen. So don’t worry that you won’t be able to pick up a possibly free-after-rebate phone from AT&T that doesn’t look halfway bad. [Pantech]
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The Samsung U600 isn’t the slimmest slider any more, because this Pantech IM-S230 just out-skinnied it by a whole millimeter. Like a couple of supermodels battling to see who can be the first to be completely invisible when viewed from the side, this Pantech phone is just 9.9mm thick, besting the positively corpulent Samsung U600, which at 10.9mm thinks she’s starting to look fat in those short shorts.
