We see plenty of phones with unique designs, but this week Samsung is bringing Verizon customers a shape we haven’t seen in awhile. The Samsung Zeal is a dual-hinge messaging phone. Flip it in portrait mode like you would a clamshell phone to see a numeric keypad. Flip it in landscape mode to see an QWERTY keypad.
What’s more, the Samsung Zeal’s keypads use e-ink, a technology we’ve seen before in another dual-hinge e-ink phone, the Samsung Alias 2, also for Verizon. As with the Alias 2, the characters on the Zeal’s QWERTY keyboard morph into symbols, while the numbers on the vertical dialpad shift into alphabetic characters.
In addition to a unique design, the Zeal has a 2-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot that holds up to 32GB memory, and Bluetooth. On the software side, it will also have support for Web mail and Microsoft Exchange e-mail, instant messaging, Skype Mobile, a Web app, a social networking app, and VZ Navigator.
You can pick up the Samsung Zeal from Verizon on November 11 for $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate, and with a new two-year service agreement.