Related Articles
Flipping heck, that’s expensive. Samsung has been going all 2004 on us lately, launching a range of flip phones overseas. And now it’s announced the king of them all, the Samsung W2014.
It’s the most powerful yet, and features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, as seen in the Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and pretty much any phone that’s any good nowadays. But it doesn’t come cheap. According to Engadget, the W2014 will cost more than 10,000 Chinese Yuan, which works out at about £1,024. Ouch.
The mobile was announced at China Telecom’s “Heart of the World” charity concert in Nanjing — with Jackie Chan in attendance, and sadly won’t be making its way to Britain. “The W2014 has been specifically designed for a charity event in China,” a Samsung UK spokesperson told me in a statement. “There are currently no plans for this handset to go on sale in the UK.”
The W2014 has some pretty impressive specs, especially considering the last flip phone I used had a 1-megapixel camera. It runs Android — which was just a glint in Google’s eye back when flip phones were all the rage — 4.3 Jelly Bean, to be exact. As well as the 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 chip, it has 2GB of RAM. Image-wise it’s no slouch, with a 13-megapixel camera on the back, and a 2-megapixel front-facer.
It’s a dual-SIM model, and has 32GB internal storage. A microSD card slot lets you add another 64GB.
It’s just a shame Samsung couldn’t use a better screen. The 3.7-inch display has a resolution of 800×480 pixels, which is pretty paltry in this day and age. It’s not exactly 2004 standards, but we’ve come to expect better, especially if you’re dropping a grand on a new phone.
You can check out some hands-on pictures of the handset over at iFeng and PCPop.
Would you buy a flip phone nowadays? Crazier things have happened. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
Image credit: PCPop
Update 4 November: Added statement from Samsung UK.
