Samsung takes a second stab at a dual-hinged phone

Samsung SCH-U740

(Credit: Samsung)

After its previous attempt at a dual-hinged flip phone fizzled, Samsung tried again with its new SCH-U740. Similar to the D307, the U740 features a full QWERTY keyboard (thankfully with better navigation controls this time) and can switch from portrait to landscape mode to quickly compose text messages and e-mails. But unlike the D307, the U740 ditches silver for a unique black and champagne color scheme and this time, the carrier will be Verizon Wireless instead of Cingular.

Though it's not a real smart phone since it doesn't run a third-party operating system, it still should offer a set of worker bee-friendly features, including Bluetooth, a MicroSD card slot, a speakerphone, and EV-DO support for Verizon's V Cast multimedia service. And in an improvement over the D307, the U710 is set to offer a 1.4-megapixel camera with video recording and playback.