Samsung Electronics is launching its first touch-screen, full Internet-browsing mobile phone to occupy the domestic smartphone market in Korea.

The Korean electronics giant will start selling the M4650 ‘Multi-touch Phone’ via LG Telecom. The handset has a 2.8-inch LCD screen which doubles as a keypad, which is smaller than iPhone’s 3.5-inch display and thus is used with a stylus pen.

The smartphone market is getting bigger in other countries thanks to the development of the wireless Internet infrastructure. Phones with touch-sensitive screens are becoming ever more popular in the high-end market since the successful debut of the iPhone in the United States, where many people use it for listening to music, checking e-mails and for casual Web surfing.

Smartphones are being admired for their looks and utilities that they may become the PC of next generation thanks to their mobility and wireless Internet capability. Apple was the first to implement the full-browsing Internet function into its iPhone.

Samsung’s new Multi Touch phone looks less pretty, but performs more powerfully than most others. Other than the Internet capability, it can also play terrestrial DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) TV broadcasting, and a hidden screen vibrator that gives a gentle shake whenever the screen is touched for certain key input. But the screen isn’t capable of recognizing multiple touches unlike its name suggests.

The phone will be costing around US$ 550.

Written by Mahesh Chawla in Cellular