Some may call it just another Verizon-exclusive Android smartphone, but there is a little difference which has separated Samsung Continuum from the others. It’s the 1.8 inch ticker screen, a display which is separated and independent from the main display. It will show you updates like time, weather, text messages, emails, SNS notifications, news out of the box and later an API for third-party apps will be available. You can also use the ticker as a dock for apps and shortcuts.

There is a grip sensor on the sides of the phone which will light up the ticker display whenever you touch it. So you do not have to unlock it every time you want to check for alerts or the time.

Another great thing is that the big display will remain inactive while the ticker show the updates and this will be a great saver for the battery life. You can also control your media player with the ticker by keeping the giant display dormant.

Other than the ticker(secondary) display it’s a solid smartphone with a big display: a 3.4 inch Super AMOLED main display(480×800), bright and clear as its predecessors. The processor running these two displays is a 1GHz Hummingbird processor using 384MB RAM and 512MB ROM. The internal storage is 2GB and another 8GB micro-SD card (expandable up to 32GB) is provided with the phone. An interesting feature for the virtual QWERTY keyboard is the Swype Technology.

At the back of the phone there’s a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video recording. Besides Wi-Fi connectivity (802.11 b/g/n) it also has Wi-Fi hotspot feature which will let you use your phone as wireless router for up to 5 Wi-Fi devices. Unsurprisingly this phone is preloaded with Bing search and Bing map along with the other Google services. The other typical smartphone options are not missed, such as Bluetooth 2.1 + ERD, Multiple file format support, multi touch gestures, full HTML web browsing, smart email and calendar sync etc.

All the features are present and working fine. But there is a disappointment about the OS version. The date which is scheduled for the lunch is near to the estimated time of the release of Android 2.3 though this phone will be launched with 2.1 which is really something odd. Many users may not want to buy a phone which needs to be updated even before the release. So there must be strong reasons for which this phone will be with older version of Android though 2.2 update is promised to be released for Samsung Continuum soon.

You will be able to order the Samsung Continuum from November 11 and it will be available for purchase in stores from November 18. It’s priced $199.99 with a two year agreement.

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