Pantech's Clutch of Budget Handsets

If you've heard of Pantech before, it's probably in the context of their two Disney Mobile phones, or maybe for the low-end phones they provide for pre-paid services. But at the CTIA mobile show, which finishes today, the company had an impressive collection of GSM handsets, still budget-priced but not unattractive.

The lineup of phones for the North American market starts with the C3B, the successor to Pantech's C3 and new claimant to the title of world's smallest camera-equipped flip phone (it weighs in at 2.5 ounces and measures 2.7 inches tall by 1.7 inches wide by 0.8 inches thick, folded. What's new here is Bluetooth support, the ability to swap out the face plate for any of a half a dozen or so others, a better VGA camera, and improved messaging and e-mail capability.

The C150 is a cute, petite tri-band GSM candy-bar-format phone available in black or white. It supports stereo bluetooth and plays MP3 and AAC audio files; it has a built-in VGA camera.

For more serious music lovers, the quad-band C510 clamshell phone puts controls and a scrolling digital display on its external lime-green lid. Also included: a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth stereo support, and a Micro SD card slot. Supported multimedia formats include MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, MPEG-4, and H.263.

More upscale models include the C600, which supports broadband (UMTS) data speeds in some regions and EDGE elsewhere, and the C710, with push-to-talk capability and stereo speakers as well as broadband support and a Micro SD slot.

Here's the red C600:

And the C710:

Carriers and pricing were not announced, but again, expect good value for these feature sets. Pantech is a vendor to keep an eye on.

For more CTIA show coverage, go to PC World's Cell Phones and PDAs Info Center.

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