Hennessy Flip Phone Unveiled in China by Samsung

When was the last time anyone was excited about a new flip phone coming out on the market? Apparently, flip phones are a pretty big deal in the Asian market. They seem to be interested in fully functional, big screen smartphones that flip open.

These phones still use the old style T9 dial-pad layout. You remember that, right? It is the dial-pad that looks like the old cordless phones. The latest version is Samsung’s Hennessy flip phone, or the SCH-W789. I guess that Samsung is trying to grab more of the Asian market with a flip phone.

According to data from research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung is China’s largest smartphone seller for six consecutive quarters. In a report from Korea’s Yonhap News Agency Samsung sold 15.3 million smartphones in China during the second quarter. This gave Samsung a 19.4 percent share of the Chinese market.

Today’s announcement that Samsung unveiled the Hennessey flip phone might have been more of a surprise if it weren’t for the fact that there was a mysterious leak yesterday. Rumors have been circulating about the SCH-W789 with a “Luxury Gold” color trim option. The information has come from several Asian rumor sites.

So what is the Hennessy flip phone? It is a dual screen clamshell or flip model. It has two 320 x 480 resolution displays. On is on the outside and the other is on the reverse side. Both displays are 3.27 inches. The phone also has a quad-core 1.2GHz processor and a five megapixel camera.

It is running on the Android 4.1 operating system. The outside display has three capacitive keys located on the bottom. The internal screen moves them to a 2 x 2 grid around a four way directional pad. It also looks like there is a dedicated button for the GSM/CDMA dual SIM function. This appears to be a very popular feature on Chinese phones.

A few other things that you will find inside the Hennessey SCH-W789 is 1GB of RAM, a 1500mAh battery, a five megapixel rear camera and a MicroSD card slot. There doesn’t appear to be a front facing camera. As mentioned above and as is usually the case with most other Samsung phones in China, it comes with support for both CDMA and GSM. This allows customers to access any network in the country.

For now there is no further information. I cannot tell you how much the phone costs as there is no word on pricing, or availability for that matter. The one thing that I can say for sure is that China will be the first to experience or should I say re-experience a flip phone.

There seems to be very little opportunity that the Hennessy will be released outside of the Asian market. It does show a commitment on Samsung’s and Android’s on-going reach into lower priced and emerging markets.