Samsung launches S7070 Diva and S5150 Diva Folder

Samsung has announced the S7070 and S5150 Diva phones, designed 'to fuse modern phone technology with designer styling'.

Designer phones are nothing new in the mobile world, but often the fundamentals of a useful handset suffer at the cost of luxury; but this need not be the case according to Samsung.

The hands-on at GSMArena reveals that the S7070 Diva takes the 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen approach, whereas the S5150 Diva Folder has the traditional clamshell form factor - but both crank up the design factor.

The S7070 comes in a pearly-white frame, complete with a gem-like insert that functions as the 'home' button and a quilt-effect embossed rear cover.

Under the fancy outer-wear lies a 3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth and microSD support, but there's no sign of 3G connectivity, so it's restricted to GSM/EDGE for calling and data connections.

Potentially more enticing than the average looking spec list is the integration of social networking clients such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter; with the S7070 featuring automatic pop up notifications from these sites.

The S5150 Diva Folder, as its name belies, is a clamshell handset with a 2.2-inch QVGA display and similarly run-of-the-mill spec list as the S7070, and like its touchscreen sibling maxes out at tri-band GSM/EDGE connectivity.

Where the S5150 does score points though is with the exterior styling; the outer shell of the device is comprised of a striking silvery pillowy finish. On the top flip there's an LED display lurking beneath the folds which can display incoming calls or the time and is invisible when turned off.

Expect this particular pair of Divas to hit Europe around January next year, with China and South-Eastern Asian launches hot the heels.