Immersion Corporation announced today the new Samsung SCH-W559, the first touchscreen-based mobile phone in the world to use Immersion's VibeTonz System to provide tactile feedback for touchscreen interactions. Immersion's VibeTonz System allows touchscreen-displayed buttons to feel more like mechanical keys. VibeTonz tactile feedback can also help improve usability in situations where controls are obscured by fingers or washed out by glare.

The SCH-W559 uses a large 260,000-color QVGA LCD touchscreen display to replace the traditional mechanical keypad as the primary input mechanism. Users receive confirming tactile cues when they press graphical onscreen controls, and they can customize the response by selecting one of five feedback profiles for these cues.

The new phone is being sold by China Unicom, the third largest mobile operator in the world with 135 million subscribers. Designed to roam globally by working on both CDMA and GSM networks, the SCH-W559 includes handwriting recognition, Bluetooth technology, 1.3 megapixel camera, and audio and video playback functions. VibeTonz capabilities in the phone also provide full-fidelity vibration tracks synchronized with eight preloaded ringtones. Vibe-enhanced ringtones enable personalization and add an element of fun to phone use and can help identify callers in noisy environments.

"Implementing keypad functions in a touchscreen has allowed Samsung to give its customers a first-class multimedia and messaging experience in a remarkably light and slim handset," said Hunbae Kim, Samsung vice president. "As the first to integrate VibeTonz technology for touchscreens, we're giving users the reassuring sense of interacting with a real keypad, supplying gentle touch feedback that unmistakably confirms each of their actions. As far as advanced mobile interfaces go, it offers the best of both worlds."

Since the first VibeTonz-enhanced phone was introduced in April 2005, VibeTonz applications for mobile devices have multiplied. VibeTonz tactile feedback for mobile device touchscreens, announced in June 2006, is only the latest application. VibeTonz effects accompanying ringtones or music are like turning up the subwoofers. And VibeTonz alerts that can vary from a reverberating gong effect to a subtle tapping can be more discernible and memorable.