Looks like the Australian market will soon feature a CDMA based i700 - and perhaps an i600 too!

Matt M from MTekk reports:

I previously reported my speculation on the possible availability of the Samsung SGH-i700 in Australia in either February or March. This speculation was based on the mysterious appearance of a picture of this Pocket PC Phone on the Samsung Australia website, as well as a few tidbits of information gleaned from various sources. It now looks like I was more or less "on the money".

My sources at Telstra today confirmed that the Samsung SGH-i700 is currently undergoing network testing with an eye toward Telstra's 3G CDMA 1xRTT based Mobile Data Network. It looks like they plan to release it as a further part of their Exchange Mobile Mail solution, which already offers the GSM-based i-mate Phone Edition and Smartphone devices on 24 month contract for AUD$0 upfront. You can read more about the Exchange Mobile Mail solution here and here . The solution should be launched initially with just the i-mate GSM devices, dependent upon how far along testing of the CDMA device(s) are.

The release of this device will provide speeds of up to 144kbps over the 1xRTT data network (as opposed to the current 40kbps achieved with GPRS over GSM), and is expected to tie into Telstra's extension of their 1xRTT service nationwide - which should be completed by April.

I would not be surprised to see the Samsung SGH-i600 Smartphone (possibly SCH-i600 if it's CDMA) also make an appearance, although it wasn't mentioned by my contact. This would provide Telstra with both CDMA based Pocket PC Phones and Smartphones, to complement the equivalent GSM i-mate devices. The CDMA based devices are certain to be available in retail channels, such as the Telstra Shop, as with the i-mate phones.

Given this information, it's possible we may see the device in March, but I'd be inclined to move my estimation to April to coincide with the extension of the 1xRTT network. I believe both devices will be released in Australia with Windows Mobile 2003 rather than Pocket PC 2002, but this has not been confirmed.

In any case, it's very exciting times for Australia. It looks like things are moving quickly at last for Windows Mobile, with some real competition in the marketplace - which currently features only HTC based phones - finally heading our way.

[Matt's Note: I'm aware that the model name may be SCH-i700 for a CDMA model. Just waiting to see.]

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