March 31, 2009 5:30 PM PDT

Samsung unveils Mondi WiMax device

by Kent German

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Samsung kicked off CTIA by announcing a WiMax touch-screen device. At an event at the swanky Wynn Encore Hotel, Sammy showed off the Mondi, which crams laptop- and Netbook-worthy features into a compact design.

The Mondi's 4.3-inch display dominates the Mondi's real estate, leaving room only for a camera lens and a couple of physical controls. Samsung promises that the Mondi will have a customizable interface with widgets that can be dragged around at will. The operating system is Windows Mobile 6.1.

The Mondi's slider design hides a full QWERTY keyboard, a navigation toggle, and an Internet Explorer browser shortcut. It doesn't offer a dedicated row of numeric keys, but a fair number of symbols are surfaced directly on the keyboard.

Samsung Mondi hands-on photos

Features are quite plentiful. Besides the WiMax Mobile Internet Access, you'll find Wi-Fi, GPS with support for Route 66 Navigation, Microsoft Outlook and Windows Mobile Office, 4GB of internal memory, Bluetooth, a 3-megapixel camera, a video player, messaging, and Push e-mail (POP3, IMAP, and SMTP), instant-messaging and a personal organizer. The Mondi does not have a cellular radio for making calls.

Clearwire will provide the WiMax service. We'll fill in Mondi's exact availability details as soon as the press conference is over. And of course, we'll have photos, video, and more specs.

Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent.