Toshiba TG01: Touchscreen phones break the four-inch barrier

Posted: 19 March 2009

With a number of touchscreen mobile phones currently available from manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, LG and most recently Nokia, one company has decided to launch a new handset that offers the largest screen of its kind.

The Toshiba TG01 boasts a 4.1-inch display with touch interface - that some believe could give the industry's major players a run for their money. The latest offering from the company - which is known for its home entertainment systems, LCD TVs and other products - made its debut at the GSM Association (GSMA) Mobile World Congress last week and a number of industry experts were on hand to see what the company had managed to achieve with the model.

IntoMobile's Will Park expressed his excitement at getting to see the model in action and said the "unbelievably fast" 1Ghz of processing power would be something that could set the machine apart from some of its fiercest rivals.

Also noted was the inclusion of Snapdragon-enhanced multimedia applications, GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, as well as the all-important 4.1-inch WVGA touchscreen - all of which Mr Park noted could make the TG01 "easily one of the baddest smartphones to be announced in recent memory".

When the time came to give the handset a test-run, the "slim, beautiful, and powerful" TG01 was praised for its build quality, rugged design and minimalist styling and it was suggested that this could also be seen as making the Apple iPod 3G look "a little insecure" when the two are placed side-by-side.

"As a multimedia platform, the Toshiba TG01's Snapdragon chipset outperforms just about every other smartphone on [the] market. From smooth-as-butter high-res video playback to 3D gaming, the TG01 delivers," Mr Park concluded.

The handset runs using a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system - which could be of interest to those looking to use the phone for business purposes - and with Microsoft having already announced an upgrade to the system, it seems likely the Toshiba TG01 will be equipped with Windows Mobile 6.5 on its release. However, at this stage neither company has come forward to state that this is the intention.

It has, however, been revealed by Toshiba that the TG01 will measure 70mm in width, 129mm in length and 9.9mm in depth and will weigh 129g. The phone's screen will deliver an 800 x 480 pixel resolution and its camera will feature a 3.2 mega-pixel sensor with autofocus. Onboard memory will be 512MB and with the inclusion of a micro SDHC slot this is expandable up to 32GB. In addition to its 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, the device will also come equipped with Bluetooth 2.0 and a USB port, and it is estimated the battery life will clock in at up to 11 days on standby, with an approximate talktime of up to five hours. GPS and A-GPS will be onboard and in terms of multimedia, the TG01 will offer Windows Media Player, CoreCodec CorePlayer and Microsoft Internet Explorer, making it compatible with a range of file types - including mp3, aac, aac+, wma, wav, wmv and mpeg4.

Of course, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processing platform is expected to be one of the handset's key points of interest and according to the manufacturer, a "groundbreaking" level of mobile performance can be expected when used in tandem with the Windows system and the Toshiba touchscreen user interface.

Hisatsugu Nonaka, corporate senior executive vice president for the corporation, said the aim of the TG01 is to move mobile phones into the future, while offering a gadget that addresses the needs and desires of consumers in the current market.

"I am thrilled to announce the launch of TG01 in Europe, the market that we position at the centre of our Digital products strategy," he said. "In creating the TG01, we've integrated the very best of our mobile and LCD technologies in an attractive, premium quality, multimedia handset with internet access capabilities."

The 4.1-inch VGA touchscreen display is not only set to be the largest available, it will also offer tuning technology taken from Toshiba's line of flagship Regza LCD TV panels. It is hoped this "advanced picture-definition" will mean the TG01 has improved colour and brightness controls that are able to cope with the wide selection of video capabilities that it supports.

With all of the technical specifications in mind, the unveiling of the phone in Barcelona was always set to cause some level of excitement in terms of what it could be capable of. One such area which has raised questions in some inquisitive minds is how the gadget will fare as a gaming platform and of course this was something Stuart Dredge of Pocket Gamer was keen to find out. Luckily, Toshiba took the opportunity to showcase one of the titles - Electopia - at the GSMA event that could feature on the device when it is launched, giving the expert a chance to see what the unit could achieve.

"It could be a big deal for mobile gaming, judging by the demo we saw today at Mobile World Congress on the Qualcomm stand," he said. "It makes use of hardware-accelerated 3D OpenGL-ES 2.0 graphics, programmable shading with unified shader technology, as well as decent physics and AI … It's clear that the TG01 packs a serious gaming punch."

All of the anticipation for the phone, followed by the unveiling of its technical specifications, processing power, screen technology and gaming possibilities, could mean that there is a new contender on the block in terms of touchscreen-enabled mobile phones. Only time will tell if the Toshiba TG01 will have the ability to give the Apple iPhone 3G, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, T Mobile G1, HTC Touch and Samsung Pixon, Tocco and Omnia a true test - and with the manufacturer having already announced that it has plans for the handset to be available by Summer 2009, it may not be very long before we find out.

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