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The R&D guys at LG certainly aren’t slow to push the cellphone envelope and have done precisely that with their newest handset that went on show in Korea yesterday. The newcomer features the rather startling ability to not only receive satellite broadcasts, but to pause live shows TiVo-stylee.
The handset, called the LG-SB130 or KB1300, depending on the carrier version, was unveiled Tuesday at the Korea Electronics Show. The exhibition opened on Tuesday at the Kintex exhibition center in Ilsan, just north of the South Korean capital of Seoul.
Cellphones that can receive satellite TV began appearing in South Korea earlier this year when TU Media began to offer a service that beams a handful of video and audio channels to mobile devices from a satellite that was launched specifically for that purpose. Handsets from LG, Samsung and Pantech are available for the subscription service but the TiVo-like ability to pause broadcasts while you take a phone call is new.
In a demonstration at KES, the phone was shown tuned into a satellite TV program. When a call is received a message appears onscreen offering the user the option to pause the program and take the call. When the option is accepted, the phone immediately begins recording the TV broadcast to its internal memory and freezes the image on the screen. When the call is over, the phone begins showing the recorded program from when it was paused while continuing to record the program in its memory. In such a way users have the illusion that they have paused a live broadcast.
The phone packs 80Mb of internal memory and can record up to an hour of programming, said Lee Chang Kyu, an LG representative at KES.
Other features of the phone include a QVGA resolution (240 pixels by 320 pixels) 2.2in TFT (thin film transistor) screen, an MP3 player and TV output. It’s designed for South Korea’s CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) networks and versions won’t be available outside of the country largely because the TU Media satellite signal has only domestic coverage.
LG hasn’t decided on a price for the handset but Lee estimated it would cost around $700 and be available later this year.
— Martyn Williams
(Via IDG News Service)
02:44 PM 
Mark Hiratsuka •
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