The Smartphone market is hot; makers who wish to either hold on to market share or add more have to continually find new and innovative gimmicks to entice consumers to choose their device over the myriad of others. In this case, Pantech, the Korean giant has announced a new kind of smart phone that users can control by waving their hands over the front of it. As described by Zachery Lutz, in Endgadget, the phone is intended for those that wish to talk on their phones in environments that are not conducive to talking on the phone the normal way. Driving a car is one such example, as is cooking, or in a medical environment where gloves are required. In such cases, users can manipulate menus, place calls, and receive them, choose and play songs and even control the camera, all with a simple wave of the hand.
Called the Pantech Vega LTE, the Android running smartphone is described by those who have seen it as spec-heavy, which in tech speak means full of technical specifications that have been added to give the impression of more bang for the buck. In this case, the phone comes with a 4.5 inch display. A dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor, with 1GB of RAM, two cameras, one 1.3MP front facing for capturing hand movements, 16 GB of internal storage and a 1830mAh battery; which really means, that the phone is loaded and will run as fast or faster than anything else out there on the market. But still, it’s most interesting characteristic by far, is the ability to recognize different hand waving patterns as different commands which it converts and runs, allowing the user to use the phone hands free as easily as they would other phones using fingers or a stylus. The one main exception being, typing of course; though it can be done technically speaking, it would almost certainly take a lot more practice and patience than most phone users are willing to invest.
It’s not hard to image the LTE becoming an instant hit. Because it’s light enough to attach to some other object, people could simply affix it somewhere then do things other than hold onto the phone when talking with others, listening to music, etc.
Currently the Vega LTE will be available only in Korea, but if it meets with success, it will almost certainly become available first in other Asian countries than Europe and the U.S. etc. No word yet on how much it will cost.