// Pocket Picks //

Samsung’s latest handset is sure to give users good vibrations. Instead of a traditional keypad, it uses its large LCD touch-screen as the input method, via on-screen buttons. And it also uses Immersion Corporation’s VibeTonz vibration technology to give users feedback when jabbing at the screen.

When using the phone, you get what Immersion describes as ‘confirming tactile cues’, which makes the on-screen buttons feel more like proper physical ones. VibeTonz uses technology originally developed for the rumble feature on console joypads.

“As the first to integrate VibeTonz technology for touchscreens, we’re giving users the reassuring sense of interacting with a real keypad, supplying gentle touch feedback that unmistakably confirms each of their actions,” says Samsung VP Hunbae Kim. “As far as advanced mobile interfaces go, it offers the best of both worlds.”