5th October - Samsung and Bang & Olufsen now introduce Serenata, the new music mobile phone that combines superb sound quality with the convenience of a mobile phone, all nicely tucked in the palm of your hand. Serenata is a music mobile phone focusing on sound quality and at the same time on bringing a more sophisticated lifestyle to the customers. To own Serenata is to enjoy the best possible music experience while you are on the move. Bang & Olufsen's expertise in concept development, user interface experience, acoustic sound capabilities and design skills together with Samsung's leadership in mobile phone technology, engineering and quality have realized a new way of combining unique music and mobile experiences for consumers.

"Since we started our first co-operation with Bang & Olufsen, we have only been confirmed in our belief that both companies share a passion for innovation and consumer-focused technology. Serenata is another example of new ways to think of the mobile phone. I'm proud to say that our customers can see a true innovation of music player and mobile phone as we have opened a new era of mobile phones with Serene two years ago", says Geesung Choi, President of the Telecommunications Network Business in Samsung Electronics.

"We have high expectations to Serenata, as it is a result of our joint vision to constantly push the boundaries, and bring unique and exciting products to our customers", states Torben Ballegaard Sørensen, CEO of Bang & Olufsen.

Acoustic performance dedicated to use Serenata represents an innovative approach to a personal music player. Two companies' astonish-ing technology and design bring the experience of digital
music to quite another level for music fans on the move. Serenata features a built-in stereo speaker system which delivers outstanding sound quality. Equipped with a built-in hi-fi speaker and outstanding bass system, the phone delivers high quality sound without any distortion. With this state-of-art technology, mobile phone users can enjoy various kinds of music from pop and rock to jazz and classic in the same way they would through their hi-fi system at home. At anytime and any place, you can listen to the opera in a music quality as if you were there yourself through the integrated loudspeaker system or through the dedicated stereo EarSet 3.

Combining only top-performing speaker components with ingenious acoustic principles and Bang & Olufsen-patented ICEpower amplification, we get the world's best acoustic performance. The focus has been to provide uncompromised and totally authentic music performance, with emphasis on playback of "uncompressed" music. Besides handling lossless, Serenata also handles playback in various formats, including MP3, WMA, and AAC.

As a dedicated music phone, Serenata brings special ring tones for the users who want to have unique and sophisticated sounds designed by Bang & Olufsen. The sound achieved from a triangle, wind chimes, various types of glass and different types of woods will offer beautiful sounds to match any situation.

Sophisticated design inspired by nature

Serenata is a pocket-sized music mobile phone with an organic rounded design. "I often take long walks by the sea where I live", explains Bang & Olufsen designer David Lewis, "and the shape of the nicely rounded stones that are washed to shore has always fascinated me. These stones have been carefully shaped and rounded by rolling in the water for millions of years, and they are so wonderful to hold in your hand. This was what I was looking for."

Whether standing on its integrated foot or nicely tucked in the palm of your hand, Serenata is a functional and outstanding music phone. The contrast between the cool aluminium and the warm soft touch lacquer leaves an impression of elegance, slimness and craftsmanship.

Intuitive user interface

The unique music phone's sound quality and elegant design does not compromise the ease of use. The click wheel navigation gives users hassle-free control of music functions.

“The basic idea is simplicity and one-hand operation. There are very few actual keys. We use the wheel for all primary operation in the context sensitive menus, like dialling, writing and accessing the music lists. For secondary operation, the wheel is supported by on-screen operation based on sensi-touch technology", explains Bang & Olufsen Chief designer David Lewis.

To assist the user throughout, the display changes colour depending on whether it is in Phone mode (blue) or Music mode (red). Furthermore, the large 2.4-inch colour LCD display developed by Samsung allows Serenata to show album covers in an excellent resolution and facilitates on-screen navigation.

Technical specifications:

Designer David Lewis
System 3G/GSM R/F band, GSM 900,1800,1900 and HSDPA 2100
Dimensions 63 x 109.5 x 19.7mm
Weight 136 g
Battery capacity 1000 mAh
Talk time Up to 3 h
Standby time Up to 280 h
Display technology TFT-LCD Pixel 240x240 Colour 256k
Size in inches 2.26"
Bluetooth Yes USB Version 2.0 (High Speed)
Browser WAP 2.0, Access NetFront v3.2
Message SMS, MMS, E-Mail (POP3, IMAP4, SMTP, SSL, TLS, OTA E-Mail Settings Configuration)
Memory 4GB + 25MB (1,000 tracks MP3)
Phone book 1,000 contacts
Speaker phone Yes
PureMusic Yes (flight mode)
Offline playback Up to 5 h (speaker) Up to 13 h (headset)
Audio codec MP3, AMR (Voice Tag), AAC, WMA,
WMA Lossless 9.1
DRM OMA DRM, Windows Media DRM
Artificial Bass True bass
Accessories Travel Adapter, Cigarette Lighter Adapter, Car
Holder, Stereo Wired Headset
PC tools PC studio (OS: W2k, XP, Vista)
BeoPlayer (OS: XP)

"Besides the colour-coding and intuitive user interface, we try to help the first- time user with a 4-minute simulation tutorial, which is played in the display, explaining some of the most frequently-used functionality", Bang & Olufsen Business Manager Brian Laursen explains.

To enhance the usability, Bang & Olufsen has developed BeoPlayer, a simple software that can access and organise all music files on the PC and conveniently transfer them to Serenata. Also through the Samsung PC studio, the users can synchronise the contacts, calendar and to-do list from their computer onto Serenata via Microsoft outlook.

Providing unique mobile experiences

With Samsung's leadership in mobile phone technology, Serenata represents a unique harmonization of music and mobile phone features. To offer enhanced multimedia functions, Samsung brings High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) connectivity to Serenata. With 3.5G connectivity, users can enjoy full multimedia features including music and video, e-mail, MMS and instant purchase and download of music tracks. Also the phone features a 4 Gigabyte solid-state memory for storing your digital music and data.

Featuring hi-fi speakers to deliver high quality sound reproduction and telephony, Serenata also provides a portable conference call feature, enabling multiple users to have a phone call a few feet away from the mobile phone.

Playback of music without disturbance from incoming calls or messages is made possible via the PureMusic function. Serenata still receives calls in the answering device or messages in the inbox, but you are not disturbed while you are listening to the music.