Hyundai takes on LG with MB-910 watch phone

Hyundai's MB-910 watch phone will cost around £200 in the UK

Car maker Hyundai has revealed plans to enter the mobile market with a wristwatch phone similar to LG's Touch Watch Phone unveiled at this year's Mobile World Congress.

The tri-band Hyundai MB-910 is set to hit the shelves late in the second quarter of 2009, and is expected to sell for around £200 SIM-free including a Bluetooth headset. The LG watch phone will reportedly cost £1,000 when it arrives in the UK.

Hyundai's MB-910 will sport a 58mm x 44mm screen boasting 65,000 colours at a resolution of 132 x 176, a slightly higher resolution than the LG model, but with a smaller colour palette.

Weighing in at 58g, it will feature SMS, MMS, Bluetooth, an email client, video playback, music player and touch-screen control, while charging and data transfer will be done via USB.

The MB-910 has a 400mAh battery, which offers up to 70 hours of standby time and three hours of talk time, according to Hyundai.

"Already a hit in Europe, we have high hopes for the MB-910's entry to the UK market. We are delighted to confirm that we intend to make the MB-910 available in the UK, and we will announce our specific plans shortly," said Roland Prinz, director of Hyundai Mobile UK.

The device has a music and video player installed, but just 128MB of internal memory will be enough for only a handful of songs or a short clip, if it is not filled up entirely with emails.

Similarly, contacts are limited to 300, as are text and picture messages. Compared to the 2GB provided by its LG rival, this seems very limiting, especially as there is no expandable memory slot.