LG to unveil world firsts at GITEX

Notebooks featuring Intel's cutting edge Centrino-powered wireless technology will be unveiled, while the next generation of mobile phones with brand new features will be available on the newly designed stand, which is a third bigger than last year's.

LG's first offering in the highly competitive tablet market will also be revealed. The tablet features a swivelling 12.1' XGA wide viewing angle screen, keyboard, a Wacom pen solution and incredible battery life of up to 5.41 hours. It will run on Intel's new Dothan 1.8Ghz +, a 90 nanometer mobile chip with a 400MHz front side bus and 2Mb of cache, when it becomes available. Until then, it is available with the groundbreaking Banias CPU.

The tablet weighs in at 3.79lbs, and has a 40Gb hard drive, as well as 802.11x wireless LAN with quad band antenna and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

LG is also unveiling its latest foray into the highly competitive notebook market, in the form of a 2.2 - 2.6GHz Pentium 4 powered model, the CyNOTE, which packs an impressive 4.5 hour battery life thanks to LG power saving software and a hot swappable optical disk drive. Powerful stereo speakers and an ATI M7 discrete graphic chip with 32Mb video memory mean this machine is perfect for both business and leisure.

LG's new stylish 'LM series' notebook is based on Intel's Centrino wireless package - the Banias 1.5Ghz or Dothan 1.8GHz+, coupled with LG-enhanced wireless connectivity, providing quad band wireless LAN connectivity with a built in antenna.

The 'LM series' comes in different product mixes and price ranges, tailored to customers' needs. There is a choice of two housings - 14.1' screen and 15' screen - and two motherboards, as well as a variety of options in terms of memory and drives.

And the global and regional digital leader says its cutting-edge notebooks and PCs will be backed up by one of its most exciting Gitex displays, which will feature a host of new product launches - including two new forward-looking mobile phones.

New flavours in the already popular LG MultiNet desktop PC will also be introduced.

'We will debut new multi-drive optical storage devices, portable optical storage devices, mobile phones and five new monitors from our award-winning Flatron LCD range,' said P.C. Choi, President, LG Electronics Gulf FZE.

Backing LG's market leading and innovative Qiblah phone is the ground breaking G7100, with a number of outstanding features, to be revealed at the show. The clamshell design phone has a screen that can be swivelled through 270 degrees which is particularly useful when taking photographs with its integrated VGA camera.

The dual-band GSM 900/1800 MHz G7100 has an internal 65K-colour LCD screen, and also an external 256-colour display. It also has a voice recording function, and is Arabic enabled.

Other features include: Java support, GPRS, 32-tone polyphonic ring tones, MMS, SMS, phonebook, caller groups, musical editor, world time, alarm-clock, calculator, and in-built Java games. It weighs just 101.4 grams, and the Li-polymer battery has up to 3.5 hours talk time, and standby time of up to 200 hours.

Also unveiled for the first time at GITEX is the LG 5400 coloured LCD screen phone, which is a smaller folder type phone supporting MMS technology and Java-based software. It has a talk time of 4.5 hours, stand-by time of 230 hours and an exciting feature to be unveiled at Gitex as a first for mobile phones in the region.

'These new phones will further expand an already successful LG mobile range,' said Choi. 'In just over a year, LG has become a serious competitor in the region's mobile market.'

Yet another show stopper is the Super-Multi DVD rewriter, which represents a storage and playback world first.

'For today's DVD digital convergence, the internal super multi DVD rewriter takes away all the compatibility headaches. It supports all three DVD formats (DVD-R/RW; DVD-RAM and DVD+R/+RW) as well as CD-R and CD-RW. You could argue that this device is future proof,' said Choi.

'The LG Super Multi allows users to make their own DVD films, convert and store video tape onto DVD, and, of course, record, store, share and protect valuable data on all DVD and CD formats.

Finally, there is an awesome line-up of new Flatron monitors - LG Electronics' award-winning range of monitors, many of which now feature optional TV tuners; Plasma Display Panels which can operate as monitors or TVs; LCD TVs, LCD projectors; DVD Home Theatre systems; DVD combination units; slimline DVD players; MP3 players and nine different mobile phones.

LG Electronics' futuristic GITEX stand has been comprehensively redesigned not only to reflect the expansion of the leading brand's regional offerings, but also to accommodate an exclusive LG press lounge.

'The LG press lounge is a chance for journalists to work and relax in a quieter environment, away from the main press office,' said Choi.

The lounge will be fully wired with LG's latest computers, offering a selected group of invited media to file copy in quieter surroundings, while taking advantage of the digital leaders' renowned hospitality.

LG is currently the leading monitor and optical storage supplier throughout the Middle East and Africa, while the introduction of PCs and notebooks into the region rounded up its regional IT offering to cover every product segment.

'The new additions to the PC and notebook range will take us closer to reaching our aim of owning 20% regional market share by the end of next year,' explained Choi.

LG reports that its PCs and notebooks have been in strong demand throughout the region since their arrival in May.

'The first two shipments sold within days,' explained Choi. 'With new products being added to the line up, LG's standing in these segments will be greatly enhanced.'