According to mobileburn, General Mobile will be releasing the dual-SIM DSTW1 Windows Mobile Professional phone soon, which will support a quad-band GSM/EDGE radio on the first SIM and a tri-band GSM/EDGE radio on the second SIM.
Dual-SIM phones are popular for travelers because it eliminates the hassle of swapping between two different SIMs in one phone or carrying two different phones, especially if you travel a lot between two countries. For instance, an American business traveler can have an AT&T SIM for the States and a Vodafone SIM for use when in Europe. Having a separate SIM for use in a foreign country is beneficial to reducing roaming charges, thus creating a savings to the consumer.
The downside is that the phone tops out on EDGE for data speed, which is the same 2.5G network that the iPhone uses. 3G is not employed in this phone so faster data access is not available.
Even if the design is uninspiring and the data speeds aren't up to par for the power users, this seems to be a good development. Dual-SIM standard phones have been around for a while now. These are the cheap or free "feature phones" that you can get on contract. However, higher end phones, like smartphones and PDA-phones, have typically been single-SIM only. Hopefully this will pave the way nicer designs and better specs for the future.
No details on pricing, but the phones are expected to launch in Europe in March.
pocketnow.com
