Toshiba comes out of nowhere with the ultra-slick TG01 touchscreen phone

In an announcement timed quite perfectly for maximum resonance without being lost in the noise of the upcoming Mobile World Congress, Toshiba has dropped word of a new touchscreen they’ve got in the works. In our scientific survey with a finely tuned control group (Fine. It was one guy who was outside walking his dog), the general reaction seems to be “Wait, Toshiba makes cell phones?’

Indeed they do – and if the newly unveiled TG01 is any indication, they’re pretty damn good at it. In an obvious stab at the iPhone, the TG01 shares a similar form factor while upping the specs and downing the thickness. Somehow, they’ve managed to pack a 4.1” QVGA screen, microSD support, 1ghz processor, aGPS, WiFi, HSDPA, and other goodies like DiVX and Flash support into a 9.9mm thick shell.

It’s a gorgeous piece, and one of the most impressively spec’d beauts we’ve seen thus far. On many levels, it outguns the iPhone. On others, it falls short (internal memory and, arguably, that it runs Windows Mobile). Is it worthy of the much thrown about “iPhone-killer” tag that some are already giving it? On a purely technical level, perhaps – but unless Toshiba unleashes some pent up marketing magic capable of emulating the hype generator that comes packed along with every Apple branded product, it’s not going to happen.
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[via T3]