Samsung’s Soul Shifts Buttons on the Fly

The MagicTouch interface uses a touch pad with illuminated icons that change as users navigate through different features.

Somewhere between the full LCD touch screen and the traditional hard number pad lies the context-sensitive touch menu, an interface pioneered by LG with the Venus and now showing up on Samsung’s latest flagship model, the Soul. Samsung announced the slick brushed-metal phone on Friday in preparation for the Mobile World Congress, sporting a context-sensitive OLED touch screen with icons that change depending on which menu a user has accessed.

As mentioned, LG’s Venus was officially the first phone to sport the interactive menu design, which reduces clutter on the phone’s outer screen by only presenting relevant buttons at any given time. For instance, the pad might show options for zooming while in camera mode, or adding contacts while in phonebook mde. Samsung has dubbed the controls MagicTouch, and has opted go with an OLED display rather than the traditional LCD LG used with the Venus.

Like all flagship phones, dimensions will be an important selling fact for the Soul, which is just 12.9mm thick, yet manages to pack in a 2.2-inch QVGA display, Bluetooth, microSD card slot, HSDPA Internet access, and even an FM radio. The Soul’s phone snaps pictures in full 5-megapixel resolution and includes an LED flash, face detection and image stabilization, all rare features for a camera phone.

Mobile Burn reports an April launch for the phone in Europe, with an international launch likely to follow.