There are personal location beacons for the backcountry wilds, and then there are those for the urban wilderness. Samsung’s soon-to-ship W7100 falls into the latter category.
The flip phone, marketed at women and children for its safety features, can emit a fierce 100 dB emergency signal if help is needed and send your GPS location to the police with an emergency message. Of course, manually entering a message isn’t always that easy in an emergency situation, so the Samsung W7100 can also be programmed to automatically send an emergency message when turned off (I can just see the problems inherent in this).
The W7100 also features 36 external LED patterns for the display–such patterns as cats and hearts–and designs can also be created by the user. Shipping March 13 in Korea, the Samsung W7100 hasn’t been priced, nor do we know if it will ship in other countries. It has, however, been approved by the FCC for use in the United States.
