Sanyo’s Katana line has been upgraded yet again with the appearance of the Eclipse, and this time round, the handset retains the same clamshell format that has served the Katana so well in the past. As with any other new handset, it will eclipse, pardon the pun, its predecessor by featuring assignable illumination effects that enable the owner to tell who can tell (or at least the caller group) at a glance thanks to the color and lighting pattern that is displayed. You can also tell the difference between a text, an email message and an ordinary alert. With more than forty effects and seven LED colors to choose from, socialites who love compartmentalizing their friends into different colors will have a field day with the Eclipse.

If I’m not mistaken, there was a Motorola clamshell handset circa 1999/2000 that had a somewhat similar feature, where it uses different LED colors to denote which caller group is buzzing you, but I guess it took another 8 years or so for this technology to advance to the next level by including additional effects. These visual markings make it possible to know who’s calling even in noisy environments such as a nightclub, but then again that’s what Caller ID is for - making this feature cool but definitely non-essential. Some of the other features and specifications found on the Sanyo Katana Eclipse include :-

• microSDHC memory card slot (max. of 8GB)
• Sprint TV support
• Sprint Music Store offering over-the-air downloads of full-length songs for just 99 cents each
• Sprint Radio with more than 150 channels
• Sprint Navigation with GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, one-click traffic rerouting and more than 10 million local listings
• Live Search for Sprint
• Sprint Mobile Email for POP3 accounts including AOL, Gmail, Yahoo! as well as corporate email
• Stereo Bluetooth connectivity
• Speakerphone
• 1.3 megapixel camera with 12x zoom and video recording capability
• Wireless Backup
• Restrict and Lock to restrict calls and limit access to data services

You will be able to pick up the Sanyo Katana Eclipse from Sprint for just $99.99 albeit after a 2-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate.

Press Release