The South Korean giant has worked with Immersion Corporation on the SCH-W559 phone, which uses a 260,000 colour QVGA touchscreen to replace the numeric keypad as its primary input mechanism. Users receive tactile cues when they press instead of a ‘click’.

Immersion claims that VibeTonz enhances content applications as well as simple dialling and text. It says that, since the first VibeTonz-enhanced phone was introduced in April 2005, mobile games have been tweaked to provide feedback similar to that found in console games. VibeTonz effects can also accompany ringtones or full tracks to deliver an effect like turning up the subwoofers. The system could also open up possibilities for a ‘multi-sensory’ user experience such as a romantic MMS with a beating heart or for a car chase movie trailer with tactile engine acceleration.

The new phone includes handwriting recognition, Bluetooth, 1.3 megapixel camera, and audio and video playback functions. VibeTonz capabilities provide full-fidelity vibration tracks synchronised with eight preloaded ringtones. It is being sold now by China Unicom.

Stuart Robinson, director of the handset component technologies at consultant Strategy Analytics, is confident about the future for the touchscreen market. He said: “We believe that market conditions are almost ripe for an explosion in touchscreen phones, and that by 2012 as many as 40 per cent of mobile phones could be using some form of touch sensitive technology.”

Hunbae Kim, VP of Samsung, said: “Implementing keypad functions in a touchscreen has allowed Samsung to give its customers a first-class multimedia and messaging experience in a remarkably light and slim handset. As the first to integrate VibeTonz technology for touchscreens, we're giving users the reassuring sense of interacting with a real keypad, supplying gentle touch feedback that unmistakably confirms each of their actions. As far as advanced mobile interfaces go, it offers the best of both worlds."