Samsung has just launched the E950, a significant upgrade to its E900 slider. Central to the upgrade is a new, larger touch-sensitive directional pad that allows for scrolling through menus without sacrificing dedicated functions; owners can also tap the pad to trigger e-mail, music playback, or Yahoo's web search tool. The 950 also represents a design feat, Samsung says: the camera has been upgraded to a 3-megapixel sensor even though the body is now 1mm thinner at 15.5mm (0.6 inches).

Its feature set is otherwise very close to E900, with a QVGA screen and storage for media on both the 80MB of internal flash and as much as an extra 2GB on a microSD card.

The phone has been announced for Europe and in the Czech Republic is priced at about $521 before carrier plans. Lacking 850MHz support, however, the tri-band GSM phone is unlikely to be released in the US as an official device for AT&T or T-Mobile and might only be available through imports. [via Idnes.cz]