Virtual Scroll Wheel cellphone

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting Kevin’s post, but it sure looks like he’s saying that the new OKWAP S868 has a hardware scroll wheel. Now kick me in the ass with a gravy-soaked boot if I’m wrong, but it looks to me like there’s no way that keypad could rotate, not unless it was simply the ‘5′ button that did so (which would be an ergonomic nightmare).

Far more likely, I’d say, is that there’s some sort of proximity or touch sensor built into the keypad, which registers a scrolling motion. It’s a clever touch, and I imagine makes navigating the Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Phone Edition OS a lot snappier than repeatedly thumbing a directional keypad.

A 2.4-inch touchscreen, 2-megapixel camera with autofocus, Bluetooth, GPRS and infrared round out the specs, and hardware is listed as an Intel PXA270 416Mhz CPU, with 64MB RAM and 128MB ROM that can be expanded with SD or MMC cards.

It’s expected to be on sale in late February for around $470 (I would assume that’s unsubsidised)

PhoneDaily [via jkontherun]