Samsung has just released a new smartphone for US$49!!

Based on Microsoft's latest v7.5 Mango operating system, the phone is sturdy, aesthetically pleasing, comes with a long-lasting battery, a good amount of storage, and most importantly, full access to the Windows App marketplace.

Mashable has a good 1st-time review and Samsung's product page has more details.

What's very important is the potential tremendous implications for smartphone pickup in developing countries. We all know that in developing countries, most internet access is via internet-enabled featurephones, smartphones, or 3G dongles/USB flash drives for notebooks.

Driving prices down to US$50, obviously with a lot of carrier subsidies, will hopefully go a long way to significantly increasing the number of people with such devices.

Other notable manufacturers have also released very cheap full-featured smartphones such as Huawei with their Ideos line. I hope we see much more activity in this area, and many more people with full internet-access to improve their lives.