Whilst Pantech are the number three manufacturer in Korea, second to LG and Samsung, we don’t see much of what Pantech has to offer thanks to AT&T pinning them to make affordable smartphones for all on their 4G network. That’s not to say that Pantech don’t sell some okay devices over in the US however, I think we can all agree that in the last few months South Korea and Japan have been treated to some sweet phones from all manufacturers.
One way that Pantech is making sure their phones stand out is by licensing a new file system technology from a company called Tuxera. The software will place a high-performing ex-FAT file system onto Pantech devices which will also enable them to support 64GB SDXC microSD cards. As well as added support for higher capacity the file system also features on-the-fly checking for errors and comes with a vast performance boost. So, it looks like Pantech might be the perfect phone if you’ve got masses of music on SD cards. This is hardly that much of a change for the manufacturer but it certainly does make sense – licensing a file system will save them from any hassle in courts. Something that Motorola recently went through with Microsoft over their use of the FAT file system in their smartphones.
I’m sure that we’ll be seeing this sort of technology had to tother manufacturers as well, in this world of patent disputes and hefty court costs it would make a lot of sense to have someone else deal with these problems if and when they arise. If anything, it’s interesting to see some developments concerning removable storage as it seems Google are more than happy to get rid of microSD support altogether.