Samsung today launched its 8.0 MP camera toting S8300 in the Indian market. Priced at Rs 27,500, the S8300 boasts of being the country’s first phone with a bright AMOLED touchscreen display. Having an AMOLED display not only sips lesser battery juice but also provides a wider viewing angle and vivid colours even under sunlight.

We’d played with the device at MWC and were left impressed. The S8300 also has a sliding alphanumeric keypad and Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz user interface.

Samsung is now focussing on touchscreen based multimedia phones for the Indian market that are priced between Rs 17,790 to Rs 32,200. According to Sunil Dutt, country head for Samsung’s Telecom division, multimedia phones will contribute 45 to 50 percent of Samsung’s total handset sales by the end of 2009.

Samsung is favourably poised to gain a lead in multimedia phones with touchscreens considering that Nokia has just one model at the moment (5800 XM) and is expected to launch the N97 in June this year, Other players like LG and Sony Ericsson are not expected to launch many devices in this particular segment. Samsung, on the other hand, already has a strong portfolio in touchscreen devices with strong multimedia functionalities across all price points.

We are expecting to lay our hands on the S8300 in the coming weeks and will be reviewing it in detail.