In Pictures: Eight Phones You'd Love To Have

Smitten with LG's ingeniously-named "Ice Cream" phone? Charmed by Samsung's playful "Haptic Pop" handset? Be prepared to wait--in vain--since neither phone is slated for a U.S. launch.

Korean handset makers export millions of attractive phones a month. But some of their most interesting creations never leave Korea.

That fact makes Korea a bittersweet destination for cellphone enthusiasts. The silver lining: features from these phones sometimes crop up in later U.S. releases. Looking at the newest, coolest, Korea-only phones is a peek into the future.

In Pictures: Eight Phones You'd Love To Have

And what a bright, entertaining future it is. Take the Ice Cream phone, currently a hot seller among Korean teen and 20-something women. The phone is named for its ice cream-inspired pastel colors ("snow white," "peach pink" and "sky blue") and equipped with an LED display that features emoticons on the phone's exterior cover. It is the cellular embodiment of cute. Sales have been promising enough that LG just announced a "Lollipop phone" with similar features.

Samsung's limited-edition Haptic Pop is likely to be another youth-driven hit. Unveiled in March, it is a version of the company's best-selling Haptic touchscreen phone, complete with a wardrobe of colorful, pop-off back covers.

Those looking for even more color options can opt for the Samsung W270/W2700. The streamlined clamshell is available in 24 colors, including a gold tone with leather accents.

Other popular phones are noteworthy for their design innovations. Samsung's W570 clamshell packs both an internal display and an external touchscreen. The outer screen is designed to give users one-touch access to music, video and messaging, while the inner screen offers a typical cellphone menu.

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Samsung's "Oz" phone shows off a different kind of double feature: a double folding mechanism. The compact flip phone opens vertically for calls and messages and swivels horizontally for watching TV and video.

Some notable phones are flashy on the inside. LG's "Franklin Planner" phone--designed in partnership with U.S. planning products and training firm FranklinCovey--has custom software that allows road warriors to record their goals, monitor their progress and improve their English. Samsung packages stress-reducing "music therapy" software with some of its high-end touchscreen phones. SK Telecom ( SKM - news - people ) supports a mobile coupon service that lets users exchange simple gifts from retailers like Starbucks ( SBUX - news - people ) and Burger King ( BKC - news - people ) via text message.

Occasionally, a cool phone launches first in Korea but quickly migrates to the U.S. That looks to be the case for Samsung's so-called security phone, which emits a 100-decibel alarm when prompted by users. Samsung has submitted the phone's specifications to the Federal Communications Commission, sparking chatter of an American release.

It's also possible for a Korean phone to launch outside the country and then get reworked for the domestic market. At the request of Korea's leading mobile operator, SK Telecom, Samsung upgraded its popular Omnia phone into the T*Omnia. The handset is essentially an Omnia with a larger, higher-quality screen and mobile TV tuner. At $650, it is currently the most expensive phone in Korea, but store owners say it is selling briskly.

Over the years, Korea has served as a launching pad for plenty of "world's first" handsets, like Samsung's 10 megapixel camera phone in 2006. In most cases, manufacturers are willing to take these phones to other countries. The operators, tasked with selecting models that will sell well and fill gaps in their portfolios, often decide what goes where.

Local preferences play a role too. Samsung knows, for instance, that Americans like clamshell (folding) phones. It also believes that preference is waning with the rise of touchscreen and Qwerty keyboard handsets, and is reacting accordingly, says Samsung designer Ingon Park.

Cellphone exclusivity can cut both ways. Korea is still waiting for the Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) iPhone and handsets powered by the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) Android operating system. (See "Favorite Phone Fruits: Apple Vs. BlackBerry.")

Research In Motion's BlackBerry didn't reach the country until late last year. Revised telecom policies are excpected to usher in change starting this month, but operators say homegrown handsets will continue to dominate. "Koreans will never choose a handset without multimedia messaging, [advanced] ringtone capabilities ... and other customized services," says Seong Kim, manager of SK's mobile device planning team.

Someday, Americans might make the same demands.

Nandan Nilekani is cochairman of Infosys Technologies (nasdaq: INFY - news - people ), India's second-biggest outsourcing firm. Its success is the basis of his $750 million fortune. We caught up with Nilekani at the Infosys headquarters in Bangalore, where he talked about the company he helped build, the outsourcing industry and his first book, Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century (Penguin), just released.

FORBES ASIA: Will economic conditions change things for Indian outsourcing?

Nilekani: There will be deep ramifications. In the short term outsourcing will slow down. Companies will go slow on making decisions, the environment will be challenging. This is a big one, but even this cannot last forever. The U.S. has an enormous capacity for reinventing itself. That is clear from the fact that Barack Obama has been elected President.

As part of his campaign, Obama spoke against offshoring. Will this affect policy in the coming months?

Barack Obama will do things that are right for his country. He understands that outsourcing firms are partners in making American companies stronger, more efficient and successful.

India's outsourcing industry grew from a few billion dollars to $40 billion in the last few years. What do you see happen in the next five?

It is unlikely that we will see the growth rates of previous years. Not 30% to 40%.

After years of high growth, outsourcing companies have started layoffs. How will workers cope?

Many young people who joined the industry four or five years ago have only seen the good times. It was growth on steroids. They could have been lulled into a feeling that this is normalcy. We have to do a lot of things that are hard. The economic crisis is useful because it forces all of us to focus on productivity.

Infosys spends a huge amount of money and resources on training fresh hires. Is this a sustainable business model during these recessionary times?

We set up our leadership institute in 2001 and our training infrastructure in 2002 during a downturn. We think of our training as a long-term strategic advantage.

Talking about reinvention, have you reinvented yourself?

I used to take on a lot of things, thrash around, lose control and have nothing to report at the end of the day. My new motto is to be generous with my money but stingy with my time. My scarce capital is time, not money. I'm turning down meetings, invitations to speak. I have dropped all commitments on foreign company boards. I have decided that the place I want to spend time is India. Not to sound arrogant, but I use my name to improve my productivity. If I am going to the airport, then I will travel to three cities, ask people to make time for me, pack 15 meetings into three days and come back. Infosys has first call on my time.

Your idea on the flat world ended up inspiring a bestselling book authored by Thomas Friedman. What is the bestselling idea in your own book?

It is not one idea. A democratic country like India with a billion individualistic people cannot move in a particular direction based on one idea. It calls for a bottom-up change.

Does middle-class India live inside a bubble, having very little to do with the rest of India, which is very poor?

India's middle class has abdicated. In its extreme form, many Indians have left the country. But abdication is also living in gated communities, running our own generators, digging bore wells for our homes, sending our children to private schools--in my own case, sending them to college in the U.S. The middle class has never put pressure on the system. They have simply dropped out.

Does writing come easy to you?

I used my experience in writing software to write the book. When you write a software program that is large and complicated, just as this book is, then you structure it well, divide it into individual modules, write each module to be self-contained and make sure there are clear interfaces. I wrote a book that spanned 18 ideas. I sliced these into sections and put a wrapper around each.

(Nandan Nilekani was FORBES ASIA's Businessman of the Year for 2006. See "Businessmen of the Year" for this year's winner.)

China continues to make bold moves to boost its faltering economy. The People's Bank of China made a 108-basis-point cut to interest rates on Wednesday following the markets' close as it continued its recent policy of monetary loosening in the face of slowing growth, export and industrial production figures.

Though a rate cut was expected by the central bank, its magnitude--the largest since the Asian financial crisis in October 1997--was surprising. "Bottom line is the Chinese authorities think the economy is slowing down fast," said Nigel Rendell, a senior emerging market strategist at RBC Capital Markets.

Earlier this week, the World Bank cut its forecast for economic growth in China to 7.5%, from 9.2%, though many economists expect an even slower rate of expansion, of anywhere between 2.0% and 7.0%.

This is the fourth time in three months that Beijing has reduced Chinese interest rates, but the several prior reductions, in October and August, were by just 27 basis points each time. China's benchmark rate now stands at 2.52%. The central bank also lowered its reserve requirements by 200 basis points for large banks and by 100 basis points for smaller banks on Wednesday.

The government has meanwhile been shifting fiscal gears as well, announcing on Nov. 9 a $586.0 billion fiscal stimulus plan. China is keenly monitoring the economic moves made by its key export partner, the United States, where consumer spending has recently slowed. (See "Americans Earn More, Spend Less.") Exports represented 37.1% of China's nominal gross domestic product in 2007.

China's economy is still feeling the impact of previous measures that Beijing made to cool the economy and keep a lid on inflation; it was tightening monetary policy in the first half of this year, when the economy appeared to be growing too quickly. But in October, a lower than expected level of imports for the month showed that China was not picking up the slack from slowing economies elsewhere. (See "China's Disquieting Trade Surplus.")

China's currency actually strengthened slightly after the rate cut: the U.S. dollar bought 6.82 yuan late Wednesday in Beijing, down from the 6.83 yuan it bought on Thursday. Commodities were firmer, though, with spot oil futures up 89 cents, at $51.66 a barrel on the Nymex, and copper futures up 5 cents, at $1.7090 a pound.

Rendell expects the currency to stay between 6.80 and 6.90 against the dollar, which is the range around which it has hovered since June. If exports suffered more markedly, the analyst said Beijing might let the yuan weaken further in 2009. But, given that China still has a notable current account deficit, there would undoubtedly be strong international pressure to keep it from going down that route any time soon, which would put struggling exporters in the West at a disadvantage.