You know how China is a land of freedom in terms of copyright laws, with all those small brands copying Nokia phones and iPhones with the sole consequence of making (good) money. Now how about a big brand copying another big brand, this time being staged in the land of Japan? Jump for more drama.
As if you are not sick of Samsung’s propaganda in real life yet, the company is opening an island on the online virtual space Second Life to promote their phones. And since Samsung was trying to tell us how thin those phones they developed with Softbank were, they got this phone-raining effect on. If you would like to use these cool looking phones in Second Life, you would need to answer some of the easy questions… in Japanese. Well, at least you don’t have to pay. More pics after the jump.
We in Asia have to wait till 2007 for the iPhone to arrive, the recent report from FCC has shattered dreams of millions since the widgets were to be substituted by Cingular’s monopolistic services for the mean time, the sole support for 850 and 1900Mhz would make parallel import (or roaming) to most parts of the world impossible.
The Japanese aren’t waiting, so they wrote an iPhone theme for their super high-end Toshiba 911T phone… and unfortunately the whole package does look a lot more attractive than the iPhone itself. Think about it, a 3″ W-VGA screen (800×480 pixels), One-Seg DMB tuner, HSDPA support, a microSD slot with support up to 2GB (plus 1GB internal memory you get 3GB), a battery that lasts more than 40 minutes, an anti-shake 3.2MP camera with autofocus, removable battery (thank god), Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF document reader, bluetooth A2DP supporting streaming to HiFis, a slider with a real keypad, 3 shiny color variations… we can also pick up the Oakley A2DP sunglasses with headphones. If you live in Japan, forget about the darn iPhone. –Sam Chan
Samsung is one huge attention seeker. Today they presented 3 new phones for Softbank Japan, the 8.4mm thin W-CDMA 708SC candybar that looks like the GSM 820, but the screen is upped to 240×320 landscape (from 176×220), microSD slot is added and now supports up to 2GB. Camera is still at 2MP, but a subcamera for video conference is added. The 707SC II is a HSDPA folder with specifications that resembles that of the aforementioned 706SC, Samsung puts everything into a 11.8mm folder form that’s it. The 805SC is the world’s thinnest (13.5mm) DMB One-seg slider and runs on HSDPA network. Samsung will be partnering Swarovski to release crystal-mounted 707SC phones (pictured above). Expect the Picsel document viewer (MS Office, Adobe PDF), Bluetooth with A2DP as well as the English-Japanese-Korean dictionary will all come with these Samsung phones. Softbank said that hey should be ready this spring. More pics after the jump.
Looks like the latest trend in Japan is to go for shiny phones, Softbank announced 3 more shiny phones this morning, one from each of NEC, Panasonic and Toshiba. All these phones runs on W-CDMA in Japan and GSM triband when being roamed elsewhere. Cameras on 706N and 706P are 2 megapixels whereas the one on 813T is 3.2MP. The rest of the specs are pretty much standard: QVGA screens, microSD slot, bluetooth, music player, HTML browser… so it’ll be up to personal preference to decide between the trio, perhaps the different user interface. They will all be on shelves before March. — Sam Chan
Softbank announces today their strongest ever multimedia phone, the 911T manufactured by Toshiba. This slider houses a 3″ W-VGA screen (480×800 pixels) in its 17.9mm thin sliding body (4mm thinner than the Toshiba W52T slider, 51×112x17.9mm 142g). The phone runs on Softbank’s 3.6Mbps HSDPA network, receives One-Seg digital TV service, comes with Bluetooth A2DP profile so you can connect your stereo headphones wirelessly, you can also stream music to supported bluetooth HiFi’s. Toshiba has partnered Oakley to design a pair of sunglasses with stereo bluetooth headphones on it, these cool looking glasses will come with the phone as you buy it, so be prepared to pay for quite a bit. The camera is a 3.2 megapixel CMOS with autofocus and anti-handshake functions; internal memory is 1GB and you con expand it with microSD up to 2GB (that’s 3GB altogether). The standard highend features such as MS Office document reader, full HTML browser and Felica electronic money chip are all built in. This mad phone will go on sale in March, expect it to be a hit. Jump for more pics.
The 813SH for Biz is a business version of the 812SH, it is designed for companies that need to protect commercial secrets. Bluetooth and infrared data transfer is banned, but Bluetooth headsets are still supported. On top of that, email file attachment function is removed, external memory slot and Felica electronic money chip are also removed. The “813SH for Biz” supports a new service that allows you to destroy all data on the 813SH remotely when it’s stolen, needless to say the remote-lock is still in place. The super secret phone will be out in the market in March. Japan only. — Sam Chan
Softbank Japan made an official announcement of the Sharp 812SH this morning, a phone that we have already shown you the leaked pics. The main selling point here is the availability of 20 color variations. The rest of the functions aren’t weak either. The Face-recognition security program for Felica electronic money and the remote-lock anti-theft function are all in place. The main display is a 2.4″ QVGA ASV screen, external display is a monochrome OLED; the camera is a 2MP CMOS with fixed focus lens, microSD cards of up to 1GB are supported. Size is 49×97x17.6mm and weight is 105g. The 812SH runs on the Softbank W-CDMA network in Japan and can also roam on Tri-band GSM outside Japan. The phone will be on shelves in early February. We’re not optimistic about unlocking such device given the history of 904SH. More pictures after the jump.
The Sharp 910SH houses 2 things that Nokia hasn’t managed yet, a VGA screen and a 5MP camera with 3x optical zoom. While we know for sure that the 910SH will not be released outside Japan, nor will it be able to roam (even on W-CDMA, yes), it is always good to see how claims translate to reality. Do we need such camera and wouldn’t it take ages to safe pictures? The NikkeiBP team has taken the 910SH for a run, and generally liked what they see.
Earlier we reported on new Sharp phones to be released outside Japan earlier, and this week we finally understood what the new index SX633A means- it is only a color update of the popular SX633 (Japanese 9705SH and European 770SH, pictures after the jump). We’re still waiting for a promised, separate new device. Meanwhile, the Softbank 812SH has been leaked (pictured above), and it reminds us a bit of BenQ-Siemen’s El71. If Sharp were to export any of their Japanese phones, the 800 series will be on the top of the list. More pictures of the SX633A after the jump.
