Lastest Cellphone Gadgets

2002-12-23

It's been just a few months since my last post about what's new in the cell phone world in Japan. It's mostly still all gadgets but here's what's happening.

(*) J−Phone and Toshiba have introducued the J-T08. It's got a "QVGA" display which basically comes down to 320x240 pixel display. That's about 4 times most other cell phones.

(*) NTT has finally embraced cameras and offer about 10 different camera models. In response J−Phone changed their ad campaign from basically "we rock because we have cameras" to "we were first, we have the most camera enabled users"

(*) Sharp and NTT introduced the Sharp SH251is. It's got a funky 3D display. When you put it in 3D mode it's like one of those techno CD covers with the prism glass over the picture so that as you tilt the camera left and right you can see the image kind of in 3D. You can take pictures and have it process them into kind of 3D images but really it doesn't have any 3D depth from the camera so it's just kind of faking it but if you download pre−made images they look pretty good. Surprisingly when it's not in 3D mode it has a very sharp crisp display. I guess the prism feature is built into the LCD so that when it's off it doesn't obstruct the display.

Another cool thing about this phone is it's got a bright light on the outside of the phone. You use it like a flash except when you turn it on it's constantly on. That means you can use it like a flashlight. I guess someone finally figured out that with these phones you generally take a face picture which means the camera is only 2 feet away from someone's face which means you don't need as much light as a flash.

(*) Panasonic and NTT introduced the P504iS It's silly feature is IT HAS 2 CAMERAS! One on the inside and one on the outside. That's kind of cool but the reason it's silly is that since it (and many other cameras) now have a display on the outside of the camera you can take a picture of yourself there too so there's really no reason to have one on the inside.

(*) AU and Hitachi introduced the A5303H. I guess one of the original Foma phones had this feature but their solution to the two camera issue is instead to give you a swivel camera.

(*) Speaking of Foma phones NTT and Panasonic just introduced the P2102V. It's crazy feature is it has a swivel display!

(*) Sony-Ericsson's newest basic AU phone's latest gimmick is the entire back of the phone lights up when it rings.

(*) and for your Hello Kitty fans Sony−Ericsson make a Hello Kitty Cellphone.

One other new feature that most of the camera phones now share. You can attach photos to your phone lists and they will also appear on your resent call lists

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Yatana
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