New Prototypes, Gadgets And Devices From CEATE

Nooper writes: "This years CEATEC 2001 features a bunch of new wireless gadgets accompanying DoCoMo's 3G (FOMA) launch." Check out the cute pictures -- in their "Showcase of Japanese Keitai (mobile phone) Culture you can find 72 free to use photos from this years CEATEC. We even made a special gallery with the integrated camera of our new FOMA phone." Phones in the U.S. look like such monsters in comparison.

Comments

Sample

[Anonymous Coward]

http://simpsons.about.com/library/media/audio/3f05 /fatfingers.wav

Re:Apples and Oranges

[oob]

Bullshit.

I used my Nokia 8210 (which, when in the palm of my hand, I can completely cover by folding in my fingers) in Galipoli, an extremely remote part of Turkey earlier this year. The phone only needs to be recharged every three to four days.

One of the advantages of GSM is that low powered handsets can still operate a long way from a cell site.

Japanese vs. US wireless markets

[Jordy]

I took a nice three week vacation to Japan recently and had a chance to take a look at their wireless products first hand and I have to admit, their cell phones are geared towards a very different market than the US.

For instance, while walking down the street, the number of people I saw talking on a cell phone was significantly less than the number of people I saw playing games on their cell phones or simply picking them up and checking them periodically to show them off (well, I guess they could have been receiving text messages as that is hugely popular.)

When visiting several large electronics stores, at first I noticed that the sheer number of cell phones was astouding and then quickly realized that there weren't a huge number of cell phones, there were a huge number of styles of cell phones. Given their relatively cheap price (toy phones here cost more), every teenage girl and guy I saw had one and it was really a fashion statement. Three shades of pink with various color antenna ringer lights, huge numbers of patterns were what drew people to buy them.

When it comes to actual technology of the cell phone, there is no doubt that the Japanese phones have significantly more features (and most not in any way shape or form related to using it as a communications device), but they weren't really all that small. Large color screens were more important than small size, so for instance, the Motorola V. series and the Nokia 8900 series are much smaller than most of the phones I saw.

I have to say that I don't believe the same thing will really ever happen in the US. When I walked into a store (well... most cell phones are sold at street level so you rarely have to walk "in"), there were boxes filled to the brim with last years cell phones that people would throw away when they bought a new one and I can't see the average American consumer buying a new cell phone because it comes in a new color or can store 32 randomized wallpapper styles rather than 16. The lifetime of a cell phone in the US just appears to be significantly longer.

Sevice providers also have a hand to play in keeping the variety of phones out. In Japan, as far as I can tell... there is basically one cell phone provider, NTT DoCoMo. In comparison, in the US there dozens operating on multiple frequency bands, multiple standards (AMPS, TDMA, GSM*, CDMA, PCS, iDEN) each having different CODECs based on service provider plus proprietary modifications to protocols and every change affects battery life and features available.

I really wish the FCC would restructure the frequency band allocations so that all cell phone providers would at the very least use one band. Of course, they couldn't use AMPS and TDMA in this case without significant interoperability between providers, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice :).