Recent Comments:
KDDI au announces Spring 2009 collection {Engadget Mobile}
Feb 1st 2009 10:57PM @familyguy
no, the basics are the same. one thing different is that in japan each career put a button for their web portal filled with quick access to paid contents like news, games, or ringtones. situation is quite similar to that of the iPhone, except that the carriers have full control of phone, from designs to OSs. SIM lock-free phones branded by manufacturer never came out from japanese companies, so actual cont of those devices were long hidden to the public. results here were a series of full-spec phones sold in $1, with subsidizes from career up to about $900. that's why japanese phones always had good specs. no matter how pricey it may be, the career always paid for them.
KDDI au announces Spring 2009 collection {Engadget Mobile}
Jan 31st 2009 2:55PM there's a saying,"neighbor's grass always looks better than yours" or something alike.
now, what if you happened to know a $500 "Walkman Phone" can't even sync with SonicStage? or you hear the carrer folks says "oh,yeah. we always ask manufacturers to cut at least one of their killer distinctiveness so whatever comes next look even more attractive." or see a leak like "our smartphone is totally behind the schedule because my boss says "we definitely need our DRM'd music service ported to it...YouTube? why should we care those niche nerds?" ..."
I don't think them any better than things like the N95.
Proposed bill would require all cameraphones to make themselves heard {Engadget}
Jan 27th 2009 12:12AM Japanese phone carriers are already doing this. and also some of standard cameras. my IXY digital 600 has a fake shutter to make this kind of noise when sound turned off. weird.
Take a $15 webcam, and a $3 microSD, solder it on a $10 PIC kit, place under your shirt or anywhere. who dare use a cellphone to take those spy shots?
Sharp's SH1810C brings Japanese specs to China {Engadget Mobile}
Jan 5th 2009 8:51PM No, it's not the government. It's the carriers. take a look at websites of docomo,softbank,or au. There's no Keitai sold on multiple carriers.In addition to SIM locks, those phones have OSs specially designed for carrier and its services,and sometimes have no ability to work on an another. Japanese government is actually on anti-SIM-lock side.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://sankei.jp.msn.com/economy/business/080505/biz0805051626005-n1.htm&sa=X&oi=translate
Sony Ericsson's Walkman Xmini for Japan is awesome, but not for the usual reasons {Engadget}
Dec 8th 2008 6:01AM maybe the first in japan.
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/foma/index.html
http://www.au.kddi.com/english/product/index.html
http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/product/lineup/3g/index.html
Nokia pulls out of Japan, nobody notices {Engadget}
Nov 29th 2008 2:36AM @Steve
Indeed they play m4as, but as movies w/o picture. It won't show up in built-in music players(sometimes they have more than one).
Yes, they have Full browsers, Some even have ACCESS Netfront with FL3.1 support, with another 10$ charge atop your no-tethering flat rate data plan.They have sorta Java apps, which code not compatible between carriers. You can have a have PC-like address for mails, but can't use SMS over carriers. If you want to buy one, the cheapest pricetag should be around $70-100 on contract. $450 is typical for most of them.You can at least make a contract for any of your unlocked phones, but flat-rate plans and mail services for locked devices only, so using your own $500 superstrong-superphone in another carrier is very unlikely the case.
I hope this help you understand why Nokia couldn't make it.
Actually I'm a Japanese. I say sorry if you feel my English strange.
Nokia pulls out of Japan, nobody notices {Engadget}
Nov 27th 2008 2:12PM @Aaron ... I totally agree with you. no matter how sweet it sounds on catalogues they are all slow dumb featurephones doesn't even play mp3s. and what they f*ck do with those shiny VGA,WVGA,or even Half-XGA displays are only WAP browsings, and carriers charge on full browsers. can anybody here imagine people call iPhone crap because they don't do WAPs?
# I hope sometimes in future i can talk again with my friend about nokia's "next-week-forever" here in Japan...
Sharp's 9225H brings the flip-open QWERTY action to Softbank {Engadget Mobile}
Oct 12th 2008 9:33PM Softbank's device numbering follows rules like Series(7,8,9,X)-Model(0,1,2,3)-Model(0,1,2,3)-Manufacturer(SHarp,Toshiba,Panasonic,HTc,NoKia...) . 922SH means 9 series(higher-end) model 22, supplied from Sharp. All smartphones are in X series like X02HT. Though has exceptional 705NK named before Vodafone leaves country, so 9 implies Keitai(no native apps).
This manner was ruled after NTT docomo's mainstream i-mode numbering, which comes in Manufacturer-Series(7,8,9)-Series(0-9?)-Generation(1-6)-i-Option form, for example P906i,SH903iTV or F884i(Raku-raku-phone IV). Smartphones are numbered Manufacturer-1-Generations-00, such as F1100 or M1000. Manufacturer code may differ in carriers.
DoCoMo's separated phone hands-on and video from CEATEC {Engadget}
Oct 1st 2008 4:24AM it's MOAP-S. not the S60.
次のアップルイベントは9月9日の「Let's Rock」、日本時間10日午前2時から {Engadget Japanese}
Sep 3rd 2008 8:03AM 画像の角が丸い...先祖帰りでもするのかな?
