I found this picture on K-Tai Watch and thought I would share it. In case you don’t know who the guy on the left is, that’s Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank (Softbank is the company that bought Vodafone in Japan, they also own Yahoo Japan and E*Trade Japan). He looks happy that he got the iPhone ahead of NTT Docomo, doesn’t he? I probably will forego getting the iPhone 3G in this iteration, but in the near future when the 32GB one comes out, and by Docomo I hope, I will probably get one. The guy on the right is Steve Jobs. If you didn’t already know that you have no business reading my blog.
Category: Keitai
Son and Jobs
PakeHodai Full
I picked up the N904i yesterday morning and spent most of the day doing my due diligence on it. The good news is that it is an excellent handset. The bad news is that I learned a very expensive lesson about paying attention. Using i-mode or the full browser can be very costly since all carriers charge sometime like ¥20 for 10K of data use. The data download speed on this phone is 3.6Mbps which makes browsing and downloading data even faster. No one in their right mind would use this service without being on one of the flat-rate data packages called パケ放題 pake-hodai. “pake” is short for “packet” and “hodai” means “all you can~” as in “all you can eat.”
So anyway, when I bought the phone I signed up for the pakehodai full which is the data package that includes data use on the full browser. It costs ¥5,900 per month. What the woman at the keitai shop didn’t tell me was that the pakehodai didn’t start until June 1st. I guess she assumed I didn’t want to pay the flat rate fee from day one because there were only a few days left in the month. Wrong!!! She probably explained it to me but I didn’t hear her. There was a problem with the Mobile Number Portability process which distracted both of us. At a proper Docomo shop, they have procedures to explain each section of the form to make sure there are no misunderstandings, but at small phone shops often they don’t explain everything properly. This meant that I was paying for every packet of data I was using all day! Luckily, I realized this last night and called Docomo to have it corrected. I cannot imagine what my phone bill would be like had I not realized this and kept downloading stuff for the next few days. I checked my usage this morning and I had already accrued about ¥26,000!! I downloaded a free 40sec 10MB video file which I wish I didn’t do…it costs me around ¥12,000! F*ck! Oh well, I blame only myself for not scrutinizing my application form more thoroughly before signing. Bite the bullet and pay it off. So learn from my mistake and BE CAREFUL!!
Now back to the N904i. It’s great. The N series has always been a conservative and rather dull handset, but this latest version improves on so much of the standard features and along with the high res screen makes this one of the best keitais I’ve used. Usually, I have one or two peeves about every phone, but I still cannot find any wrong with the N904i.
Waterproof One-Seg Keitai
Like clockwork, AU and Softbank have released their summer handset line-up (AU models, Softbank models). As usual, you can see good coverage of them all on K-Tai Watch. Of particular interest was the W52CA for AU which features One-Seg and is waterproof. So you can watch TV in the shower, bath or beach. And you won’t ruin it by dropping it in the toilet or kitchen sink while washing the dishes. This actually happens to a lot of people so don’t laugh. You could be next. Check out K-Tai Watch’s The Crash for nasty pictures of keitai casualities. Above photo from K-Tai Watch as well.
Team MEDIA SKIN black
Been three days since I got my MEDIA SKIN and I love it so much I went out and bought two more!! OK, I didn’t. Actually, after work today I helped two friends procure the rare and coveted MEDIA SKIN black. Anywhere you go you will have a hard time finding them as they are already sold out everywhere. But in case you haven’t heard, I know where to get things. And we got the last 2 black ones at a shop in Shimokita. That’s the place to go if you want to get a keitai cheap and fast. On Mixi there are already communities for Media Skin orange and white but not black. Perhaps I should start one. Who wants to join?
Will Apple iPhone succeed in Japan?
No doubt anyone in the know will have heard and read all about the most hyped device in history: the Apple iPhone which Steve Jobs unveiled at Macworld on Tuesday. I was going to refrain from commenting about it but I guess I will join the rest of the gadget freakoids out there and spout my thoughts on it whether you like them or not.
The thing is exactly what I imagined it would be and more. Of course we all knew it was going to be an ipod and phone and some kind of communication device combined so that was no surprise. But much of the interface niceties and uber-cool design exceeded everyone’s expectations. Initially, I was on the fence. Yeah, it looks nice, but could I get used to using a phone like that? Is the interface really better? Could they match all the functionality of Japanese keitais? I suppose it was the fact that I was viewing the device as a phone that made me skeptical. For me a mobile phone has to be durable, easy to use without having to look at it i.e. tactile keyboard, speed dial, any-key answer etc not to mention all the iMode, iAppli, FeliCa, GPS, Camera stuff. After seeing Steve demo the thing on the keynote presentation, I was less impressed with the phone in iPhone but completely in awe at what the device represented as a milestone is mobile technology. I think most of you will agree that we witnessed an important step in the evolution of how we’ll be interacting with our devices. The multi-touch screen, the new iPod interface, flick-scrolling, proximity sensor are revolutionary ideas that we’ll be seeing in the future and pretty soon be taking for granted in the same way as the QWERTY keyboard. Whether the iPhone succeeds or not is really not as important as what this device means for other stuff coming after. Don’t buy an iPod now, the click wheel is history. Do we see Tablet Macbooks on the horizon?
Right after the unveiling it seemed like everyone had an opinion about it, me included of course. Some were taking it personally and getting really angry because there was no keyboard or because it was tied to Cingular or whatever. This is a very self-centered reaction, but I can totally understand it. If I had been waiting for 3 years for the next generation roadster and then Mazda released something that was completely not to my liking, I’d be very unhappy.
At any rate, would I buy the iPhone? From the perspective of someone living in Japan, probably not. As it is now, it can’t do half of what my Sony Ericsson SO903i can do. It doesn’t have GPS and it’s not 3G, so no videoconferencing. There’s no FeliCa chip (e-Wallet), can’t run 3rd party apps (Meaning you can’t play Final Fantasy or Dragonquest like you can on Japanese keitais), no One-Seg and we don’t even know if it has all the other standard phone features like vibrator, drive mode, alarm clock, bar-code reader. And of course all the other things already mentioned by others, no removable battery, no external memory slot. Some of the features of the iPhone like visual voicemail or threaded sms, I thought, so what. Having said all that I really like the iPhone and it’s a great achievement for Apple considering it’s just their first attempt at a phone.
But this is Japan and the power of keitais here is not so much in their designs or their functionality, the true power is in the different services and applications that the phones are tied to. iMode, Mobile Suica, DCMX, One-Seg etc. It’s really the carriers that are pushing the envelope here and the handsets manufactureres are merely just towing the line. So I’m curious as to how Apple will fare against the Japanese makers if and when they do release the iPhone here. I don’t think anyone will doubt that the iPhone is a masterpiece, but if it can’t do at least half of the things required by the average Japanese person, only gadget freaks or smart phone enthusiasts will fork over that much cash for it and it will only have limited success (maybe that’s Apple’s target demographic anyway) So far, no foreign mobile phone manufacturer has been able to sell a handset that satisfied the Japanese masses. But I hope Apple does, cause then I can get one!!! Either that or they take out the phone part, add more memory, put in Skype and more widgets to make it a Mac PDA. Oh yeah, I’d buy that in a second.
SO903i
I upgraded my keitai! Now before someone gets on my case about spending money on yet another device, let me just defend myself by pointing out that it’s been over 10 months since I got my last cell phone and as everyone in Japan knows 10 months is considered the right length of time for a kishuhen 機種変. If you try to upgrade your phone under 10 months you have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a handset.
Before going to HK, I sent my SO902i (it’s the one on the left in the second photo above) to get refurbished. It was trashed on the first day I got it when Brad kicked it down the street. Since then it just got worse. It only costs ¥3,000 and they replace the entire casing. On sunday, I went to pick up my SO902i and ended up getting the SO903i at the same time. The SO903i is very nice. It has the larger FeliCa chip so I can store more e-wallet apps, a huge 3″ screen, 3 Megapixel camera, international 3G roaming, music player and GPS. After playing with this keitai for a while I must say that I’m quite impressed. It’s very easy to use and the OS response is much faster than the 902i. I still think that AU has some better looking phones for a cheaper base price but Docomo has more well-established features that I can part with.
I also love the GPS. The application NAVITIME has been in AU phones for more than a year now and Docomo is just introducing them with the 903i. I had thought it was just some fake GPS using triangulation but it’s a REAL GPS Navigation system just like in a car. It connects to the same satellites and has just as many features although the response is not as fast as a HD Navi. I’m not sure about the AU GPS but I think Docomo did a good job of integrating the GPS into the phone and with iMode content. You can also set you phone to be detected so your friend can find you and set a route to where you are. This is useful if you get kidnapped and the FBI are trying to locate you but make sure to turn it off when you’re cheating on your girlfriend. The navigation system has pinpoint accuracy.
There are 2 things I dislike about this phone. The first is this same black plastic that SONY uses everywhere. PSP, PS3 and here. It’s a magnet for scratches and fingerprints. The second is the shutter sound on the camera. This phone has got to have the loudest shutter sound of any phone I’ve ever seen. If someone knows a hack to turn it off or at least lower please tell me!
I wanted to take nice professional photos and do a proper post like this one. But I haven’t eaten dinner yet so you’ll have to settle for these. If you want to see more of the SO903i, check here.
Get Mobile Suica
All keitai users can jump for joy on Oct. 1st! You’ll be able to use most major credit cards to start using mobile suica. This is in my view one of the most significant developments with the service. Most people were reluctant to use mobile suica because it meant they had to apply for JR’s viewcard credit card, like I did. But now you don’t have to! You’ll be able to input your current one into the iappli and it’ll work. I expect to see more and more people using their mobile phones to get on the train and buy stuff at shops. On top of that, as I reported earlier, on Oct. 21st they will be introducing Easy Mobile Suica where don’t need a credit card at all. Your bank account is debited directly when you charge your suica enabled phone. Very cool. Now this doesn’t make a difference to me because I’ve been using mobile suica since day one. But once everyone starts using it we can expect to see a explosion of places where the suica will be used. I also expect to see JR start to distance themselves from Suica so that people will start to perceive Suica as a major platform for e-wallet/cashless transactions rather than a ticketless method of getting on and off the train, which was how it started.
SoftBank
This is the first newly branded SoftBank shop (formerly Vodafone) that I’ve seen. This one in Ebisu. Now don’t you think this is the dullest looking logo/shop design ever? Did they choose the simple white and gray because the Apple shop uses these colors? From a distance I thought it was a cheap glasses shop or a dentists office. And check out their new mascot. Looks a lot like Docomodake. What is it? An acorn?
But they do have a winner with Ito Misaki. How can anyone resist that pouty face? It almost made me want to get one of those clunky Sharp Aquos phones.
Timebomb
This afternoon, the light on my SO902i started to flash intermittently and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It ain’t the bluetooth like on the overseas models cause this one doesn’t have bluetooth. And I haven’t received any new calls or mails. Is it the SONY timebomb counting down until the phone will fall apart? My keitai is soo beat up, don’t you think?
Mobile Number Portability
They’ve announced the procedure for switching carriers but keeping you keitai number. Finally!! Although you can do that in almost any country, you can’t in Japan. So this is a big deal. It’ll be easier to consider buying the ipod phone when it comes out. MNP will begin on November 1st, will cost a few thousand yen and take about a day to switch over. You can do it over the internet as well. Yippee!!
Lismo
The Lismo squirrel can’t see or speak, he/she can only smell and listen to music on an AU keitai. I asked the guy at Bic if I could have one and he told me that I could buy them for around ¥2,000 at a store in Harajuku.
Sayonara Vodafone
I don’t suppose anyone will believe me when I say I predicted this a few years ago. Vodafone has given up on the Japanese mobile phone market selling the company to Softbank. In this press release, Vodafone refers to the sale as a “disposal”. Made me laugh when I read that. Press release materials have to sound good otherwise it scares the investors. It did seem somewhat promising a few years ago when Vodafone bought J-phone, but I guess they didn’t have the balls to sweat it out for the long haul and make it work. It’s a common story. Foreign companies coming here thinking they can simply set up shop and turn a profit only to find that the market is harder than expected. It will be interesting to see how Softbank’s presence affects the mobile landscape.
Kewpie Factory & QR Codes
Kewpie is a food company in Japan that makes mayonnaise and baby food as well as other stuff like Tarako Spaghetti sauce, made famous by the Tarako kewpie. The regular kewpie is their mascot. I happened to stumble upon the factory one evening while walking around Sakurajosui station, which is on the Keio Line, and took this photo with my cell phone. The factory is not as big as I imagined but you can take a tour of the place and get some nice giveaways too. In a press release today, Kewpie announced they were putting QR Codes (barcodes) on all their baby foods so you can use your keitai and call up a webpage with information about the ingredients of the food in case your baby might be allergic to something in it. This seems to have a more practical purpose compared to those QR Codes they have on McDonald’s food packages for you to look up how many empty calories you’re ingesting. When QR Codes first came out here (at least more than 5 years ago) I didn’t find them useful. Most of the barcode readers had poor response and it took several tries before you could capture the text. But now the application responses are super fast and there are tons of uses for QR Codes. Perhaps the most useful are the QR Codes you can find on almost all bus stops. You just read the barcode to capture the bus schedule for that particular stop. Then bookmark it so whenever you want to check when the bus will arrive you can call up the schedule from the internet. Fantastic! I’d like to see Apple iPhone do that!
N904i Preview
K-Tai Watch already has some nice close up photos of the N904i handset which just went on sale today. I called a couple of Docomo shops this morning and they were already sold out! Luckily, I’ve already got one reserved and waiting for me at a shop near home, but since I’m busy tonight I don’t think I’ll have time to go and get it until tomorrow. Sadness….
The main killer feature of this handset is the 480 X 854 pixel 3 inch screen. I mean check out the detail!! Holy cow, this thing can destroy your eyesight. I think I’ll need a magnifying glass. You can display 23 lines of text on one screen and still read the kanji clearly. It has a better resolution than the display on my 7 inch car navi. The high res is not wasted on just looking at the colorful menus and photos though. The N904i is the only 904i handset that is HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) and has a data download rate of up to 3.6Mbps. There is a flat rate data packaged offered if you want to use the full browser. Finally, a keitai with a full browser that’s useful. It also includes a new Navi app that uses the VGA Zenrin maps. These are better than and higher res than 70% of the car navi’s on the market today. Amazing…
Photos from K-Tai Watch
904i
NTT Docomo (9437.T) will be announcing their 904i lineup on May 23rd, next week at 18:45 after the market close. There will be a live presentation which you can watch on the web and also on your video conferencing enabled FOMA phone. Too bad I got rid of mine. One of the features already announced is the iAppli Banking App that will be standard on all 904i handsets. Currently, this seems to be just a glorified version of the banking interface you can already use on i-Mode without any added value, except that it looks more like an ATM interface. When they begin to connect that to the FeliCa chip where you can to do things like direct debit from your bank account or transfer money between keitais, it might become more useful. The photos above are of the pre-released N904i which is supposed to be designed by Stefano Giovanoni in Milano, Italy. I don’t know who he is but these designs don’t look any better than the others..
On the subway this morning, the guy next to me was trying to send a mail from his keitai while we were in a tunnel. He kept shaking his keitai madly in the air, whacking it with his hand in an attempt to get a signal. I was gonna tell him that there aren’t any moving parts in it and that banging it would only result in it breaking, but I don’t think he had the intelligence to full comprehend what that meant. I felt sorry for the phone.
Media Skin
I finally pulled the trigger and did the switch from NTT Docomo to AU. The Media Skin is the latest of AU’s designer keitais. Up until yesterday, I only saw pictures of the orange version and since I hate the color orange I wasn’t too interested. But my mind changed after seeing photos of the black one on K-Tai Watch and on Eddie’s Blog. Generally, I’m not into these fancy unconventional designer phones but I liked the fact that this one is made of black, rubbery, matt plastic and matches my GR Digital. It has an industrial feel to it that I like and absolutely no bling. In terms of specs, to my surprise, it does everything my SO903i can do and also has one-seg (digital tv) which is something I’ve been wanting but have not been attracted to any of the one-seg phones out there. The Media Skin is the thinnest one-seg phone at the moment. It’s a lot smaller than it appears in photos. Just a tad bigger than the S0902i and a bit smaller than the Apple iPhone.
The Media Skin is quite solid and more durable than it looks, although I’m not going to test that theory. The flap can be set to start and end calls when you open and close it, so it does serve some functional purpose. Thankfully, there’s no retractable clumsy antenna for the one-seg like the other phones so in order to watch TV you have to attach the headphone adapter cable, which doubles as the antenna. It also has FM radio, GPS, FeliCa, 1.3 MegaPixel Camera, Music Player and uses MicroSD so you can record TV for later viewing. I put in a 1GB card and can record up to 5.5 hours. Yay! The design doesn’t seem to have any Japanese characteristics and looks like it might have been made my Bang and Olufsen.
Switching to AU, I chose the closest package to what I have been paying on Docomo and it turned out to be almost ¥5,000 cheaper per month. And they gave me some nice Nakama Yukie goods too. On the down side, I still don’t like EZWeb and prefer I-Mode. It’s hard to find anything in the EZWeb menu. In terms of design and every day use, the receiver hole is right at the top edge so it’s a bit uncomfortable to the ear when talking on the phone. I can get used to it, I guess. The display is gonna get scratched to hell. For the first few days I’m usually very careful and then I end up throwing my phone in my pocket with my keys and spare change. This time I will buy a protective sheet. Another minor dislike is the backlight color for the keys. Why did they use that ugly amber color and not white? Also lacking is the ability to remotely lock your phone if you lose it. Although this wasn’t a deal breaker since I’ve never lost my handphone.
After playing with it all afternoon and evening I have to say that I’m liking this phone a lot more than I expected. It is a very beautiful handset and unlike other designer phones it has specs that are comparable to most of the best mobiles currently out there.
UPDATE: I discovered that it does have all the security features to lock the phone if you lost it. Also, it’s the first phone to have the key tone OFF by default.
Omedetō Call
If you’re in Japan over new year’s pray you don’t have to make an emergency call on your cell phone at around midnight on new year’s eve. I don’t know if it happens in other countries but in Japan people like to call or send mail to their friends and families right after midnight. This is called Omedetō Call and causes lots of problems for the mobile phone carriers as millions of people try to make a call at the same time. In areas where there are lots of people such as around any Shrine, it will be virtually impossible to connect to an antenna let alone make a call. Docomo and others usually police the traffic limiting it by up to 80% so their system doesn’t come crashing down completely like it did several years ago. I think it was around 2000. According to this report the number of Omedetō Calls have been decreasing but the carriers are still going to block the traffic for about an hour. So if you are hooking up with people around midnight, don’t rely on your keitais for communication. Better to plan in advance.
903i Series
The 903i Series was announced by Docomo yesterday. Yawn…another year of boring keitais. Seriously, number portability is looking rather attractive now. All these 903i’s are equipped with Napster enabled iapplis and GPS. It would have been nice if all 903i’s were capable of international roaming GSM+GPRS etc. Maybe next year.
The really only exciting thing was the Dragonquest icons on the N903is (right). Photos from our good friends at K-tai Watch
Feel*Talk
Yesterday, I went to the local Docomo shop to ask a question when a pimple faced girl asks me if I have time to test out the P702iD and answer a questionaire. The phone has an application called Feel*Talk that analyzes your voice. It detects the changes in levels, your tones etc and determines what your mood during the conversation was. After you hang up, a flash animation of a stick man appears on the screen acting out what your mood was. There are 45 different animations. I heard about this feature but hadn’t actually seen it.
So the girl calls up some guy and hands me the phone. A guy on the other end asks me if I have any questions about the Feel*Talk feature. So I ask him why the application detects my mood and not the person I’m calling. I mean I already know what mood I’m in but what I want to know is the mood on the other end. Like if I called a girl to ask her for a date I’d like to know if she was happy or not. Or if I was asking someone a question could I detect if he/she was lying? THAT would be useful. The guy explains that that would have some moral implications and would cause problems. Docomo didn’t want to get sued. OK makes sense but they should at least offer a hack to switch it. I also asked him why the character animation is a man and why they didn’t have a option to switch it to a woman, for which he did not have an answer. Seems like an easy thing to do technically.
After hanging up, the animation came up on the screen. Very smooth and fun to watch. The mood was anger. Hmmm..pretty accurate! I was a bit aggressive when expressing my opinions. I was given this brochure and mini Dorayaki for my work. The P702iD is small and block shaped like all the other phones, but this feature seems like it would be a lot of fun. Too bad it doesn’t have a Felica chip in it.
SuiPo
SuiPo = Suica + Poster. JR has come up with another use for their Mobile Suica app which I’m a bit skeptical about. It was launched at the end of last month and you can try it out in Shinjuku station. Basically there are Suica touch pads between the big posters. You swish your mobile-suica enabled phone over the touch pad and different kinds of info about the product, event, movie etc is sent to your phone. I’m guessing maps and coupons is what you get but I’m sure they will (should) also give you keitai wallpapers/screensavers of models, actors, idols or free iappli games or something. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much motivation to get the info. You have to register your phone first, which I did not do. I don’t want to be getting any spam from JR. But maybe later if I’m in the area again I’ll try it out.
Some better photos of the touch panels between the posters. And a more detailed description of the service here. In Japanese though.
Easy Mobile Suica
This will be of no interest to people not living in Tokyo. If you got one of those new Mobile Suica enabled cell phones but don’t have a View Suica Card to use it. Don’t worry. From October, you will be able to charge the IC chip by directly debiting your bank account. Unfortunately, the service is limited to charging the chip for train fare and cashless purchases so you will still need to get a View Suica Card if you want to get a train pass or buy a reserve seat (green) on the trains with your phone.
Here’s the news about that.
Osaifu Keitai
The good news, the first truly osaifu-keitai (mobile phone wallet) service will be launched April 28th called “DCMX”. The bad news, it’s called “DCMX” and has a really silly brand logo. Yet another Docomo service that has a bad name, it sounds like a name for a video graphics card or Macromedia software. Suica is by far the best branding of any service out there recently. Docomo should learn from JR. Anyway, unlike the recently launched iD service which basically uses the IC chip in your phone as a proxy for a Visa card for Mitsui-Sumitomo, DCMX uses the iD gateway/service etc but the transaction and credit card is Docomo’s which means that your spending is included in your phone bill. In other words, Docomo has become a credit card company now. This is what we have all been waiting for. I pay my phone bill via credit card now so I accrue points on that card for my monthly payments. If DCMX let’s you accrue Docomo points when you shop, that means I get points for DCMX and for the card I use to pay the phone bill. Cool.
In the press release it says they will give credit to users 12 years old and up. How dangerous to give a 12 year old a credit card. Personally, I think they should just give this service to anyone who has a Docomo phone. I’m sure by the end of the year it will be part of the plans when you sign up.
SO902i is a good keitai
Despite my moaning about the SO902i, yesterday I went out and got one. My friend said she would buy my N902i from me so I don’t feel as guilty. I would have held out for the SO902i but originally they announced it didn’t support mobile suica so I went ahead and bought the N902i. Anyway, it went on sale yesterday, finally, and as usually all the keitai shops were sold out when they opened. Small keitai shops take orders in advance so their first shipments are spoken for. I, however, being a pro on how to get gadgets in demand knew exactly where to go. Yep, I went to the local Ito-yokado and sure enough they had a whole bunch. No one thinks about buying keitais at Ito-yokado, especially at 9am. I have to say that I am totally satisfied with this phone and it is just about the best phone that I’ve ever owned. I really like the well designed Sony interface and menu, this one is similar to my previous Sony SO505iS but unlike that one where the sound was absolutely crap, this is a FOMA so the speaker and microphone give crystal clear sound with no feedback or distortion. The camera is the easiest to use and the most intuitive compared to any other phone. And the display is incredibly bright and sharp. It has a 3 Megapixel camera that is only slightly improved from the camera in the SO505iS. I still think the camera in the Sharp phones are the best. Still I really like the flavor this mobile camera offers. There is A LOT of noise when taking lowlight photos in AUTO mode. Using the presets give you a nicer LOMO like saturated quality with less noise. I don’t look for a good camera in a keitai (I use the GR for that) but rather one that gives “interesting” results. Most keitai cameras are just dull, but I’m totally loving this phone so far.
Tonight, I went to where I always go with a new camera, Ginza and Yurakucho. There is a lot of neon and I can test out how well the camera performs at night. See below for samples. I did not retouch any of the photos, just resized them.
EDIT: Today at lunch, I pulled out my new phone to check the time and it slipped from my hand and headed to the ground. The guy I was with kicked it down the street (not on purpose I think) and it skidded and flipped and crashed all over the concrete. AAAARGH…I’m soo bummed out. It has 26 little scratches all over it. In the past, I have always dropped keitais that I really like a day or two after I get them. The ones I don’t like I never drop. I must be cursed with butterfingers.
EDIT: I called the Docomo Shop and apparently they replace keitai cases for a small fee of a few thousand yen. I did not know that!!!
SO902i
Sony announced they were going to release the FOMA SO902i on 3/10 only to delay that another 10 days because of some software bug. Now it will finally come out on 3/21 almost 6 MONTHS!! after the first product announcement. It really makes me wonder what in hell they are doing there in Sony. All the other manufacturers had their 902 handsets out in December, except Sony. Yes it is a new design (sort of) and I can imagine that more testing would be required, but of all the other 902i models, the SO902i has the least number of features. Sony seems quick to release product concepts and prototypes but very slow in rolling them out. They probably have small streamlined teams of engineers and designers that can crank out new stuff quickly but then those products get lost in layer after layer of process and procedure that’s only there because every department has to cover their ass. Of course, this is common in all big companies. No one wants to be responsible for someone else’s goof up, so everyone’s approval is required. With the PS3, I think people will wait because there is no real competitor. But in the keitai world, I don’t think there will be much hoopla about the SO902i anymore. It’s already out of date.
