HTC Screen Alignment Troubles Overseas

If you have any troubles with the touch screen alignment on your DoCoMo or Softbank HTC device (as some people have reported overseas), you an either fix yourself as Larry from Palm is Life shows, or just take it back to the shop ... the choice is yours, but I know which option I would choose.

(Please note WMiJ does not take responsibility for any broken devices, etc. ;-)

Softbank HTC X01TC Flat Rate Plan Details

A joint press release held today by Softbank, HTC and Microsoft officially announced that the Softbank HTC X01HT will go on sale from October 14 and gave details of a new flat rate data plan.

Users pay a max of 10,290 yen (approx. US$85) for flat rate 3G. The HDSPA connection using the X01HT offers a maximum (best effort) download speed of 1.8Mbps and uplink speed of 384Kbps. The special campaign price until January 2007 will be 5,700 yen (US$47). The X01TC hardware itself will be priced between 20,000 and 30,000 yen (US$166-250). Supposedly you will not be able to make use of the flat rate data plan when using the X01TC as a modem for other devices.

Softbank stressed the main benefits of the HTC X01HT as being the usability of a PC, information access (i.e. access to the 'full' internet), and a high speed connection. They are aiming the X01HT at business men in their 20's and 30's who already use the internet a lot . Compared to DoCoMo and Willcom they stressed the advantages of the high speed connection and wide global roaiming area.

Softbank are also offering easy download access to anti-virus and security software from Symantec and McAffee.

Jig Browser for Willcom

Jig (Japanese site only) is a browser originally developed for Japanese mobile phones. Japanese phones usually come with one lightwieght browser for viewing Compact HTML and similar lightweight sites. Some sites also come with other 'full' browsers for viewing regular internet sites, but the carriers ensure that the flat rate packet plans do not apply when using these browsers (with the exception of AU who added a flat rate plan for full browsers for an additional fee starting in May).

Jig - a small startp company - cleverly got round this restriction by developing a Java/BREW appli browser that could take advantage of the flat rate plans. I was very impressed with the browsing experience on a regular mobile phone 2" or smaller screen. The browser came packed with all the configuration options you'd expect from a PC browser, tabbed browsing, RSS reader and more cool features. There are five different view options as shown in the graphic above. Scrolling and panning around a web site felt very natural (similar to the browser on the Nokia E61 and another Nokia phone I was shown. The latter I believe was an open source browser for Symbian). The real downside was that keeping the appli running really ate up the batteries which really made it difficult to use it regularly. The pricing was also a monthly subscription at a US$5 (630 yen) a month - which does make most users think twice before signing up and forgetting about it.

Until recently the browser was nt comptabile with Willcom's Windows Mobile phones. Now it is. Although Opera Mobile offers a great browsing experience, the Jig browser may be beneficial when attempting one handed browsing. It may also offer an even more competitive browsing experience when used on devices with 2.8" or smaller screens due to the different view options available. Finally, if Jig can find some way to get flat rate browsing on the Windows Mobile devices being offered by DoCoMo (and Softbank if they decide not to offer flat rate themselves) they'd be doing a great service to the mobile community.

The Jig site offers other interesting, potentially disruptive (for the walled garden of the Japanese mobile internet) tools such as email and scheduling applications for mobile phones. The company is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Looking for photos of Japanese Windows Mobile Devices?

Katsuo2006 has enough to keep you busy for hours on Flickr.

DoCoMo's HTC Z to go on sale to non-business customers October 10

NTT DoCoMo will start selling the HTC Z to non-business customers (Japanese site only) from October 10. The price will be 72,765 yen (approx. US$600). Users will also need an NTT DoCoMo mobile subscription. There are no special data plans for non business customers. The HTC Z was one of the devices attracting a lot of interest at the recent CEATEC trade show.

Vodafone have still not announced an exact release date for their HTC device or details of any special data plans.

Full details of the X01HT on the SoftBank Web Site

It's nice to see that Softbank (formerly Vodafone Japan) have full details in English on the X01HT on their nicely designed web site.

Some of the main things I noted:

• It won't support S! Mail (MMS) which I assume are the new names for the push mail services bundled with regular SoftBank phones so users will need a 3rd party service. It does support SMS which of course is big outside Japan, but SMS does not operate between carriers here which is a big barrier.
• It won't support Yahoo! Keitai which I assume is the name for Vodafone Live - the keitai portal that all the big carriers have and the main place to get useful services and applications, including being able to pay for them with your phone bill.
  
• It will have Infra Red, unlike the Willcom W-ZERO3
• Can be used for video calls.
• Security software can be downloaded but it costs etc. (Is anybody using ant-virus software on their Windows Mobile device?)
• Opera will not be bundled.
• The small print mentions a 'Communication Manager' utility for automatically switching between packet communications and wireless LAN.

No exact date for release is mentioned, just that it is 'coming soon'. They also note 'For details on communication charges, please inquire at a store that carries our products.'

SH011 Pocket PC Phone with 1seg digital television and Mobile Suica

Rumors are emerging of SH011 Pocket PC mobile phone from Sharp which will include a 1seg digital television receiver and Mobile Suica rumored to be scheduled for release in December this year. Other specs ...

Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone Edition
1seg receiver
Mobile Suica
2.8" display
10 key input (no qwerty)

Also no wifi. There is a blurred picture here. Note these are only rumors. The picture has the Vodafone 3G logo. The official change to SoftBank was October 1st.