Windows Mobile in Ikebukuro

Today, I walked to Ikebukuro to look at the Windows Mobile devices in Bic Camera. I looked through the Willcom's booth, and looked at the Advanced W-ZERO 3 [es] on display. The cool thing was that as I was looking at the flyers, I noticed the HTC P3600 on it. I didn't know they sell HTC unlocked smartphones in Bic Camera, and I went to the display case that contained the HTC P3600 and the HTC X7501.

For me, however, neither devices really impressed me because the HTC P3600, although it has a GPS, does not have a slide-in keyboard, and was a big downer for me. I was surprised, however, that the device was not too expensive, being 69,800yen. The HTC X7501 was 119,800yen.

I think the HTC Athena will be a good replacement for older Handheld PCs, but I still think the Sigmarion 3 is better because it has many accessories and has a SDIO and CF slot for expansion.

I also went over to the Softbank booth to take a look at the X01T, but there wasn't any one on display except for the mock up. I guess if I had asked, they would have put it out for me to play with. I think the best smartphone to get at the moment is the Softbank's X02HT because it has Wifi (IEEE802.11b/g). By adding the latest add-on, the X02HT supports the Office 2007 format. I also thing the good part is that the X02HT supports charging by USB.

After I finished looking at the Bic Camera's smartphone booths, I headed over to the Yamada Denki's Emobile booth. I got a pamphlet from the EMobile booth, and in the pamphlet, I noticed something very interesting called 3D Box. 3D box is a 3D browser software in which you can view News, Weather, Movies, Music, and Variety Programs. The interesting feature of this program is that it shows the bookmarks in the Internet Explorer and Opera Browser in a 3D cabinet format. You can see the details here .


The new D02HW supports the latest 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connection,which I find it cool. The only negative part of this modem is that it doesn't support any Windows Mobile devices, let alone Windows CE.

The EMobile subscription rates are quite cheap, being 5980yen for basic data plan and 4980yen when you get a two year "Shin ninen " plan. ADSL service can be added for only 1,500yen per month, which I think is quite good.

Before I switched over to Yahoo ADSL and current FTTH, I was using EAccess' ADSL service, but I found their service pretty satisfying, and I am sure they improved it even more since then.