X03HT (HTC S730) and X02NK (Nokia N95) Announced by Softbank

Softbank yesterday announced two new smart phones to be released in Japan this Spring.

The X03HT (known as the S730 elsewhere) is runs the Windows Mobile Standard 6.0, which means that an English interface is available. It also has a 10-key keyboard on the front face meaning you can use it easily one-handed. Most of the other standard features you would expect are included: Bluetooth, worldwide compatible 3G, wi-fi. It's disappointing that we still won't see a Windows Mobile device with GPS and the camera is a disappointing 2 megapixels. With the increasing popularity of photo blogging and other location based services GPS should be a standard function in all phones. It will be available in red, black and white from "end of April or later". (Press release currently only online in Japanese).

The phone will be compatible with the S! Music Connect service. Smart phones here still cannot take advantage of most of the mobile content and services, so it's good to see moves in this direction.



While not a Windows Mobile device, it was interesting to see news of Nokia's X02NK (known elsewhere as the N95) which does have GPS and a nice 5 megapixel camera. No QWERTY keyboard though. Will be interesting to see whether they allow users to install 3rd party applications so that they can make use of location based services. As Nokia is so popular overseas there is quite a range of new software appearing, for example to uploaded geo-tagged photos to be displayed on a map, or recording your walking/cycling/driving route and then uploading the data to a mapping service so you can see and share where you traveled. Estimated release date "end of April or later", but the press release (Japanese) says the phone is still "in development" so if previous experience is anything to go buy, there's no guessing when we will actually see it on the shelves.