EMOBILE (Japanese) have announced they will launch their 3.6 Mbps HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) from March 31 in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kyoto with other areas to follow later in the year. The sexy Sharp EM-ONE (Japanese)Windows Mobile device from Sharp will also be released to work with the service at the same time. (A PC Card will also be available with Express Cards and CF cards on the way).
The EM-ONE's key features are:
- a 4.1" Wide VGA (800×480) screen
- dual slide including keyboard, cursor button, pointing device and scroll wheel
- 1-seg tuner for mobile digital TV
- Windows Mobile 5.o
- Marvell® PXA270 520MHｚ CPU
- NVIDIA GoForce™ 5500 graphics accelerator
- Stereo speakers and microphone
- 1 x Mini-SD card slot
- 512MB of flash memory and 128MB SDRAM
- 1.3 megapixel camera
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- 140mm×70mm×18.9mm and 250g
- Additional bundled software including J-E dictionary, Opera Mobile and barcode reader
- 4 hour battery life!
A great looking device, the site is really pushing the mobile internet and entertainment features. The 4 hour battery life is a bit worrying though!
The device will cost from 95,000 yen (US$860) to 39,000 yen (US$350) if you take out a 2 year contract. The flat rate plans will be 5,980 yen (US$55) a month or 4,980 (US$45) a month with a 1 year contract. The pricing looks competitive compared to both Willcom's PHS and DoCoMo and Softbank's flat rate plans, but note this won't be a phone.
It's great to see exciting options like this appearing for people who want to access the internet on the move. Let's see how Softbank, DoCoMo, Willcom and AU respond!
Update
Some photos (taken with my phone) of the EM-ONE for sale at BIC Camera in advance of the official launch:
