Japanese Smartphone Market News & Trends

Image by laurence.thurion via Flickr This article [Japanese] by Japanese daily Fuji Sankei gives some good insights into the Japanese smartphone market.

• It was predicted Apple/Softbank would have sold 1 million iPhones here. Although the stats are not released, it is predicted that they have only sold around 200,000 and sales have drastically slowed so they may only sell 350,000 by the end of the year. The latest talk out on the streets seems to be the the iPhone is being dubbed a relative failure here.
  
• AU/KDDI plan to release smartphones by the end of the year, Japan Communications will enter the market this month and HTC will also release more devices.
• Samsung is aiming to release their Omnia Windows Mobile device here.
  
• NTT DoCoMo's strategy is to focus on business users.
• Both KDDI's UQ Communications and Willcom are considering smartphones for their next generation networks (WiMax and Willcom Core) that will be launched next year boasting speeds of 20 megabits/second

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Sigmarion III Detailed Review

Sigmarion 3 Review

The best thing about the Sigmarion 3 is that it is very useful for making reports, editing text, and even surfing the web on the go. There are many enthusiasts all over the world, and since I am exporting Sigmarion III to users all over the world, they seem to be getting many new patches for the device created by individuals, on sites like HPCFactor. The best feature of this device is the instant on/off, unique to the Windows CE devices.


The light weight (455 grams) is very good, and it is much better than carrying a heavy laptop which sometimes can be about 3 Kgs.

You can use the Wifi at 54Mbps by buying the IODATA 54Mbps card or the Planex 54Mbps card. There are also many 11Mbps Wifi cards that are supported by this great device, including WLI-CF-S11G and WLI2-CF-S11G. You can also use SDIO Wifi card from Sandisk and such.

The best option for the Sigmarion 3 will probably be the extended battery, which is very rare and quite expensive. This allows 3000mAh of power, which means you can use for about 16 hours straight without recharging. This will make the Sigmarion 3 even more trustworthy, and you won't have to worry about bringing several batteries on the go, which will cause quite a bit of hassle.

Most people think the small factor of the Sigmairion 3 quite impressive, even after 4 years after its initial release (the device was put out of line in 2005). The display size is still impressive, being WVGA (800X480) instead of the regular VGA (640X480). Watching movie files on Sigmarion 3 is quite good, which you will need to use the TCMCP player available for free.

Also, there is a hack of increasing the video memory to 8MB, in which I found it to have some effect on the speed.

Overclocking the Sigmarion 3 is very easy, and can be done using a software, and it will increase the speed to 796 Mhz (uncofirmed). I tried overclocking it myself to 520 Mhz, which made the device faster, but a little unstable when connecting to Wifi. The utility I used is called xclkcfg.

I am hoping NTT Docomo or some other company will revive the Handheld PC device soon, because I am very sure there will be many new users who will find such device very valuable if they put out the latest OS on it. It will even be more interesting if NTT Docomo decided to make a Windows CE 6.0 upgrade to the Sigmarion 3, providing a ROM upgrade. I think they can even make the device over 100,000 yen. Personally, I am hoping that companies other than NTT Docomo to make such a device, like Softbank or Au.

More photos and Specs of the HT1100 and F1100

www.flickr.com More Flickr photos tagged with f1100 www.flickr.com

Live from the Press Conference: DoComo Announce the HT1100 and F1100

Two new devices from DoCoMo to hit the market Q1 2008. The HT1100 is a smaller, 3G, 2nd generation version of the HTC Touch. The Fujitsu F1100 is a device new to the market globally.

Also being covered by Akihabara News and Windows CE Fan (Japanese).

1st Anniversary Event for Windows Mobile Phones in Japan

Microsoft Japan today kicked off a 2 day event in Marunouchi, the heart of Tokyo's business district, to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of Windows mobile phones in Japan. The event does mark an important milestone. From zero to three of four of Japan's main carriers with Windows Mobile devices in just one year. The NTT DoCoMo presenter commented that when he saw a Windows Mobile device in Redmond just a few years ago he never imagined he would one day be in Japan talking abut Windows Mobile phones. Willcom, NTT DoCoMo and Softbank all had booths showing off their devices. There were also a few applications on show which marks a revival in the interest of software developers after the death of the PDA market in Japan in 2004-2005 which I'm sure many of them lost out from.

The event marked another turning point in Microsoft's attempts to market Windows Mobile devices to a wider audience. To date, the power users and the buzz have done most of the marketing with little in the way of campaigns or events. Outside the booth area, staff were passing out information packs to passers by. As I walked by listening to conversations a common scenario was one out of a group of businessmen explaining Windows Mobile to the others, "It's like a small PC, you can do your email, browse the web and check office documents". Others uttered the phrase 'Windows keitai ???' in a puzzled tone. (Keitai is used in a similar way 'mobile' is used in English. By using the term windows keitai, Microsoft will likely find t easier to market Windows Mobile devices in Japan. Windows Keitai Fan happens to be the name of the top web site dedicated to Windows Mobile devices in Japan and is run by the people behind Windows CE Fan which has been around since the early days of Microsoft PDAs in the 90's.

The good news for Windows Mobile fans in Japan, Microsoft said they plan to release different form factors and have a total of 10 devices (but still 3 carriers) on the market in 2007. Lot's to look forward to.

More photos on Flickr from Kastuo2006.