Another music playing keitai on au’s WIN is the W21T by Toshiba. If you don’t like “breeze green” and “sunrise yellow”, you’ll be happy to know that it also comes in “lightning silver”, just in case. But what sets it apart from the crowd is its graphic engine that allows to play 3D games and watch TV too. The usual stereo, GPS etc.

Main specs:
* weight: 126 gram
* size: 50*99*26 mm (clamshell)
* main display: 2.4 inch (1.1 inch subdisplay)
* main mobile camera: 1.3 megapixel CMOS
* data storage capacity: 23 MB
* memory card: miniSD 256 MB
* Bluetooth

Ok, so here are a few specs of the WIN phones described in the previous article, and promoted heavily by au as being the most obvious choice both in terms of mobile phones (WIN is the 3G service from au, therefore benefiting all their latest technologies and gimmicks) and music player. Still listening to your music on an iPod? Read this first…

First, the W21CA by Casio. Not only a music player and a phone, it actually is a real multimedia machine. Its “wide QVGA” screen is bigger than your usual phone display, and it comes with a browser that can read PC websites (as opposed to the ones made for mobile phones only). By bigger display, we mean 2.6 inches, but also a resolution of 240×400, when normal phones usually have a 2.2 or 2.4 inch screen, and go up to 240×320 pixels. I am not sure who wants to watch movies on a 2.6″ screen, but you can if you want. Also, when it comes to data and pictures, having more pixels available is always something nice. The W21CA has a 2 megapixel CCD camera and stereo speakers. Best feature yet, it comes in 2 colors, including “Evil Brown”!

Main specs:
* weight: 143 gram
* size: 51*103*27 mm (clamshell with revolving screen)
* main display: 2.6 inch (240*400 pixels)
* main mobile camera: 2 megapixel CCD with autofocus
* data storage capacity: 24 MB
* memory card: miniSD 256 MB
* USB cradle

Of course DoCoMo is not the only one to emphasize the music playing capabilities of its new Music Porter (”music“, got it?). AU and Vodaphone are there too. In fact, AU really are in tune and are pushing the music thing as much as they can. There new slogan (which started a little before Xmas) is “Need music?”, and there is little chance to misunderstand their point…

From the ads in the trains to their catalogs, everything is done for the users to realize that buying a portable mp3 player is not such a good idea.

In fact, when looking at the latest AU catalog, one could almost be mistaken and think it is a brochure for an mp3 player shop.

A while ago, when cameras in mobile phones were the edge, big electronic retailers were displaying prints of snapshots taken by the keitai, next to the keitai itself. Potential buyers could have a look at the specs, the coolness/colors/buttons, and the actual photos taken from the tiny camera at the same time. Now, music is the feature to market, and one can find speakers and/or headphones alongside the keitai, on the display, to try out the music performance of the phone before buying it. A nice marketing side-effect is that people spend more time playing with the phone, while they listen to the music.

AU is not only trying to sell more phones, they also push their music download business service forward, through their music-enabled phones. First you can play your mp3’s, then you naturally download new songs (in one click) straight from your keitai. If Apple could do it with the iPod and iTunes Music Store (and with the iTunes compatible Motorola phone to be released soon), AU and the other mobile phones providers must try to ride that wave too. Their phones don’t have the same cool (nor the same low-low pricetag) as the new iPod Shuffle, but since you gotta have a phone in your pocket anyway, why buy one that doesn’t play music? Actually, the TV ad (CM) for NTT DoCoMo’s Music Porter is even selling it as a “Music player, sometimes a mobile phone”…

So, everyone is jumping in and trying to sell music as being the ultimate option this winter? Even Vodafone? Yes, they have this ad campaign where a guy seems to be so happy he can listen to music, he keeps on screaming and wearing strange colors and strange clothes. First Beckham, then that? Vodafone Japan sure as a strange way to advertise.

Ok, just one last ad, in case you didn’t get you NEED to get an mp3 player in your mobile phone yet.
One of the faces of AU is the extremely beautiful and popular actress/talento Nakama Yukie. Of course, she’s listening to her music on her keitai too…

(If you are interested in specs of these mobile phones, let us know in the comments below and we’ll post a description of the phones individually)

It took some time — Vodafone relaunched its 3G services with an impressive number of new handsets. 7 new 3G handsets are being released by Vodafone in Japan: 2 Sharps, 1 NEC, 1 SonyEricsson, 1 Nokia and 2 Motorola’s. The hybrid handsets can be used on Vodafone’s 3G networks worldwide and GSM/GPRS-networks outside Japan. Fortunately, we got our hands on the Nokia 702NK and Motorola 702MO. We will report first impressions and tests of the Vodafone 3G- service on Friday. Can Motorola and Nokia progress in Japan and make Vodafone’s 3G service finally competitive? —- Stay tuned …..

For those who cannot wait, here is a pic from Vodafone’s Japanese web site.