Vodafone introduced tw0 3G Motorola phones in the Japanese market: a straight model (702sMO) and a clamshell (702MO). After having boot problems with the 702sMO, we had more luck with the clamshell.
We expect the Motorola’s not gain an interesting market share. User interface and phone features are not to appealing for the spoiled Japanese customer. Also, the external memory can only be removed after taking the battery out — reminds us of Nokia’s N-Gage.
Both phone types have the same basic specs:
* network: W-CDMA / GSM tri-band (900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
* weight: 139 gram
* size: 49*94*27 mm (clamshell) / 53*116*24.5 mm (straight)
* main display: 1.9 inch (220*176 pixels), 65000 colors TFT
* subdisplay: 1 inch (96*80 pixels), 4000 colors STN
* main mobile camera: 310,000 pixel CMOS
* sub camera: 100,000 pixel CMOS
* photo storage capacity: 2MB
* memory card: Transflash 32MB
* sound: 24 voices
* Java, TV video, USB port
* PC link for PC synchronization of schedule and addresses
We promised earlier this week to give you a review on the latest 3G-series of Vodafone released in the Japanese market. Well, we started with the Motorola 702sMO — one of the two models released by Motorola.
We switched the phone on and saw the following screen:
Oops, the phone stopped booting. The screen showed: ‘ready to program’. The Vodafone shop where we bought the phone is looking into the issue. Hopefully, not many people will suffer from the Vodafone/Motorola quality control.
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.
The TCA (Telecommunications Carrier Association) released the subscriber growth numbers of the four major mobile carriers.
As of November 30th, there were 85 million subscribers (excluding PHS), an increase of 312,000 in comparison with October 31. DoCoMo was still by far the largest with almost 48 million subscribers, followed by KDDI – 18 million – and Vodafone – 15 million. KDDI daughter Tu-Ka had 3.5 million subscribers.
If we look at the growth numbers for this calendar year, KDDI is growing at the same absolute rate as DoCoMo, while Vodafone is feeling control from its headquarters. This year, Vodafone headquarters started synchronizing the deployment of new services and devices world-wide. Because Japan is well ahead of the other Vodafone territories, it could not launch as sexy devices as KDDI and Vodafone.
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