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CTIA Phones: Some Hits & Misses
CTIA 2007, Orlando: It seems like the iPhone and the hits-driven handset business has prodded cell phone makers to move a bit further out of their comfort zones. And it is all on display at the CTIA wireless trade show that started Monday.
As we walked around CTIA’s opening-night party, we checked out some of the new handsets - some destined for the charts, and others well, into the discount bin. Here are our two cents (and hands-on reviews) on some of the new phones.
Hits:
LG Prada — It might be the iPhone’s slightly less cool twin, but the touch screen LG Prada phone’s user interface is just as smooth. It reminded me of some of the newer Web 2.0 services, and in a few minutes makes you aware the truly bad state of the mobile UI. Anyone who passed the LG booth paused, and got a demo spending a few minutes gawking at the fluid interface.
Sony Ericsson’s Z750 — Despite being a basic feature phone, the HSDPA clamshell has a few nice touches that could make it a hit. It has a display with a hidden mirror effect when the clamshell is closed. It is also one of the first of Sony Ericsson’s phones that can post video blogs to Blogger.
LG VX9400 for Verizon VCAST – Broadcast TV may be old media, but it makes compelling viewing, especially if you have a soft spot for the TV show lineup. The phone’s design is far better than the rival Samsung offering, with a nice swing bar screen with built in automatic landscape switching mode. I’ve been watching Letterman for an hour or so. My parents wouldn’t be able to read the type on the screen, but if you insist on watching TV on your phone - this is the way to go.
Misses:
UpStage — Samsung’s device for Sprint’s network is like a mullet — business in the front and party in the back. Or vice versa, however your mood fits. It’s got two sides: one for calls and productivity and the other for music and entertainment.
The problem is that the side for calls is way boring and the side for music has a not-so-intuitive navigation pad. Both sides just didn’t seem good enough and the phone feels a bit schizophrenic. I was also always worried that I was getting the other side’s screen all oily with my greasy fingers.
HTC’s Advantage — It’s a laptop, its a phone (or at least has 3G and Wi-Fi) and you can use Microsoft Word and Excel for your productivity tools. Sounds good right? But the keyboard’s keys and angle just didn’t feel right for any kind of sustained typing. I tried to type like on a regular laptop as well as thumb texting. It just falls short on both accounts. Though the idea of the converged device does appeal to our sense; maybe the HTC Shift will prove better suited to my blogging-on-the-go needs, though it was safely under glass at the CTIA party.
Kyocera’s E5000 with the S-hinge –The E5000’s stainless steel S-hinge would look nice on a shelf with my grandma’s pewter Hallmark frames and silver kitty trinkets. And that’s not a good thing. Kyocera calls the hinge “a sculpted elegant look — the first of its kind.” More like a boring and basic design add, that adds nothing.
Sprint’s Lil WiMAX Details
CTIA 2007: If Sprint’s mobile WiMAX network weren’t the first of its size and kind in the U.S., we wouldn’t be following its future rollout details like paparazzi mob Britney Spears. But it is, so we will.
Sprint named a dozen or so more markets for its WiMAX rollout and the chosen vendors for each location, and also announced some new hardware partners. Sprint now has 19 markets announced for network vendors Nokia, Samsung and Motorola (see details below the fold)
We talked with Atish Gude, Sprint’s senior VP of mobile broadband operations at Sprint’s CTIA press conference, and asked him if the company had talked to Clearwire about any roaming deals or if he could envision such a partnership. He said he thought Clearwire’s technology was far from having a mobile element yet, and though the companies had had some preliminary talks, there was nothing meaningful to announce.
The details:
- Motorola will build out Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis.
- Samsung will develop Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Washington D.C.
- Nokia will take care of Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Seattle.
- There are now 19 markets named for the WiMAX launch — Hopefully the Bay Area will fall in there somewhere, sometime soon.
- Samsung will develop PC cards for WiMAX and dual EVDO/WiMAX.
- ZTE Corporation will supply WiMAX devices including PC cards — express and USB — as well as modem products.
- ZyXEL Communications will develop modem products.
Top 5 Trends to Expect at CTIA
CTIA 2007 PREVIEW: While you’re checking out this 5 points user guide to the CTIA convention – the Super Bowl of mobile conferences – I’m likely trying to find a comfortable position on a redeye headed for hot Orlando. Hopefully it’s not too bumpy.
Like Helio’s ads “Don’t call us a phone company,” the rest of the mobile industry will try to rally the market around mobile data — mobile TV, cell phone entertainment, mobile social networking, and mobile ads - at CTIA which opens in a few hours from now.
Too bad, as analysts at Informa Telecoms & Media point out: “the vast majority of revenue growth – both for the operator and vendor communities - is coming out of developing markets where mobile is fulfilling a basic need for voice and text-based communications.” Yeah, but that’s not as much fun to show off in a demo booth. Anyway, on to the top 5 trends:
1) Mobile TV – Qualcomm’s broadcast mobile TV network is finally live in the U.S. and mobile TV vendors and video content companies now have a working platform to tout their efforts. Chip companies will showcase mobile TV chips, while media companies will announce new video content.
Verizon Wireless is the first US carrier to sell the service, and Cingular will follow soon. Hopefully AT&T COO Randall Stephenson will give us an update on the status of the rollout. Monday morning we’re picking up one of the handsets used for Verizon Wireless’ VCAST Mobile TV service. Yay.
2) Mobile Ads – Declining future voice revenues are forcing the mobile business to look at mobile ads as a way to give the bottom line a quick boost. Informa predicts mobile advertising will be around $11.3 billion by 2011. Which means, an announcement overload.
AdMob, a San Mateo, Calif.-based company will announce that it has raised $15 million in fresh funding in a round led by Accel Partners. Other startups like Xipto are showing new mobile ad-driven services like their endorsement-driven mobile advertising platform, and Millenial Media announced some new technology for rich media mobile ad campaigns.
3) iPhone and mobile UI:– We’ll see if the iPhone makes an actual appearance (or an update from AT&T’s COO), but its presence will no doubt be felt on the UI front. We should expect more companies to showcase the fluid user interface and prototypes of touch screen phones. It looks like the much awaited iPhone and the LG Prada phone will have some new competiton.
4) Lack of compelling new handsets: Moto CEO decided to cancel his keynote, a sign that Moto’s having an uh-oh moment! But is also is indicative of how quickly winds change in the handset business. Cell phone makers can’t rest on the laurels of big hits like the RAZR for too long and are trying create the new hits of 2007.
We’ll search for innovation, but we’re not too optimistic. For some reason Chinese handset maker TCL thinks Alcatel-branded handsets are a good idea and Sprint’s getting a new music phone from Samsung, the m620 or UpStage. Though Helio’s Ocean does look like a pretty nice messaging device.
5) Mobile User Generated Content – There is going to be a lot of buzz around mobile services that help subscribers create and share mobile content. StreamVerse is talking about Mojo, a service for creating mobile content that it hopes will help wireless carriers make money. Mobidia is announcing its mobile application called CUBuddy that lets users create video calls between cell phones. This is actually one part of the mobile ecosystem which could turn casual data users into 3G customers, and help goose up the carrier ARPU.