Small and Proud: More Cellphone Trends from CES
by Audrey Gray on January 15, 2007
Sections: Mobile Phones
|
Sign up for the FREE Tell Membership and receive benefits that include the digital edition of Tell magazine sent straight to your inbox, product giveaways, coupons and much more!
As early adopters save their C-notes and prepare to storm Cingular to acquire the stock-boosting iPhone, phone manufacturers are watching the flurry with a cocked eyebrow, wondering if a public which has demanded smaller and smaller handsets with bigger and bigger rebates is really going to go for a substantially-priced convergent device with smartphone heft.
Knowing the market is a large and diverse one (Americans have purchased many more cellphones than iPods, at least for now), phone makers are turning out new takes on previous hits, and the new models (of phones and their bluetooth accesories) are almost all significantly smaller than their already slender predecessors.
From UT Starcom comes “the smallest camera phone on the market,” according to Joan Cear, who was demonstrating the phone in the UT Starcom booth at CES. “The CDM8935 is 3.3 inches high, 1.7 inches wide, and .7 inches thin. It’s smaller than a business card,” says Cear. Though the camera boasts only .3 megapixels, the price for this entry-level phone will probably be only $50 after rebates.
Sony Ericsson is offering a new bluetooth accessory with an old-fashioned manly look, the MBW-100 watch. Compatible with most of the new Sony Ericsson bluetooth handsets, this silver watch vibrates when your phone rings. A small OLED display underneath the watch hands identifies your caller and alerts you to incoming text messages. Buttons on the right side of the watch allow you to send a busy signal to the caller or activate MP3 functions. The watch also vibrates when it moves out of range, so you can’t forget the phone.
Motorola, meanwhile, is answering the national demand for the Razr with a “razr for women,” essentially, a 3.6 oz clamshell called the Krzr (pronouced “Crazer”). The polished metal Krzr has a 2.0 megapixel camera with 8x zoom, video capture and playback capability and a MP3 player. A microSD card slot allows the user to easily import/export digital images and music files. The Krzr will be available at Cingular Wireless, a small and shiny diversion which might tempt iPhone enthusiasts to stray.
Related Posts