Upgrading to a New Cell Phone in Japan Might Depend on Who You Are
Taking a break from the summer heat, this humble reporter was bribed with promises of nomi-hodai, all you can drink at usually unbeatable prices, to tag along as ‘the mobile phone expert’ recently in Shinjuku. So with ice tea-laden backpacks, we embarked on an blistering hot afternoon ketai safari in search of the elusive new V602sh handset from Sharp through Vodafone Japan, only to discover that this ultra-cool model was already sold out at the monster electronic consumer super-store of choice. Or was it? Thus unfolds an interesting look at how the subsidy-driven handset marketplace deals with existing vs. new customers.
This free-for-all program takes you to KDDI’s recent launch event at the Imperial hotel announcing the carrier’s three new WIN handsets, all now making use of Macromedia Flash lite. You’ll get a close-up of these phones in action plus tips on the new 3G flat-rate price plan coming in August. We also highlight NTT DoCoMo’s N900iL dual-mode 802.11b/W-CDMA handset based on the FOMA N900i which, unfortunately, has been transformed into the de facto proprietary, intranet-only “Passage Duple”