Voice service will start a bit later.
Though I agree this will become stiff competition between emobile and
willcom, but current offering is still way behind willcomm (since the
handset is more expensive (or with 2-year contract) and coverage is
limited, and currently no voice), unless you need the much higher speed
it offers and happens to live in one of those few big cities.
Pada Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:19:30 +0900
si Steven_Nagata@capgroup.com bilang:
>
> This has been a pretty interesting story so far.
>
> I've been watching as this one develops and so far it's pretty neat. I
> think a lot of people on this list will be pretty involved with this
> offering.
> At first I almost thought that this was an ISP making a play to become a
> 4th (or 5th depending on how you count) player in Japan, but on closer
> inspection it doesn't look to be quite the case.
> eMobile is trying to make a play for purely mobile broadband. They are not
> offering any traditional cellphones or standard voice service. The EM-ONE
> does not have voice call or video phone capabilities built in. It is just
> a PDA with a cellular data modem built in.
> In that sense, eMobile is more like data resellers like BMobile, apparently
> hitching a ride on NTT Docomo's HSDPA network.
>
> I got to hands-on with one of these yesterday, and it looks pretty good.
> Similar to the Willcom W-Zero3. Perhaps a little flimsy on construction,
> but mercifully light.
> A few questions/points of concern.
>
> 1. Non standard display. While the 800x480 display is neat, will 3rd
> party apps have difficulty working on a non standard display?
> 2. Will lack of cellphone features mean no support for Microsoft Push
> Mail?
> 3. Will the device have a suspend mode like WM5 Phone edition? Without
> it, apps like Skype will chew through the 4 hour battery life. With an all
> you can eat data plan you really want an always on net connection for live
> apps.
>
> On the plus side, web browsing is good. One-seg TV is a nifty (if not
> necessary) add on, the ability to use the PDA as a modem is great.
>
> They still had some problems with their network, so I haven't seen wireless
> performance. I wouldn't be surprised to see their start date pushed back a
> bit. If not, though it will start off an interesting summer.
>
> -Steve
>
Arnold P. Siboro (asiboro@maltech.jp)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
Received on Thu Feb 22 04:40:39 2007