Wireless News

Toshiba has launched a new smartphone in Japan called the T-01A that is the first mobile device to use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The CPU is an ARM-based unit that runs at 1GHz, the iPhone Arm-based CPU runs at a mere 600MHz for comparison.

The Toshiba-Docomo T-01A will be offered outside Japan as the TG01 and will run Windows Mobile 6.1. The device has a thin 9.9mm profile and a 4.1-inch 800 x 480 resolution screen that is touch sensitive. The handset also supports 3G HSPA, Wi-Fi, and GPS.

The high-end processor gives the device support for 720p video decoding, 3D graphics, and a 12-megapixel camera. Pricing for the handset is unknown at this time. With such a powerful processor, I wonder what the battery life will be like.

Hopes had been reasonably high that Toshiba’s G810 would rest near the top of the keyboardless WinMo food chain for a while, but if PocketNow’s review is any indication, that’s a tall order. Problem numero uno – is that the completely tactile-free directional pad and accompanying buttons make using the darned thing a challenge, no matter how cool the glowy blue lights may be. What’s more, the screen is QVGA, which is unacceptable for a high-end WinMo handset in 2008, and the tester was unable to get even a single full day of battery life out of it with typical use. On the bright side, the camera appears to take some of the better shots we’ve ever seen come out of a cameraphone, but that in not really enough to justify the $700-plus that retailers are commanding.

Toshiba, never afraid of the bizarre, have taken insane nomenclature and frankly ridiculous purchasing schemes to their illogical conclusion with the FanFun 815T “Cosmic Shiner” on SoftBank. Want to buy this limited edition, diamond studded clamshell? Well, you’ll have to pick up the April issue of Seven Hills magazine, snip out the unique ID codes inside, and only then will Toshiba let you put the $4,000 on your credit card.

Designed by Kansai Yamamoto, the Cosmic Shiner comes in a handmade lacquer box with room for the three interchangeable face plates, and includes a year’s trial of the Kyoto concierge membership service. Kyoto, due to be launched next month, will apparently make hotel and restaurant bookings as well as entitle you to other “special privileges”. Hopefully complementary therapy.

If you think the two cellphones in the picture below look similar, imagine how Fujitsu feel: they developed the handset on the left, the Foma Rakuraku Phone III, for NTT DoCoMo, and then Toshiba introduced the handset on the right, the Kandan Keitai 821T, for Softbank. Now Fujitsu and their carrier chum are suing Toshiba, seeking a temporary injunction on sales of the 821T with the eventual goal of having it permanently withdrawn from sale.

Softbank have responded by denying the similarity, and suggesting that, as the 821T is intended for the youth market (rather than elderly users, as the Rakuraku is), it’s sufficiently different to make Fujitsu a big cry-baby. Toshiba has so far remained silent.

We kind of wish this was fake — and we’re tentatively overjoyed that it’s not — but we can’t help but feeling a little freaked at the Toshiba 815T PB on Softbank, developed to coincide with a new show featuring robo-phones called Ketai Sousakan 7. Yeah yeah, QVGA, 3G, 3.2 megapixel camera, that’s all well and good, but our latent fear of cellphone brain cancer kind of just went out the window.