Check out my phone… it’s got bluetooth which I can use to speak hands-free through my car’s navigation, it has a 1GB of internal memory and takes micro SD Cards up to 1GB so I
can store files and pictures and MUSIC (!) to listen to with headphones. I can also connect to a computer by USB and upload or download files, pictures, music, anything I want. I can look at any homepage and search the internet (google is the default search engine) so I’m not limited to mobile phone homepages.
It can show all kinds of microsoft files, including powerpoint… can also display homepages and pdf files as they’d be seen on a computer. There is a cord sold separately that would allow me to connect directly into a projector.
Here’s the phone on Toshiba’s homepage.
The camera is 324 megapixels. It takes long videos, and has a 3 inch VGA screen for watching them… of course because of the built in “one-seg” tv tuner, I can also watch tv anytime I want.
Free news updates, GPS navigation and maps, calculator, calendar, FM tuner, voice memo recording (which I can transfer to the computer by USB)… it also has an IC Chip as well as a built in system that allows me to pay for things at most convenience stores by swiping my cell phone. ( I haven’t tried that last one yet.)
Thanks to the IC chip I can use it in the US as well (though calls are expensive).
There’s probably more I just haven’t figured out how to use yet.
I just looked at the Toshiba homepage and saw that I have access to a free “My Page” which will allow me to store up to 100 megabytes of files and data that I can access anytime.
My monthly plan is only about 30 dollars and there is no special limitation on when I can change phones. I heard that the iphone requires a 2 year contract and plans are like 60 dollars a month (please correct me if I’m wrong).
Crazy stuff… man I love this phone!
So if people with cool phones over here in Japan seem to be ho-humming about the iphone, now you know why. The iphone doesn’t really do anything that phones over here haven’t been doing for years. In fact, the phone I had before this one had a 4GB hard drive!
iphone, call me about 3 years ago.