Well, that does suck if the batch of 100 is true. In the interview NTT DoCoMo did with me, they seemed to imply that it will be a public thing, but I'll look into it.

Very true with the S60 devices, and I tend to agree with them. The S60 devices trialed have been hopelessly inferior, even the N71 that is coming out on Vodafone KK (Softbank) is still no match for the non-smartphones that are out.

From what I read, the HTC Z is only to be sold in bulks of 100s to companies http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/mobile/articles/0607... of course there will be ways to work around this limitation (for example gathering 100 HTC enthusiasts to order together, or using ebay), the registration of monthly plans will have to be under a corperate account. (you can ask your friend to order one more, take one name off the staff list, and plug in your own U-SIM); besides, the phone is only shown on the http://www.docomo.biz/html/product/htcz/ docomo biz website, and not the one for household individuals.

The S60 devices were not popular because of the menu that the Japanese found illogical and ugly, the low-res screens and cameras back then, the lack of support for JAVA applications (domestic V-appli and I-appli written with altered versions of JAVA language), the poor ringtones back then, and also the fonts that looked very very horrible even on QVGA screens (same for the Chinese versions even on N80)

You raise some very interesting points Sam.

I actually believe that the HTC Z will be on offer in retail stores, so it will be interesting to see how that does in the market. Also, I understand what you are saying about the use of a stylus over there, but what about touchscreen-less smartphones? The Nokia S60 devices released over there didn't do well at all, yet they are operated with a single thumb.

Overall, I totally agree with what you are saying though. Operators over there definitely need to work out what they are going to market as the big positives to getting a smartphone.

mobilephoneextreme - Only time will tell I guess.

We hope that this brand of mobile phone would be such a great hit in the Japanese mobile phone market, considering the failed invasion of Nokia's S60 phones in the Japanese shores. Challenging the already high-tech local phone manufacturers..

I think there are a couple of reasons for this, some of them actually come from the Operator side. First thing is that NTT DoCoMo did not intend to turn the HTC and Blackberry devices into a big hit, since they are only targetted to biz users, a more accurate word for "target" would be "limit" actually, because these devices cannot be sold to DoCoMo shop walk-ins if you follow the rules strictly. There're 2 reasons for DoCoMo doing so, first is to protect domestic manufacturers, second is to test the market, to bring out concept models to the smallest portion of the market.

For the consumer side, smartphone were never too big in Japan anyway, people are not too fond of the whole stylus idea, they prefer using a single thumb (imagine dropping a stylus on a 2 hour super packed train ride or yanking your elbows in that tight suit to type on that qwerty keyboard). smartphones might not mean as much to Japanese because their non-smartphones are pretty smart already, you can already run apps on stand by screen (java and flash), you have full browsers, document viewers, full sync support with MS outlook (or better use the QR code), streaming media players, DRM music stoes and music player on the go.

Another problem of these smartphones would be the cameras, which are simply not good enough, and affect sales dramatically.

I think what DoCoMo would need to do is to figure out what IS the difference+ extra benefit between a smartphone and a high-end non-smartphone, if there's none, they better add something or slash the price (Wilcomm's success) or these new devices won't sell.