From LG iPhone competition headed to the U.S., to just about every other news item from CTIA you haven’t read. We spotlight everything else that happened in our final comprehensive CTIA report from this year’s show. Read more to see it all.
Our final day of CTIA coverage has more photos total than any other site’s entire CTIA coverage. Of course, click on any image to view it in high definition. Also, don’t forget to check our Day 1, and Day 2 coverage.
Just to give you an idea of this year’s expo size, here’s a couple of shots from the middle of the expo. It’s hard to say if it is actually bigger than last year, but we suspect that it was… judging based on exhaustion from having to walk each and every row.
{mospagebreak title=Alcatel}
As we covered previously, Alcatel has made its entry into the U.S. wireless market. We met with Alcatel, and took a look at their upcoming lineup. Alcatel revealed that they were indeed working on CDMA phones as well as GSM phones, both shown below. They also confirmed that they were not sure what phones would be launched, saying that they have submitted devices to all carriers and plan to work with each of them to determine the viability of Alcatel in each national carrier’s lineup.
{mospagebreak title=Garmin Mobile}
Garmin Mobile was showing off their upcoming support for Sprint Motorola phones. We asked them about PDA support on gpsOne-enabled devices (such as Sprint and Verizon smartphones and PDAs). They admitted that, once again, the lack of an API in Windows Mobile prohibits them from vending such applications that take advantage of these device’s built-in GPS. They followed up by saying that they were working with “all parties involved” but that it could take “years” before anyone actually produces results.
{mospagebreak title=LG}
LG unveiled two phones in public, and our sources dropped a major bombshell behind-the-scenes. Probably the biggest announcement was the LG Prada is indeed headed to the United States. The phone made popular for the who-ripped-off-who debate between it, and Apple’s iPhone. Obviously the resemblance can’t be ignored, but our sources do confirm the phone is a lock for the United States. Further, sources confirm that both Sprint and Verizon are looking to gain an exclusive on the device line, as Apple will not be selling the iPhone on either carrier until 2009.
LG announced the VX8700 as as part of their Shine series for Verizon. The VX8700 features an all-metal casing, and is otherwise a continuation of the VX8300 and VX8600. Probably the best new software feature is a radically enhanced Flash UI. The default Verizon theme is now all Flash UI (featured below), and actually responds without any lag (unlike previous Flash UI phones which had significant lag and friction in their interfaces).
Also announced was the LG LX-570. The LX-570 is the sucessor to the Fusic. Like the Fusic, it touches on some of the designs from LG’s Verizon phones, but also takes the form-factor in a more Sprint-derived direction by adding enhanced front-facing media player controls.
Also showed was the LG CU500v. The CU500v is simply an AT&T branded CU500 with newer firmware. That newer firmware (which will not, for some unexplained reason, be offered to existing CU500 owners) enables AT&T Video Share. Video Share is a one-way version of video calling, which is popular on UMTS carriers in Europe.
{mospagebreak title=Motorola}
Motorola’s booth was very large this year, and they showed off more new devices than any other manufacturer. With a well-featured set of specifications to go with each phone, we show off all of the new and upcoming phones from Motorola (we do point out the the MOTOFONE F3c is not planned for a U.S. release, which we confirmed at the show).
{mospagebreak title=OQO}
OQO had their Model 02 on display, live shots below. We did confirm that their HSDPA-enabled variant would likely remain headed only to Europe, and that there were not any plans to release it on AT&T Cingular in the United States.
{mospagebreak title=Pantech}
Pantech’s CTIA lineup has been convered previously on the news feed. However, here are live shots of all of Pantech’s announced products. On a related note, we asked about their CDMA operations. Now that Pantech has U.S. device production, their relationship with UTStarcom has been called into question.
Pantech confirmed to PhoneNews.com that they plan to continue relations with UTStarcom for CDMA phones, focusing directly on only GSM and UMTS phones. They stated that their agreement will continue through most of 2009, at which time they will re-evaluate their position in the marketplace for CDMA.
{mospagebreak title=Qualcomm}
Qualcomm’s booth was rather devoid of new features or announcements… with of course the yearly exception of their Wall of Phones You Can’t Buy (our name). So, featured below are the CDMA phones of Japan that if you’re lucky, will be available three years from now. Don’t believe us? The W21CA (G’zOne) was on this wall three years ago… it shipped late last year.
{mospagebreak title=Sprint WiMAX Gaming}
One more shot from Sprint’s WiMAX exhibit. WiMAX is not only set to replace online internet connectivity, but online gaming access as well. Sprint was touting WiMAX as being low-latency enough to show first-person-gaming (blurry due to use in demonstration).
{mospagebreak title=Symbian}
Each year, we ask the questions that readers ask us the most. One of which is “When will we see a Series 60 phone arrive on CDMA?”. Fair question, considering LG and Motorola both are releasing Symbian phones in addition to Nokia. However, this year, we finally got the stern-looking people to crack a laugh when we asked the question. While confirming once again that support was “in the platform” they finally capitulated that the prospects of CDMA ever seeing a Symbian device were not likely for the foreseeable future.
{mospagebreak title=T-Mobile}
Yes, that constitutes T-Mobile’s entire presence at the show. No, this is not a late April Fools’ joke. Moving on…
{mospagebreak title=VeryKool}
If TechFaith was the ODM to step out of knock-off status at this year’s show, VeryKool tried to make a splash as being the “respectable” knock-off phone maker. In fact, they so blatantly had to admit their phones were shameful knock-offs as to have to deploy to one of the oldest selling tricks in the book; putting scantly-clad body-painted women on display…
Unfortunately, looks can be deceiving. As you will see below, there’s nothing hot about cheap knock-off phones…
