au "talby" Mobile Phones / AU Posted by zmcnulty on Oct 14, 2004 - 09:58 AM |
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I think I like the "INFOBAR [1]" more, but here's the third phone bourne of the "au design project." Looks alright....I think I'd appreciate it more if it wasn't designed by this "Marc Newson" guy. I would feel a lot better if he had some experience, but no, this is "the first phone [he] has ever designed." KDDI and Okinawa Cellular will release the "talby," a slim/straight phone with a flat design and the third phone of "au design project," in early December. It also includes an original strap which fits the large strap hole. The "talby" is a CDMA2000 1x phone made by Sanyo and is the third model from the "au design project." Based on a concept model announced in 2003, it was designed by Mr. Marc Newson, a product designer. It is scheduled to be released in early December. The size is 45 x 132 x 13mm (W x H x D), and it weighs about 7g - giving it a quite slim body design. Mr. Newson also handled the menu design. A new song called "Free" written by Mr. Nick Wood is also loaded, and can be njoyed using the 20mm speaker on the back of the phone. Furthermore, various new songs were written for the "talby," and a soundtrack containing these tracks will be released in November. The "talby" unfortunately does not support EZ "Chaku Uta Full" announced as a new service by AU. For a display, a 2.1" QVGA (240 x 320 dot) TFT LCD is used, and is capable of displaying 260,000 colors. The camera has an effective resolution of 0.33MP, and the phone has an internal 8MB of memory. It does not have an external memory slot. "Tebura Keitai" provides hands-free functions, and "Smart Mode" and display operation functions in simple to use menus (they should call it "stupid mode," then). It also supports EZ Navi Walker, and these can be used with 2D codes, a.k.a QR codes. Three body colors will be made available: Hornet Green, Orange Orange, and Hole Black. The continuous idle time is about 250 hours, and the continuous talk time is about 190 minutes. "ATOK/APOT" is used as a Japanese input function. At the announcement event, Mr. Yoshihiro Komuta, Product Design Director at KDDI's Product Integration department, at which Mr. Marc Newson and Mr. Nick Wood were present, talked about the charm of the "talby." Mr. Komuta mentioned that "this unit was created with the help of technology from Tottori Sanyo, and I have confidence in it," and he then explained the functions of the phone. Mr. Newson said, "the 'talby' is the first cellular phone I have designed, and I am satisfied with the results. Designs like this are the most challenging. Although I've developed furniture, airplanes, and other such products, I had not developed a product to be used by so many people; chances to design like this do not come frequently." At purchase, an exclusive bag for the "talby" will be handed over to users. An exlusive leather case will also be available as an option at au shops. While the price of this case has not yet been decided, it is estimated to be around 2,000 - 3,000 yen.   Inspired by: http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/news_toppage/20960.html [2] News Release: http://www.kddi.com/corporate/news_release/2004/1013/ [3] Product Information: http://www.au.kddi.com/au_design_project/seihin/talby/ [4] |
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This article is from TechJapan http://www.techjapan.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.techjapan.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=589 Links in this article [1] http://www.techjapan.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=146 [2] http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/news_toppage/20960.html [3] http://www.kddi.com/corporate/news_release/2004/1013/ [4] http://www.au.kddi.com/au_design_project/seihin/talby/ |