By Well the 2008 CTIA Wireless expo came and went but there was plenty of news to go around. Rather than try to scoop up bits and pieces, we’ve put together a quick recap of the stuff you should care about.
As far as new handsets go:
- Samsung stole the show with the Samsung Instinct, which looks to be yet another “iPhone competitor”.
- Velocity Mobile, a new smart phone manufacturer debuting at CTIA, revealed their first 2 Windows Mobile devices which garnered some great, positive press for the company. They look great.
- The Sony Ericcson Xperia X1 got a hands on look and apparently it is everything it is cracked up to be.
- Verizon’s LG Vu looks to be a hot product on AT&T while the enV2 received initial excitement that was tempered after a hands on.
- Nokia dropped an Internet Tablet (N810) that looked pretty sweet and should launch on AT&T in the summer.
- LG Hero for Sprint aims for the basic business world – very affordable with the “connect to talk” feature and some business apps. Not stunning but does it’s job well.
- Sanyo launched a bunch of basic phones, which definitely have a decent market. One is the Katana LX and three more are on a line called the Pro Series.
- ZTE launched 2 ho-hum devices aimed at the more “basic” cell phone user.
- Motorola Smart Rider is a mix between a phone and GPS device that will be available in June 2008
- Motorola Z9 is good looking phone but doesn’t do anything incredible.
- Verizon Wireless imports the HTC Touch into it’s line of products.
- The Motorola Q9c will also be available on Verizon in the summer.
- ClarityLife offers a cell phone for Old Fogies.
And as for software and accessory news we felt was worthy of mention:
- Verizon adds a “friend finding service” for $3.99/month… the same type of service that you can expect Android to offer… for FREE.
- Bluepulse launches a mobile social network.
- Thumbplay offers a GET service where you send them a TXT message and they return the favor with a link to purchase a song/ringtone. Um… mobile web please anyone?
- Yahoo’s OneSearch 2.0 allows BlackBerry users to speak their search term into a Yahoo interface which then displays their results. We likey.
- Dashwire improved their phone-to-web syncing application that lets you completely manage your mobile presence via computer and links the two “existences” seamlessly. This could be a big hit down the road when mobiles, by default, do a heckuva lot more.
- Wayfinder Active has a neat (and free) GPS application tied into a social community for “active” folks who can take their phones on hikes, runs, bike trails, rock climbing, etc.. and it spits out a load of handy info about their voyage. Check it out.
- iVisit video conferencing on your mobile. Cool beans.
A decent show but definitely not the best we’ve scened. We’ll be excited to get the Samsung Instinct and the LG Vu into our hands… that’s for sure.
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