Have to say the QVGA screen and combination of Android OS and Internet Explorer 6 browser is just off.

And note how the Sharp SH-07A with its 10 megapixel camera (same as the 933SH from Softbank) can attach itself to any Blu-ray recorder via its included stereo speaker cradle and download content you've got on there to play later while on the move. Nice.

Oops. Major boo boo on my part. The 'Memory LCD' is actually an LCD. They didn't make that clear at the press conference, which I was watching, but checking the site, it appears it actually uses one five hundredth of the power of previous OLED (!) external displays, so what the hell it's made of is anyone's guess.

The 'memory' part of my comment is accurate, though.

Oops. Meant 'makes them awesome'. Anyone else think of Brawndo when they use that word?

Well, I e-mailed this in, but just to get the info out there quickly, the memory LCD is actually an OLED, which Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son claims uses only five per cent of the power used by previous external displays. Seeing as most of these were STN, that's no surprise, but anyway.

And the 'memory' part comes from the fact the external display can only show one of 38 different screens at one time, and the hardware remembers which of those 38 you use most.

Also not mentioned was the fact that both use CCD sensors in their cameras, which makes the awesome, and for some reason Chris chose to ignore the 10mp CCD camera equipped Aquos Shot, which also has a 3-inch VGA capacitive screen and 'Chase Shutter', which allows the autofocus to follow an object selected on the screen as it moves across it. Nice, huh.

Typical - Microsoft muscles in with vast amounts of cash and tie-ins to push a competing product (a better one to use, in most people's eyes) out of the market. Again. Remember netbooks and Linux? Seriously, if Google has the money, they need to push massively now or lose their market share like Linux did.

@iPhonerulez,

There are many reasons why the Japanese phone manufacturers keep their phones for the Japanese market. Number one is simply sales opportunities and manufacturing limits. Until very recently, Japanese companies have made so much money from the local market, and as such been running at full manufacturing capacity, that they have not had to, or had the manufacturing capacity to, send phones overseas. Only Sharp has recently started to send phones to China, and that's only because, by their own admission, the Japanese market is slowing and sales opportunities now HAVE to be found elsewhere.

Number two, as you point out, so many Japanese network-specific features would not work overseas that it would be hard to justify the huge cost of the phones to the overseas networks (who still subsidise to a large degree in Japan).

Number three, it is a software engineering issue. GPS programs in Japanese phones are all in 3D and thus far more advanced than Western phones. Dumbing them down is just not in the Japanese psyche, and re-engineering them for global markets would be too much hassle. Also, while Japanese phones are all bi- or even trilingual, they often do not have English T9 predictive input. All this would have to be engineered into the phones before sales overseas.

Lastly, it may well be that Japanese manufacturers are cautious after every single major company (bar Mitsubishi, who have since pulled out of even the Japanese market) failed miserably to enter the global market a few years ago. This was down to a number of reasons, most prominent of which was the networks' abject failure to sell them properly. AU$1000+ for a Sharp SH903? When you could buy one subsidised in Japan for $150? Stupid Vodafone.

Did anyone notice the bit about how it can record photos and video to playback in 3D as well?! How in God's name can it do that with what appears to be only one sensor? Oh, and Softbank also released their Spring lineup, which has a cycloid Sharp with twin tuners (another world first) and resulting twin channel recording capability. And its recent 8 megapixel CCD sensor. Oh, how I wish I was back there.

Dudes, this got priced in Australia weeks ago - $3,499 RRP. And yes, that's a lot, but the exchange rate is crappy.

Well, Telstra did tell Apple they should stick to what they know when they announced the iPhone. Maybe Jobs has a long memory?