14 DAY TRIAL // Kyocera, currently the sixth largest handset manufacturer in the world (after the acquisition of Sanyo), presents at CTIA Wireless 2008 several of its products, including three brand new CDMA enabled handsets: Neo E1100, Adreno S2400 and Mako S4000.
Kyocera said the phones work on PCS (1900 MHz), AWS (1700 / 2100 MHz) and cellular (800 MHz) frequencies. All three handsets are affordable clamshells and will hit the market in the second half of 2008. The exact release date, however, is not known, and nor are their prices.
Kyocera Neo E1100 weighs 3.17 ounces (90 grams), measures 3.52 x 2.05 x 0.66 inches (89.5 x 52 x 16.7 millimeters) and looks pretty good. It comes with a unique "light-pipe" integrated in its case, a secret OLED caller-ID display, a 2.2 inch internal main screen with a 240 x 320 pixels resolution, Web and email capabilities, voice recognition (speaker-independent), Bluetooth 2.0, Instant Messaging, predictive text input and other basic features.
Kyocera Mako S4000 is also a nice looking handset that offers a large and easy to use keypad, a main 1.8 inch internal display and a secondary external one, Bluetooth, WAP 2.0 browser, VGA photo camera and Color Picture Caller ID.
The last from the new CDMA handsets is Kyocera Adreno S2400, which features a Star Trek-ish look, an 1.8 inch internal screen, external caller ID display, MP3 ringtones and Bluetooth.
Dave Carey, vice president and general manager of Kyocera Wireless Corp's Consumer Products Group, declared about the new phones' announcement: "This is a milestone day for Kyocera in the mobile phone business. Our new CDMA handsets mark another step in the development of our core CDMA business, while our expansion into the GSM market significantly broadens our global market opportunities and the Sanyo acquisition gives us unprecedented new economies of scale and depth of resources. We're making a very clear statement today that Kyocera is committed to long-term growth and success in this industry."
Obviously targeted for users who want simple but nice looking mobile phones, the three new clamshells from Kyocera will probably be quite successful, as entry-level handsets represent an important part of the global mobile market.
