Hasta La Gadget!

Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo just outed its spring lineup of handsets, and the Medias W N-05E caught or eye, just like it did as a hollow mockup at last year’s Mobile World Congress. The NEC-made handset has gone from a mere plastic shell to an LTE-wielding phone with a pair of 4.3-inch LCD displays (each 540 x 960 in resolution), a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel shooter, 16GB of built-in storage and a microSDHC slot. When open, the device serves up roughly 5.6 inches in diagonal screen real estate, and measures up at 64mm in width when shut. Thanks to the nature of the dual-screened beast, apps can use each screen independently or together to provide more space. Despite the Jelly Bean-toting rig’s penchant for going over the top, it leaves out NFC and Japan-centric digital TV tuner functionality. The smartphone is slated for an April release with an unspecified price tag, but there’s no word on availability in other territories.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: Engadget Japanese (translated)

Source: NTT DoCoMo

Remember how the LG Optimus G Pro saw its biggest leak in Japan? We might just know why. Local carrier NTT DoCoMo has confirmed the new flagship’s existence as part of a spring device lineup, and it’s everything that was rumored just days ago. LG is adding to the rapidly burgeoning crowd of 5-inch, 1080p phones while freshening the formula we’d seen in the regular Optimus G: there’s now a quicker, 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, a heftier 3,000mAh battery and Jelly Bean (albeit Android 4.1, not 4.2) out of the box. Other elements are familiar carryovers, such as the 2GB of RAM, 13-megapixel camera, 32GB of built-in storage, a microSDXC slot and LTE. Japanese buyers will have to wait until early April to pick up an Optimus G Pro for themselves; as LG hasn’t confirmed the phone separately, other countries’ launches are still up in the air.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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Source: NTT DoCoMo (1), (2)

Sony had no shortage of devices to show off at CES last week, but there might be more on the way — before Mobile World Congress has even begun. NTT DoCoMo has let slip that it’ll be showing off an “Xperia Tablet Z” alongside the previously announced Xperia Z at a preview event next week. The page in question has already been pulled, and may only be an announcement mishap — if there was an L in there, we’d reconsider — however, it’s highly likely the phone network knows exactly what’s in store from the electronics maker. We’ve also heard from our sources that Sony’s new Exmor RS camera sensor will make its way into a new tablet, although the exact sensor specifications are likely to be different from the 2013 Xperia devices seen at CES. A slightly suspicious spec list has also found its way on to Twitter, suggesting a familiar 10.1-inch form factor and a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, but we’re waiting to hear more directly from the Japanese carrier (or perhaps Sony) sometime next week.

Filed under: Tablets, Sony

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Via: Pocket-lint

Source: Twitter (Unofficial DoCoMo Support), NTT DoCoMo (pulled), Twitter (Xperia Info), Blog of Mobile (Japanese)

Earlier this month, a supposed Panasonic P02-E smartphone popped up on an NTT DoCoMo Japanese server log, but such scant evidence required more than a few grains of salt to swallow it. Now, the ever-reliable FCC has revealed the device to be an actual thing, and putting the two sources together would make it a 5-inch, 1,920 x 1080, Android 4.1.2 smartphone with a quad-core, 1.5GHz APQ8064 Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU, along with LTE and NFC capability. Don’t get too excited if those specs float your boat, however — judging by the retractable TV antenna, NTT DoCoMo origins and general Panasonic elusiveness in the west, it looks to be aimed squarely at the Japanese market only.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: Phone Arena

Source: FCC

The gray clouds of Sharp’s gloomy earnings are about to get a silver lining: NTT DoCoMo is at last launching Sharp’s new flagship phone, the breathlessly worded Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E, on November 29th. When it arrives, the SH-02E will be its* first smartphone to carry an IGZO-based display and show us just how well the high-brightness, low-energy invention fares in a 4.9-inch, 720p LCD. There’s no known fixed pricing, although it’s likely the Android 4.0 device will be sitting at the very top of its Japanese carrier’s range through its Snapdragon S4 Pro, 16-megapixel camera and LTE data. Not fully convinced of IGZO’s worth? Fujitsu’s more conventional Arrows V F-04E is arriving a day earlier with a regular LCD and a Tegra 3, although we’d say that it’s worth waiting the extra 24 hours to be a technology vanguard.

Update: While the SH-02E was the first phone announced with an IGZO LCD screen, it’s been beaten to the market by ASUS’ Padfone 2, which is also rocking the new technology.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: Impress Watch (translated)

Source: NTT DoCoMo (translated)