Peter buys a new cell phone

Japan is very technically advanced, and no where is this more evident than in the market for portable phones, called "keitai" in Japanese. Japan's keitai market has really matured, with the various companies that compete for market share each claiming different niches for themselves as they try to survive and flourish. The Microsoft of Japan is NTT, and their Docomo line is the top-selling cell phone, although they're expensive and don't really work any better or worse than their competitors. Next is "au by KDDI," the phone service run by NTT's main competitor. They've chosen phones with GPS, cameras that take beautiful pictures, and Bluetooth as their primary areas to compete in. J-Phone, which was renamed Vodafone after the European company bought them, has staked out cheap per-packet charges as its main battleground, for users who surf the web and send and receive lots of email on their keitai phones. And Tu-ka has built a name for themselves around the concept of "simple," making phones that have only bare-bones features, including a phone for elderly people that's as easy to use as a household cordless phone.

Yes, there seems to be no end to the features they won't think of to put into these things. Yesterday we went shopping for new phones for our entire family, including our nine year old son, who will be commuting to his new school next year. I was bowled over by the number of handsets I was presented with -- at least 200 different models and colors. Would I like 2G or 3G? How about the karaoke option for the phone? A phone with an extra-wide screen and Opera web browser built into it? A 3.2 megapixel camera with mini-SD slot? We finally went with the au phones, since we like the GPS feature that allows us to see where our son is via the web in case we can't contact him. My phone came with songs and pictures of lovely South Korean pop star Boa, who is very much in demand in Japan these days. See a TV commercial for the phone I bought, below