Japan allowing users to play music on the handsets via the touch screen and a range of music apps. You can be tinkering the keys of a virtual keyboard or an imaginary guitar on the KDDI au Casio Phone’s 3.1-inch touchscreen.
The Casio CA001 can look like both a typical clam shell phone, or a touchscreen input phone. It achieves this by using two separate screens – one is a touchscreen the other one isn’t. As you can see in the image above the CA001 looks like a normal phone sporting a keypad, but if you twist the screen round and lay it over the keypad you get something more akin to the iPhone as you can see below.
Casio have also included a 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and a microSD slot. Buttons along the side of the phone suggest the company are going to push the music capabilities of the phone and it is also capable of wireless music playback with the right headphones.
Viewing the CA001 promotional website it looks like that are going to offer a range of dual-color case options including brown-black, yellow-silver, and white-silver combinations. There is also an area of the case that looks like grating, which actually turns out to be a very simple display showing the time and whether you have any text messages or e-mail. It is called the Illumi-Sign Sub Display and exists so you don’t have to fire up one of the main, energy-sapping screens to see if you have messages waiting.
The CA001 is set to be released this month in Japan, but there is no information on whether the phone will ever be released in the West.
Read more at DVICE and ITmedia
Matthew’s Opinion
With touchscreen phones still being a fairly new addition to the range of models you can buy I’m sure a lot of consumers are still dubious about trying them. When you consider most will be locked into a 12 or 18 month contract with the phone they choose you can see why many would fall back on what they know.
Casio’s phone solves that problem. If you don’t like the touchscreen change the phone to the more well-known screen and keypad design. On the flip-side, if you are unsure about the touchscreen this is a phone that lets you try it safe in the knowledge it has an alternative setup.
I really like the Sub Display feature. It looks to be a very low power draw on the phone while active, but gives you the information you need before deciding to bring your phone fully out of sleep mode.
I hope we do see Casio bring this phone to Western markets, but as with many Japanese phones, it may stay exclusively in its home territory.
The casio K323 is the latest entrant in the CDMA Market and this new compact handset would be available on the Verizon Wireless from today.
Other than the outstanding camera, the Casio W63CA features a 3.1-inch 480×800 VGA display, Bluetooth, IrSimple, integrated mobile TV tuner, 600MB internal memory and a microSD card slot. The W63CA is able to record 640×480 video clips and offers YouTube-friendly recording mode.
Casio EXILIM W63CA will be available from KDDI au and it supports only CDMA1X WIN network.
This past June we wrote about Casio’s tough G’zOne Type-S mobile phone when it was released and we recently got a chance to get our hands on one to see just how tough this thing really was and what “water resistant” really meant. What we found is that the G’zOne Type-S lives up to its hype on standing against the elements and also had some nice surprises we were not expecting.
Water- and shock-proof, the G'zOne is a hiker's dream. This phone includes an electronic compass, clock, stop watch, and an external screen. Available in three delightful colors, the G'zOne isn't available here and never will be. Cry, Mr. Flannel-Shirt-EMS-Cargo-Pants-Man, cry and kayak your way down to that cool little rock climbing spot. Cry
