Posts filed under CTIA 2008

LG have been showing off their neat looking LG Vu phone at CTIA 2008. What’s interesting about the Vu is its focus on mobile TV. 2007 was meant to be the year of mobile TV, with phone manufacturers such as Nokia rushing to release a mobile TV phone seemingly every week. However, it patently didn’t happen. Either the service was too restrictive in terms of the programmes on offer, too expensive, too difficult to view on a tiny phone screen, or simply not actually wanted – much like 3G video calling.

Fast forward a year, though, and we have the LG Vu proudly displaying mobile TV on none other than AT&T – a US carrier. Yes, the US, land of the dinosaur phones, whose mobile carriers have such dominance over the market they act collectively to crush any innovation in the market.

Will mobile TV have more success in the US than it has in Europe? Well, one way to find out is to look at the phone itself!

New player VelocityMobile have been getting themselves some publicity from CTIA 2008 by announcing two new phones – the Velocity 103 and Velocity 111. Both phones are smartphones, but although they undoubtedly look good (particularly the 103), they’re not exactly innovative. You get the same features you’d expect on even mid-range phones these days, so I’m not sure how Velocity are defining ’smart’.

However, where they aim to differentiate themselves from the competition is through price. According to Velocity Mobile president, David Hayes, “Velocity Mobile was created …[to] bring leading-edge smartphones to the mass consumer market.”

Apparently they aim to do that by combining Western design philosophy with Eastern manufacturing efficiencies, although how they think they’re going to undercut someone like Nokia, whose size leads to economies of scale that even small countries couldn’t compete with, is anyone’s guess.