Toshiba touts flashy new mobile handset

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By Martyn Williams

(IDG) -- In Japan's fast-moving cell phone market, new handsets packed with the latest innovations come out almost every month as manufacturers and cellular carriers vie to be top of the competitive local market. At the end of 2000, handset makers began to offer models with built-in digital still cameras, and now Toshiba Corp. has produced the first still camera handset with a flash.

The J-T06 handset is produced by the Tokyo-based electronics maker for J-Phone Communications Co. Ltd., Japan's No. 3 carrier, which is gaining popularity among young people.

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The flash is not built into the camera but plugs into the earphone socket on the right hand side of the handset. Toshiba has also put a shutter button on the side of the telephone body so that the cell phone can be held more like a conventional camera when taking a picture. A number of sound clips have also been loaded into the phone, including shutter sounds and a voice saying, "Say cheese!"

Other features of the new handset include support for Java and J-Phone's Java Appli service. The handset has a 2-inch color LCD (liquid crystal display) capable of 120-by-160-pixel resolution and displaying 65,536 colors, which makes it one of the highest-quality displays currently featured on a cell phone.

The handset, which went on sale in late July, weighs 89 grams and offers a continuous talk time of 120 minutes and a standby time of 300 hours (12.5 days)