December is usually a quiet month as manufacturers concentrate
on shipping already-announced products to the shops in time for
Christmas, but there were a handful of announcements five and ten
years ago.
December 2004
Ten years ago, Sharp was leading the pack when it came to screen
and camera resolution, but most devices were exclusive to Vodafone.
The
Sharp TM200 was
only the second two-megapixel camera on the UK market, and the other
one was the Sharp 902. Despite this, Sharp didn't really capture
the public imagination, which seemed to be a curse facing the Japanese
mobile manufacturers.
Another Japanese handset this month was the
Sanyo
S750, a capable enough device but in a slabby and unattractive
package which must have lacked shelf appeal in the shops. Sanyo
didn't stick around in the market for long.
Motorola on the other hand kept pumping out variations of the
same clamshell, and the
Motorola
V330 was yet another example of this. Despite a lack of imagination,
Motorola sold quite a lot of these attractive but somewhat unfriendly
devices.
December 2009
The original Nokia 6700 Classic was a tasteful feature phone.. until Nokia
covered it in some sort of yellow metal and called in the
Nokia
6700 Classic Gold Edition. It was either a must-have fashion
accessory or deeply tacky, depending on your point of view. We will
let you make your own mind up.
Rather less garish was the
Nokia
2710 Navigation Edition which was a GPS-equipped Series 40 feature
phone, bringing budget satnav capabilities at just over €100. Of
course, it was never going to be as easy to use as a dedicated navigation
device or modern smartphone.
Two phones that attempted to be more environmentally friendly
than average, the
Sony
Ericsson Elm and Hazel came with reduced packaging and
a higher level of recycled plastics, but they didn't really address
all the problems and met with a cool reception from consumers.
