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Kyocera's (KYO) new 7135 smartphone is emphasizing voice communications first, with the PDA functions as an added bonus. The success of Kyocera's new combination mobile phone and personal digital assistant rests on the shoulders of consumers who prefer cell phones to PDAs.
Kyocera's competition, Handspring and Nokia, which offer combination "smartphones" with integrated computer keyboards, render voice communications a side note.
Kyocera's (KYO) new 7135 smartphone, however, emphasizes voice communications first, with the PDA functions an added bonus.
"Despite the data capabilities of the device, voice remains the killer application," said Rick Goetter, senior product marketing manager for Kyocera.
The 7135, which will hit the market by the end of this year, will sell for $500 to $600 depending on the subsidy that comes with the service plan.
Like its predecessor, the QCP 6035, that in March 2000 was the first-ever Palm-powered smartphone on the market, the phone still has a bulky, gray, plastic cover design. While it is smaller than the previous smartphone, the phone weighs 6.6 ounces.
"They kind of adopted that whole industrial design look for the phone," said IDC analyst Kevin Burden.
Still, Burden considers the phone "a decent update from the old one."
The smartphone, which has a clamshell design, opens up to a high-resolution 65,000-color screen and numbers keypad. While Goetter insists that Kyocera customers don't mind writing messages with the numbers keypad and/or Graffiti, analysts prefer the integrated keyboard of the Handspring Treo communicator.
"You can scratch out an e-mail message through Graffiti, but there are better options out there," Burden said.
But for on-the-go professionals who despise carrying multiple devices, the 7135 is worth a look, Burden said.
The smartphone runs on the Palm operating system and is compatible with the high-speed CDMA networks being built by Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS. While not all potential customers may live in an area with that coverage, those who do will get Web content and e-mail on the phone at up to 153 kilobits per second.
The phone, which carries 16 MB of memory, runs on Palm OS version 4.1. The latest version of the operating system, Palm OS 5.0, which has a faster processor, began shipping only two weeks ago.
"It is time" for a new phone, Burden said. "It was probably a little bit longer than a year since we've been waiting for an update."
The phone contains a secure digital expansion slot so that users can obtain more memory and Web clippings on the devices. There's also an MMC card slot for MP3 tunes.
Isaac Ro, an analyst with market research and consulting firm Aberdeen, said the Handspring Treo communicator, probably the closest device competing with the Kyocera 7135 smartphone, doesn't have an MP3 player.
"It's something slightly different," Ro said.
The smartphone also features a GPS chip enabling emergency dispatchers to pinpoint the location of callers who dial 911. This feature opens the door to other location-based services like on-the-spot maps, but Ro doesn't expect to see these services for another two years.
The smartphone, which has up to 3.2 hours of talk time and up to 120 hours of standby time, has voice-activated dialing and a voice memo recorder.
Besides the basic PDA features -- calendar, address book and to-do-list -- the smartphone includes an HTML and WAP browser for Web surfing. It has two-way short messaging (SMS) and supports Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets. The phone can additionally be used as a wireless fax and modem.
But whether the smartphone will sell with consumers depends on whether the target market of on-the-go professionals will make some concessions to get everything on one device. Kyocera's previous smartphone, QCP 6035, sold 250,000 units -- a paltry sliver of the 400 million cell phones in circulation.
"I haven't seen any perfectly integrated devices," Ro said. "I have seen a lot of good ones.
"The (Kyocera 7135) is a good phone first and then it offers data. I think the market is very diverse."
The market is also going to become very saturated.
Verizon Wireless sells the Audiovox Thera, powered by Microsoft's Windows software. Several mobile-phone service providers carry the Handspring Treo communicator.
The Samsung I300 and Nokia communicator are available online.
"There is less of a geek factor of these devices now than it was a year ago," Burden said.
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