Name: DoCoMo Raku Raku Phone Premium F884i
Category: mobile phone
Price: Open price
Release date in Japan: Aoril 14, 2008

Speak your mind and let the Fujitsu-made F884i convert your words into email text. It's a way to bypass cell phones' slow manual text input, especially for long messages and/or unfamilar users; not surprisingly, the media is chalking up the feature as primarily attractive to older users not used to communicating by thumb.

Quality speech-to-text processing is an intensive task for a cell phone CPU, so the F884i's 'Voice-Input Mail' service farms out your voice data to remote DoCoMo speech processing servers. To dictate email, bring a new message to the screen, hold the input button, and start speaking for up to 30 seconds. Once you've said your piece, the phone connects to the processing server, and after a second or few, you get your text in the target field. Unless the system parsed everything perfectly on the first run, though, your hands will still get some exercise re-converting kanji and otherwise cleaning things up, as well as adding 'e-moji' emoticons of your choosing. For particular problem areas, more detailed manual editing or voice re-input are options.

'Voice-Input Mail' is a JPY210/month service, with a 30-day free test period. But it's the packet fees, not that low monthly fee, that you need to watch. If you don't have an unlimited or low-cost packet plan, 5 seconds of dictation can cost you as much as JPY10.5. Enough dictation, and the bill might send you back to thumbing.

You can do more with voice input than write emails. The "Map Application for Raku Raku Phone" feature offers voice-enabled navigation, train transfer info, map search, and everything else you need to get where you're going. "From Myogadani station to Yokohama station, leaving 12:00", you say, and if all goes well while DoCoMo's servers parley with ZENRIN DataCom servers, the phone displays the route info.

Other phone features: DCMX "O-saifu keitai" e-wallet, 1-seg TV, 3.1-inch (240x432) LCD screen (the largest in DoCoMo's Raku Raku Phone series), 3.2 megapixel camera, twin microphones and voice enhancement features (like the SH705iII), and WORLD WING (3G + GSM) service for global roaming. That big screen will have you doing the Yokomotion (from "yoko", side), to use the maker's trademarked name for its "swing style" rotation: rotate the screen left to fire up the camera, right to turn on the TV.

It all sounds great, but does the dictation really work? Reports from website ITmedia and quick-testing bloggers in Japan are mostly positive: yes, it works, and is genuinely handy for longer messages, though you'll have to expect lots of manual clean-up, and voice input do-overs, while you get the hang of speaking to the phone's liking. (Like all purveyors of speech recognition products, Fujitsu offers tips for good performance: speak clearly, use short sentences, use the little grammatical particles that aid parsing, etc. But feel free to speak at normal speed, says the company.) While your accuracy will improve, testers still recommend an unlimited packet plan for dictation.

In any case, it's interesting to think that instead of communicating directly with a party by talking into the phone, you can send instead a text message... by talking into the phone.

Ready to talk to your new dictation assistant? Get a F884i in gold, red, or black at a DoCoMo shop near you.

More info: http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/product/easy_phone/premium/index.html (Japanese)

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