Name: NTT DoCoMo 906i series and 706i series
Category: mobile phone
Price: Open price
Release date in Japan: varies (beginning June 1, 2008)

NTT DoCoMo recently announced 8 new 906i series and 11 new 706i series mobile phones, slated for release over the next few months. There are too many interesting models in the mix to cover in depth, so instead of the usual detailed study of one or two phones, let's take the grand tour of what's most noteworthy in the bunch.

The P906i (release day: June 1) sports what's called "W Open Style" operation: the top flips open lengthwise for your typical vertical screen, or sideways for a horizontal screen. (It's like those nifty refrigerator doors that open either left or right, but even trickier.) The horizontal orientation is good for One-seg TV or the built-in games.

The F906i (June 5) grabs attention with its 90-degree rotating "Yokomotion" screen, but its real attraction is on the back of its battery pack. There's a finger sensor there that acts as both a trackpad-like "Finger Pointer" navigation device and a fingerprint-detection biometric security scanner.

The N906i (later in June) plays up the camera credentials: 5.2 megapixels, six-axis image stabilization, face recognition with "Smile Face Shutter" smile-detection timing, and one-touch uploading of pics to your blog. (You'd almost think the "N" was for Nikon, not NEC.)

The N906iL replaces the fancier camera features with wireless LAN functionality, a first for NEC in a consumer-oriented phone. It's good to go with IEEE802.11a/b/g, VoIP, and WEP, WPA, or WPA2-PSK security.

The SH906i (June 3) takes hints from the iPhone, with a display that rotates with the phone's orientation. The SH906i is all about touch, too, with the nice addition of vibration-based feedback - but the touch display has a split personality. Screen-touch functions mostly work in horizontal display mode only, while vertical display mode unlocks the "Hikari TOUCH CRUISER" that lets you control the cursor by gliding a finger over an optical sensor on the central "kettei" key.

The SO906i (June 2) also boasts screen rotation based on phone orientation, and puts the internal motion sensor to further use. A tap on the camera, followed by tilting the unit this way and that, replaces menus and buttons for actions like changing channels and sound volume, or scrolling web pages. Oh, and if you snap a photo with the camera upside-down, the SO906i will turn the shot right-side up.

706i-series models lack the same level of "wow" features, but a couple items of note include:

The SH706iw (September) is your "Wellness Keitai". Derived from a Mitsubishi Electric health-themed concept model shown off at CEATEC JAPAN last year, the phone packs a pedometer and pulse monitor, counting your steps and calculating calories burned. It has a number of health-related iAppli links readied for easy access, and exchanges menu data with SHARP Healsio ovens.

Finally, let's note the N706ie (August or September), whose "e" stands for "easy" and "enjoy". It's pretty pedestrian overall, but as of today it boasts the longest standby-mode battery time of any FOMA terminal: 650 hours. That is indeed impressive - though if your phone sits silent for almost four weeks with no calls, your social life may be "egregious" and "embarassing".

And that's a quick look at some of the latest developments in mobile phones. Search out the individual phones' product pages, or hit a DoCoMo shop, to get all the detailed rundown on each.

More info: http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/news_release/page/080527_00.html (Japanese)

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