Walk into a Japanese phone store just a few years ago and you’d likely see lots of “locally-made” models by manufacturers like NEC, Fujitsu, Sharp and Panasonic. Branded as phones by NTT DoCoMo or other telcos in the land, these phones often sported the familiar clamshell design with an ultra-thin frame.

Turn up in Japan now, years after the Apple iPhone first made it as a successful “foreign-made” device, and you’ll easily spot a Samsung Galaxy SII and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc among the most popular of all smartphones.

While the clamshell smartphone still has its place in a corner of the store, the obvious hot choice for many Japanese consumers now is big-screen touch-based models. Not surprising, considering that there are more phone users than PC users in the country and many use the phone to surf the Net instead of the PC.

Here’s a look at some of the interesting models Techgoondu saw on a recent trip to an NTT DoCoMo shop in Tokyo. Unfortunately, many of them are either not here yet in Singapore, or likely won’t make it here. …

With folks like Sony Ericsson and Nokia doing their thing outside of CommunicAsia, what new gadgets can you see at this year’s show?

Well, Samsung seems to be the brightest light at the show here. I’m particularly intrigued by the Galaxy Beam, which looks a little like a Galaxy S with a bit more heft in the shape of a small projector. Yes, you heard right, this little guy doubles up as a projector to screen your presentations. …

That’s what a new application, now pre-installed on the recently-released Sony Ericsson C510 candy-bar phone, promises.

Shown to a group of media here on Wednesday, it’s offers “zero-click” access to your Facebook pals’ status updates because it shows up on the main screen without you having to go into any menu. It’s Sony Ericsson’s latest attempt to hook up its users to the social media world easily.

What you get is a scrollable list of your pal’s status updates on-screen – and you can click on their faces to interact more. It’s a bit like the live RSS updates on the main phone screen that Sony Ericsson currently offers on some of its phones, which to me, is an excellent tool.

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