KDDI announces HTC One S for Japan, renamed HTC J ISW13HT
updated 09:45 pm EDT, Fri April 20, 2012
Japanese version sport new body design
Japanese carriers KDDI and Okinawa Cellular have announced that a custom version of the HTC One S will be created for the Japanese market and sold as the HTC J ISW13HT beginning next month. The phone will make use of Android 4.0 (and Sense 4.0) on launch, and will kick off a line of "HTC J" phones for the market. The new version will sport a new body design, and support both WiMAX and Wi-Fi tethering. The campaign will kick off with several contests and promotional offers.
Apart from the body design, the unit will perform as expected for the HTC One S, which is set to debut in the US early next week. Like the US version, the phone will feature a 4.3-inch, 540x960 AMOLED display, an 8MP rear camera (VGA front camera), 16GB of storage and a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4.
In the US, the phone is considered a mid-range entry and will sell for $600 contract-free or $200 subsidized with a two-year contract. Electronista staff previewed the phone last month in Barcelona and found it to be a smooth, solid entry that offered good performance and was pleasing to hold despite the large screen size.
In Japan, the unit will come with UrBeats earphones by Dr. Dre and "Beats Audio" processing on the sound quality. As part of the launch campaign, early buyers may win an "HTC J" case or extra battery pack. Some 500 contestants will win a pair of HTC Solo headphones as well. HTC has recently announced it will stop bundling Beats headphones with future models.
The unit will be available in black, white or red variations, and includes an HDMI output and a micro-USB port, support for Bluetooth 4.0 and offers built-in tethering support. As is now customary for Japanese cell phones, the HTC J ISW13HT also includes support for e-mail and IM emergency disaster and evacuation information in the event of natural disasters. A handful of Japan-specific widgets are also included by default.
