By Andrew Liszewski
Kyocera has never really been a brand I’ve paid attention to, but with their new printhead technology I wrote about yesterday, and this slick CDMA flip phone they announced at CTIA, I guess I better start to. At just 0.66 inches when closed, the Neo E1100 has a minimalistic black design on the outside with a glowing blue ‘lightpipe’ running down the center. At one end the ‘lightpipe’ circles the lens for the 1.3 megapixel camera (yawn) and on the other end you’ll find a small hidden display running alongside it. While the display only shows basic info like battery life, signal strength and caller ID, it matches the overall clean design of the phone’s exterior.
Inside you’ll find a 262,000 pixel color display and a set of flush keys similar to what the Moto Razr uses. As for features, there’s nothing really cutting edge, but it does include the essentials like bluetooth 2.0, speakerphone, voice recognition, MP3 ringtones and a micro USB port for charging and syncing. On the downside, it uses the 2.5mm headphone jacks which I hate with a passion, but since it’s not trying to be an MP3 player phone, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Pricing and availability for the Neo E1100 have yet to be announced.
