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Every year at CTIA we dole out praise for those companies that are deserving. CNET's cream of the crop awards recognize the best of the show in four categories: best cell phone, best smartphone, best accessory, and best service. Though the 2008 CTIA wasn't the most exciting on record, we still saw some pretty cool things in Las Vegas. And without further ado, here they are.
Samsung Instinct
(Credit: Sprint)
Best cell phone: Samsung Instinct
In some ways this wasn't a tough choice because so few cell phones were officially unveiled at CTIA. But even if it was facing a more crowded field, Sprint's Samsung Instinct still would be a top choice. Sure, we just got to see a preproduction model (we'll have to wait for June to see a final version) but even now we can see it has a lot of potential. Not only does it offer a boatload of features, but also it offers a sleek design with a full touch screen and an attractive and (seemingly) easy-to-use interface. Comparisons with the iPhone are obvious, and while the Instinct can't quite match Apple's device on the design front, it offers many more features on paper. As we've said before, Sprint could have quite a hit on its hands, as long as the Instinct delivers on its promises. Oh, and in case you're keeping score, this is Samsung's second win in a row.
Velocity 103
(Credit: Velocity Mobile)
Best smartphone: Velocity Mobile
Smartphones today tend to do a lot of the same things but just vary in design, which is fine but doesn't exactly get our pulses racing, you know? This is why we're amped on a new company called Velocity Mobile, which made its debut at CTIA 2008. The smartphone manufacturer introduced two new Windows Mobile devices, the Velocity 103 and the Velocity 111, and yes, they're still Windows Mobile but what we're really digging is the company's philosophy of simplicity and ease of use. Perhaps taking a few lessons from the Apple iPhone, Velocity has come up with its own user interface to make it easier for consumers to use the smartphones right of the box. Such enhancements include more familiar icons (similar to the PC experience), more customization to fit the user's lifestyle, and cool user interaction (for example, sliding panels). Unfortunately, we weren't able to see it in action since the working units were stuck on the monorail with Velocity's CEO but we find it to be real promising and look forward to checking out the devices and software when they debut in Q2 and Q3.
Sound ID HD300
(Credit: Sound ID)
Best accessory: Sound ID HD300
There were plenty of Bluetooth headsets to look at in this year's show, but few of them came close to our clear favorite, the Sound ID HD300. We're big fans of the Sound ID SM100, so we were excited to finally see a worthy successor. The HD300 may not look like much on the outside, but it promises even better audio quality and clarity than before. Sound ID is utilizing every trick in the book to improve the sound--a NoiseNavigation technology to automatically reduce wind and background noise, a PersonalSound mode to let you choose a "personalized" listening mode, as well as automatic volume adjustment. The HD300 also takes a departure from the other Sound ID headsets with a smaller and more discreet design.
Best Service: Dashwire
Crouching over your cell phone to view photos, send text messages, and update your bookmarks isn't the most efficient use of your brain--especially if there's a computer nearby. Dashwire.com, a six-month-old visual content management service for Windows Mobile phones, continues to add excellent features for responding, sharing, adding, and interacting with your phone's contacts, media, and communications. The addition of CallWave visual voicemail and threaded text conversations are smart, useful moves.
LG Vu
(Credit: LG)
Honorable mention: LG Vu
The LG Vu was one of the most noteworthy products at CTIA this year, and it wasn't just because it's one of the first phones to carry AT&T Mobile TV, AT&T's live TV service. The true winning factor lies in its 3-inch-wide touch-screen display, which impressed us with its color, resolution, and vibrating feedback whenever keys are pressed. We also liked that we could flip the phone to landscape mode to use the virtual QWERTY keyboard. Other features we liked include the 2.0-megapixel camera, full 3G support with access to AT&T Video Share and AT&T Mobile Music, a full HTML browser, and mobile e-mail. However, we already notice a few niggling problems, like the lack of Wi-Fi for example, but the overall product still left a positive first impression.
Dashwire, a small Seattle start-up eleven employees strong, continues to impress with its growing service for managing and interacting with the contents of your cell phone online. To recap an earlier review, Dashwire synchronizes your cell phone to an online account, displaying on a flexible dashboard your call history, images, profile, texting history, photos, ring tones, videos, and contacts. You can roll up your sleeves and muck around with your phone from Dashwire, a much happier experience than crouching over your two-inch cell phone screen and tapping or clicking away through on-device management programs, particularly if you're not on the go and are sitting comfortably in front of a computer, thank you very much.
Since Dashwire is linked to your phone via a downloadable client, everything you do online also occurs on your phone, and vice versa. Therefore, you can view, tag, and share media, send text messages, listen to voice mail, and add bookmarks from the comfort of your online dashboard. It's cool. But in the last month, it's gotten cooler.
(Credit:
Dashwire)
There have been quiet roll-outs of tweaks, even a few big changes. For a start, Dashwire has drastically improved its search tool. Users can now push photos to friends' phones, e-mail addresses, and Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Bebo. (In Twitter, most photos are converted to a TinyURL.com link. It doesn't work 100 percent of the time, and Dashwire's working on that.)
The service also now supports data transferring when users switch phones, which was the top request among private beta testers, and a great new feature for quickly assigning speed dial settings.
The big thing, though, is integration with CallWave, a service that transcribes voice messages to text. This is a smart move, and it makes perfect sense for Dashwire, which is all visual management, to provide visual voice mail.
Coming up
Dashwire will be introducing a few more additions in stages over the next six months. Starting Friday, text messages will be threaded by contact, in a manner much like the iPhone. In about four to six weeks, a new, dynamic phone client will replace the current app, which is currently limited to a few syncing options. The new, richer Dashwire client will peform all sorts of party tricks, like pulling in media when you switch to a new handset, push status updates to Facebook and Twitter, and pull in content from the Web.
The final announcement in this cascade of upgrades is that Symbian S60 users will be able to get their hands on Dashwire if they can hold their horses until late August or early September.
Dashwire runs equally well from your phone memory and storage card, and it's now in public beta for Windows Mobile users. Get out there and try it.
>>See all the latest news in cell phones and mobile software coming out of CTIA Wireless 2008.
Share photos via SMS, e-mail, or post online.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
It takes a second to realize that what you see on Dashwire.com's cool gray interface is content from your mobile phone. That's probably because you're not used to reading it so easily.
There on Dashwire's spacious Internet dashboard are your photos and videos, contacts, bookmarks, and SMS and call history laid out in movable AJAX tiles. There are ringtones you can click on the Web to play on your phone, and text messages you can reply to with your keyboard, and which are tagged with your identifying phone number so your friends know who sent it.
You can e-mail photo links from Dashwire, too, without your friends having to sign up to the service to view them online. Contacts you add online materialize in your mobile address book. Another groovy part: Dashwire auto-saves your content, effectively backing up your phone.
Now it's time for the secret sauce: how your content gets there. Dashwire begins as a mobile app that most users will probably download over the air. It installs, and then syncs to your personal page on Dashwire.com, which you've configured by registering your screen name and number on sign-up. The synching took a little time, and might take more if your mobile network is lagging. Photos and videos take the longest to upload, and even longer the more you've got. Have patience; the wait is worth it.
Dashwire works remarkably well, but it doesn't do everything yet. For the moment, it only supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6, and subscribers have to specify their carrier and device model when they register. Dashwire doesn't manage files or programs, or perform certain small tasks like deleting photos from the phone or reading and initiating e-mail. You can't expect perfection from early closed betas, but you can expect novel ideas.
Read mail, SMS, and back up phone content from Dashwire's dashboard.
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