Japan cm of the week - the almost smartphone

It's finally out. I just saw this commercial for BIGLOBE's almost smartphone (ほぼスマフォン) and had to post it.

The commercial itself is... well, not bad I'd say, but the service itself is what's intriguing.

If you look on their home page (here), BIGLOBE is now offering a Medias NE-202 phone with LTE service for ¥2,980 a month. The phone isn't bad - it's a dual-core 1.5GHz 4.3" model running android 4.0 with a 8.1 megapixel camera, GPS and wifi. It has 1gig of ram and a rather impressive for a semi-low tier phone 8gig of storage. Yes, it doesn't compare to the big monster phones coming out lately, but overall it isn't a bad device.

Sounds cheap, right? Well it is, and for a reason. The phone is voice capable but you don't get a voice plan, meaning in order to use it as a phone you'll need to install some kind of voice capable program like Skype. Which may sound a bit off putting at first, unless you're someone like me who almost never makes calls on their mobile.

Alas there are a few things to consider before making the jump. The base rate listed is for a plan limited to 1gig of data a month, which IMO is just too low. For 1,000 extra you can double that to 2gig, which personally I know would cover all my data needs, or if you want the real deal you go for their ¥4,980 a month 7gig plan, which is basically identical to the cost the other carriers charge (minus of course their charges for voice calls). There is also an oddball plan that shaves 1,000 yen off the top and gives 7gig of data but you can't use it between 10pm and 2am. Not a huge restriction if you have wifi at home.

So any way you look at it the phone will save you money. Whether you'd want to sacrifice the ability to make standard calls to save that money is another question. But it's good to see this kind of thing exists.