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new products · cell phones · siddharth raja

NEC 525 High Definition Mobile

Snapshot by Siddharth Raja on Wednesday December 03, 2003.

NEC 525
NEC 525 NEC recently launched the 525 High Definition Mobile (HDM) phone for its American customers on the AT&T network. The 525 HDM is NEC's second phone for AT&T, and the first to feature a camera. It also features dual color screens, as well as the ability to browse AT&T's mMode service. The mMode system is basically a collection of mobile entertainment and information services.

While the new camera only takes pictures of a resolution of 352 x 288, it does feature a 2x digital zoom, making it a little more useful than most other camera phones in it's class. The internal screen is a huge 2.2" 65K color TFT display, which is perfect for showing off pictures taken from the camera. We are also starting to see a lot of new clamshells come out with external color screens, and the 525 HDM is one of them. It features a 4K external color STN LCD that will allow you to use picture caller ID to see who is calling.

The 525 HDM does have a few other tricks up its sleeve. First up, we have the 40-voice polyphonic system. Users can choose to download new ringtones off the AT&T mMode portal. The 525 HDM is also one of the first quad-band mobile phones in the world, with support for all four current GSM bands: 850Mhz, 900Mhz, 1800Mhz, and 1900Mhz. This provides coverage on any GSM network around the world, making it great for travellers.

Finally, it looks like NEC is using its relationship with NTT DoCoMo to bring some of the same Java games designed for its Japanese mobile phones to the North American market by making use of DoCoMo's "DoJa" Java system. The 525 HDM utilises a special secondary processor specifically for playing these Java games, ensuring that they run quickly and don't slow down other phone functions.

The NEC 525 HDM looks to be one of the better attempts I've seen of network branded phones, and the additional features certainly should make it appealing to a variety of different market segments.

Full specifications below: