In the The Top 10 list from fosfor, there are some phones I mentioned as well like the PENCK or more recently the LG Chocolate. KDDI's au Design Project comes out as a clear winner. Sadly most of these au phones are not available here in Europe.
Notable: the RAZR doesn't get into the Top 10.

What still puzzles me, is the fact that we haven't yet seen a phone which has the usability of a Nokia, the beauty and sleekness of a KDDI phone, the camera and screen of a Sharp and which offers on top of that a great service.


See also:
Students at Central St Martins College of Art and Design in London have been coming up with designs for the biggest selling phone of 2015:
Mobiles of the Future

After the success of the RAZR, there seems to be another phone which people get crazy about: LG's Chocolate Phone KG 800.



JFRobinson comes with some very fruitful thoughts regarding content services which such an iconic phone should deliver:

Some are claiming the LG Chocolate a success of form over function, LG certainly should be congratulated for having a hit like this, I was very impressed by the adventurous spirit of their overall design at GSM world in Barcelona. But there has been some brutal online trashing of the phones UI and functionality. But here is the point I want to make is this: if a slick look and red glowing buttons will sell a million (or two or three or ten) five-hundred dollar handsets, what would a cool addictive content service do that was available ONLY for that phone? Why wasn't there an awesome download video service or other exclusive interactive and addictive content service? I'm not talking about putting movie trailers or repurposing TV shows, I'm talking about a mobile-centric, ORIGINAL service that is AS CREATIVE AS THE DESIGN OF THE PHONE ITSELF. Remember, this is a Pop Culture product, and I think the day has come to see the complete product as one thing - so what the phone can DO for the customer is just as cool as it LOOKS.

scanR

Use scanR to save, send and share any document or whiteboard. scanR is great when you’re away from your office or don’t have access to a scanner, copier or fax. Try using scanR to create digital copies of:

• Contracts and signature pages
• Whiteboard drawings
• Meeting notes
• Any letter-sized or larger document

Mobile faxing and copying
scanR enables you to email digital copies or send faxes while travelling or at home, without seeking and paying for a copy center. scanR can send copies to any email address or North American fax number.

There is another company who knows how to do that and they do it right on the handset and give the user immediate feedback as to the quality of the scan. And they have more interesting stuff in the pocket than just that. I'll soon report more.

Digital Cameras Help Change A Worldwide View of Photography

In 2005, 45 percent of all mobile phones sold in the U.S. were camera phones, up from 26 percent in 2004. Asia followed a very similar trend. Western Europe had a higher incidence of camera phones at 64 percent, and Japan had a much greater adoption rate with more than 90 percent of all mobile phones sold with camera capabilities both in 2004 and 2005.

Via Bruno Giussani

Worldwide Mobile Phone and Camera Phone Shipments (image from Infotrends)

InfoTrends "Mobile Imaging Study" projects that worldwide camera phone shipments will grow from 233 million units in 2004 to 903 million units in 2010. By 2010, camera phones are expected to account for 87% of all mobile phone handsets shipped.

Key findings include:
The total number of images captured on camera phones will reach 228 billion by 2010, exceeding the number of photos taken on digital still cameras and film cameras combined.
For many consumers, the camera phone will be their everyday camera. Camera phones will put immense competitive pressures on one-time use cameras and low-end cameras.
The rapid growth of camera phones will create growing opportunities for printing and sharing of images. The value of camera phone photo printing will reach approximately $7.0 billion by 2010, approximately 60% of which will take place in the home.

Image messaging revenue will reach $6.8 billion by 2010, and will increasingly become a part of other value-added multimedia services.

Not quite yet. But the telcos have really to watch out and come up quickly with new ideas if they don't want to see their userbase rerouting around them. What is still a very profitable business could soon be in difficulty.

TiVo Goes for iPod, PSP

TiVo introduced a version of its TiVoToGo service on Monday for transferring TV shows from its digital video recorder box to the video-enabled Apple iPod and the Sony PlayStation Portable.

I have written about quadruple play and it seems that this becomes now reality with the going together of Sunrise and Cablecom. The deal is not yet signed, but Sonntagszeitung as well as NZZ am Sonntag are pretty sure that the deal goes to Sunrise and not to the long time favorite Orange.

Apparently Cablecom does want to bring quadruple play to its customers before Swisscom.

PS: Interestingly Swisscom plans a takeover of TDC, the Sunrise mother company. So this a kind of survival scenario for Sunrise?

Colorzip Japan

Interactive television programming is walking out the door and onto mobile handsets, pressuring Japanese TV broadcasters to adapt content and programming. Networks TBS and FujiTV are linking up with ColorZip Japan, a new server-based full-color bar-code technology that synchs TV broadcasts to related digital content for sponsored websites, music samples, contests and prize drawings.

We spoke with ColorZip Japan CEO Christopher Craney about how ColorCode is developing the Japanese market. Already in talks with telecom providers over having the code embedded onto new handsets, Chris discusses both corporate and individual marketing campaigns for this next-generation bar-code technology. We also interviewed the CTO, Evan Owens, who demonstrated several applications of their product.

Related:
Mobile Monday Japan

FreeNews sounds good and certainly works well for now, but in the end it will just become normal to access the web via your mobile. It's just a matter of time, till the speed is comparable to the web and the cost is not an issue anymore.

See their Dedicated Mobile RSS Reader vs. WAP Bloglines

Via Martin

The Big Picture from Mobile Researcher John Poisson

MMS is a one-to-one push model that ignores the nature of sharing. We're focusing much more on the ability to share in a real-time space with people that you know. You have a camera that's with you every waking hour of the day and is always connected to the Internet. The idea is that if you enable people's natural inclination to share what they're doing with their friends, then you've got something that unlocks usage characteristics that are interesting from a sociological standpoint but also very interesting from a business standpoint.

Via Interactive Media Divison