Bags have been packed, poker chips have been cashed, and planes have been boarded – and with that, the mobile-focused CTIA 2010 convention in Las Vegas has come to a close.
Each time an event like this blows through town, tech heads do their best to distract themselves from their hangovers by writing monstrous posts on which platform or technology “won” the show. When it comes to CTIA 2010, the winner is clear cut and undisputed: Android. They could have called this year’s show “Android Week” and no one would have questioned it.
When we said Android went “undisputed” above, we meant it in the literal sense. Windows Phone 7 handsets are still too early in development to come out and play. Palm was only showing the AT&T versions of the Pixi Plus and Pre Plus, which they’d announced in the days leading up to the show. BlackBerry’s biggest news was that their new Twitter client is launching on March 31st. Apple didn’t even show up — not that anyone expected them to, given that these deafeningly noisy shows aren’t exactly their style.
Meanwhile, Android launched on no less than five major handsets:
- Samsung Galaxy S – The Galaxy S is big, beautiful, and bright as all hell. Really — I can’t imagine a screen brighter than this one, a 4.0″ Super AMOLED screen made by Samsung themselves. I’m fairly confident that it could be used as an impromptu flash grenade, need be. The 1Ghz CPU and 5.0 megapixel camera don’t hurt, either. See our hands-on here.
- Motorola i1 – Motorola has finally managed to make a rugged, push-to-talk phone that doesn’t look like a rugged push-to-talk phone. There’s no absurd bulk here, and no monstrous antenna. We haven’t put this one through the paces yet – but if Mike Rowe says it can take a beating, we’ll believe it. (Fun Fact: Motorola demonstrated the durability of this phone at a private press event by having people play shuffleboard with it)
- Kyocera Zio – The big selling point of the Kyocera isn’t necessarily its specs – it’s the price it brings them in at. At a price coming in somewhere between $169 and $220 — without contract, mind you — Kyocera has managed to stuff in a 3.5″ 800×480, 3.2 megapixel camera, stereo bluetooth, and the same 600mhz processor as the Motorola Devour. Look for this one to launch on Cricket later this year.
- AT&T Dell Aero – Essentially a reskinned version of the Dell Mini 3i that launched in China last year, the Dell Aero is AT&T’s second Android phone, Dell’s first Android phone in the US, and purportedly the lightest Android phone to date. We spotted this one on the showfloor — but unfortunately, Dell wouldn’t let anyone turn it on.
- Sprint EVO 4G – if we had to declare one handset the winner of the show, it’d be this one. We fell in love with this one months ago, when it was known around the rumormill as the HTC Supersonic. Sprint chose to go all out with their first WiMax phone, and it has paid off; with a 4.3″ 800×480 screen, 1Ghz CPU, 1GB of internal storage, 802.11b/g, HDMI-out, and the ability to act as a WiMax-powered WiFi router for up to 8 devices, the EVO 4G is now the Android handset to beat. See our hands on here.
Other news from the show:
- Samsung finally learned to stop spoiling their announcements early
- BlueAnt announced a text-message-to-speech app for Android, along with their first rugged Bluetooth headset, the T1.
- Sprint announced 7 more cities that will get WiMax this year, bringing the total up to 15.
- AT&T finally announced pricing details for their broadband-powered signal booster, the 3G MicroCell.
- Skype launched their app for Verizon Android/BlackBerry handsets, allowing users to make Skype calls over Verizon’s data network without gobbling up their minutes
That’s all, folks. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw my life savings at a man standing behind a green felt table and hope for the best. Wish me luck!