Kyocera Shows Off Glossy, Sleek Handsets

Kyocera has been busy designing a slew of new cell phones that boast a more streamlined--and shiny--look. At tonight's MobileFocus event at CTIA, it unveiled its new designs as part of the Expressionist, Millennium, and Simplist series of handsets.

It brought out three clamshell models in the Expressionist line. At the top end is the E5000 with a slippery-looking flat keypad and an unusual, shiny metal S-shape hinge (see picture below).

The phone is designed to be multimedia friendly, and comes complete with touch-sensitive external music controls (as shown in the image below), stereo Bluetooth, a microSD expansion slot, EvDO support, and a 1.3-megapixel camera.

Next in the Expressionist lineup is the E2000 (shown below). It has the same features as the E5000, with the exception of the music controls--this one uses buttons instead of touch-sensitive keys.

Then at the low end of the spectrum is the E1000 (pictured below). It's more basic than its siblings with average specs such as standard Bluetooth and CDMA2000 1x network support. It has no dedicated music controls.

Kyocera expects to ship the Expressionist line in the late summer/early fall timeframe.

For those who enjoy text messaging, Kyocera offers the QWERTY keyboard-equipped M1000 (the M stands for Millennium), shown below.

Once you open the phone, you can access the QWERTY keyboard (see picture).

This phone builds upon the company's Strobe handset (which Virgin Mobile calls the Switch_Back) and updates it with a more grown up and rectangular look. In fact, it looks like LG's brick-shaped enV from Verizon. Design improvements include larger keys, closer spacing, 1.3-megapixel camera. Other features are just average--CDMA 1X network support and Bluetooth. Kyocera plans to ship this phone in the summer.

For the free phone crowd who want a basic, candybar-style phone, there's the S1000 (below).

There's nothing thrilling about this phone except for its likely budget-conscious price. It's so basic, in fact, that it uses a color-filtered grayscale screen. It is slated to ship in the summer.

For more CTIA show coverage, go to PC World's Cell Phones and PDAs Info Center.

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