Jamar

@(Unverified) Now remind me what the emissions ratings for this TD car is? Yeah.

@schmidt1985 Related- in Japan you get a 50% discount for being willing to sign a 2-year contract.

@victor Uh, they COULD pick up a China Mobile sub. Could it be that even with roaming costs the HK/TW/Singapore subscription is cheaper than CMCC's?
(I mean, they want over US$50 for 20MB, I think; I was looking at getting one but balked at the price).

@HighestRanked You mean "Tokyo loves the iPhone". After a trip to Kansai I came to the conclusion that like me, they prefer their keitai over the iPhone.

Aside- I live in China. I first got a Sharp 902SH because it looked cool. It was after I won an iPhone in a raffle that I really appreciated what my 902SH could do (the iPhone? Extensible? Only with a procedure that carries a small risk of bricking and voids the warranty). Then I moved on to a 904T, 810P, and now a SO905i. The good thing is that Sharp is pushing out a lot of its keitai to the Chinese market in January completely open so I'm getting one of those next.

@Don Corleone It's even worse outside of Tokyo. I went to Osaka and Kobe in October. I never saw a single iPhone that wasn't a display model. Everyone was using a Japanese phone. Even me (I bought one before I left; it's much more fun to use than the iPhone, not to mention the hardware feature set is better).

@taylorlauder Depends on what happens in the near future. If nothing else, NTT docomo relies on AT&T to provide a decent roaming network for its customers in the US (heck, it helped develop AT&T's 3G network in Hawaii) and they may be reluctant to see it go (buyout? Remember, they were planning to enter the US proper after a decent operation in Guam). Then again, I'd rather see this 2 years from now:
"AT&T what? Isn't it docomo America now? Nicer phones than Verizon, that's for sure. Can YOU pay for stuff with your phone? "

@berapp Just try. They're not holding a gun to your head, but at most Verizon stores it's contract or nothing. Bringing in a Korea-market phone? It'll roam on Verizon just fine, but no corporate store will allow you to put it on a local no-contract plan; you usually have to head to a Koreatown and find a third party to do the activation for you.
(Why would you want to bring a Korea-market phone? Do a side-by-side comparison of pricing- if the phone's not outright discontinued there due to Verizon being such a dinosaur about picking up new tech it'll be significantly cheaper or have features that Verizon crippled with the introduction of that red UI).

Great, look at what Samsung's pushing out for its own market. Compare with what America currently has from them. There is a vast chasm that needs to be bridged here. Same with Sharp- hopefully the recent Sidekick fiasco will get Sharp to push out their Japan-market stuff instead of making more Sidekicks.

Remove the GPS limitations.

Keep in mind that CT's 3rd place is very distant- maybe a few percent market share compared to the other two even if you count the PHS network. Who knows how many people will switch for this phone or how many current customers will switch to it depending on what Sharp pushes out for them in January (a few Japanese models are set to arrive in China then- hope it's not MTK like last time).