One of the reasons I am in Japan, it is because they are the most advanced country in mobile telephony. Apart from being the first ones in using the latest technology, and a very interesting live lab to check the different technology trends, it is also a very practical society.

One of the things I am quite surprised is the handsets market. First of all, there is not a big difference in the way the handsets look. They all look really similar, independently from the brand and the operator.

Furthermore, you may not be able to know which is your handset’s manufacturer, as they do not normally place their logo on them. For example, I have a Softbank mobile, with a clear Softbank logo on the cover, and with just the following characters: 813SH. That means, it is a Sharp (SE would be Sony-Ericsson, for example). So, the operators dominate the handsets market in a very strong way, and that is one of the reasons Nokia has left Japan for that.

But one of the most useful consequences of this is the charger. Each operator has established certain plug for all the handsets of that company. So, all Softbank’s handsets use the same plug for charging the mobile. Apart from the convenience of that, from the point of view of availability, it is also very convenient from the point of view of the price of the chargers (more simple and higher volumes per model, apart from the lack of need to buy “official” chargers).

An interesting device in this area are these portable chargers. You can buy in any convenient store (everywhere, 24/7) at a very competitive price (less than 1000 yen) this chargers with batteries, or with a certain energy on them. Cool, isn’t it?