The new generation of FOMA phones--finally, one that works

Finally, the FOMA phone that all the addicts have been waiting for has gone on sale--Panasonic's P2102V, which boasts videophone capabilities, much-enhanced battery life, and the ability to flip the screen toward you and shoot video with the camera side-on, much like a camcorder (see here for details). With an SD memory card installed, it's possible to store several hours of footage.

Compared to the frankly useless N2001 that I previously had (the battery would literally die in the afternoon if you actually used it at all), it's a dream, and stands up well in a comparison with any of the phones on the market. The one hurdle that remains is the video format--DoCoMo has gone for the MP4-based 3GP, which currently can't be played back on a PC except with a dedicated Phillips player, which can fortunately be downloaded for free. Apple, which is supplying the only encoding software available (content providers have apparently been supplied with a prerelease version of Final Cut Pro to create the clips currently available for downloading) will be including 3GP support in the next version of Quicktime, but there seems to be no way to convert the format into Windows Media or Real Player files that could be viewed by a wider audience. Would be interested to hear from anyone who knows a way to do this.