I had the priviledge of walking the show floor for two days this year and I couldn't help thinking that it was deja vu all over again. The big screen TVs were bigger and thinner, the booth bunnies were still as beautiful/haggard as ever, and the crowds were maddening (but somehow the shuttle buses didn't seem to take as long to the hotel and back). But there didn't seem to be many breakthroughs beyond the generation 2.o devices you would expect to see. There were also a lot of mee-too devices to be seen, like the G'zOne phone from Casio (pronounded Gee-Zohn, like the Pizzone from Pizza Hut).
This was clearly following the lead of Olympus in taking their Stylus digital cameras to greater heights (depths?) of durability with their SW series. Olympus has essentially taken their famous Stylus line that was all-weather and made them even more durable with the sub-category for SW. They're shock-proof, waterproof, freeze-proof, dust-proof and submersible underwater without a housing. But the problem I have with Casio's offering is that it fails to meet a real consumer need. I can't make a cell phone call from underwater (one that you would understand), and if I'm that attached to my phone that I want to have it with me in the water, I need to change my job.
I get the shockproof capability of the phone (who hasn't dropped a cell phone, giving us a new meaning for "dropped call"), but the way they're marketing this phone it needs to have a better reason for me to buy it (and better functionality) before I'll consider durability to be key.
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