Just in case you thought you had it all

I have a Vitelcom TSM30

It was introduced in the late 2003 as a cheap i-mode terminal, It has some nice features (Great sound for playin Mp3s using a cord handsfree kit, being able to store photos taken with the camera in a SD/MMC). But the first units were poorly constructed (noisy earpice), had a buggy firmware, and neutered IR port (could'nt send modified&resized photos taken with my digital camera from my PDA to the phone, for being sent as MMS).
I'll check for bluetooth enabled (and fully functional IR ports) phone in about a year, when the batery of my actual phone were unusable.

Yakumo, i've noticed that most of japanese phones does'nt have bluetooth, i read in a blog that the cause was they find it unpractical to exchange data (it's faster to send it by e-mail). Dont they use bt headsets?

 

Yes that's true. Bluetooth isn't very practical in japan. It's far easier to send anything via email or copy to a SD card. My phone and many others for the last year or so have infer red transmitters which allows you to send data from one phone to another. I have no idea how fast this is though since I've never used it. You can also use that feature for buying things in shops or tickets since the infer red beam can be used to store personal information sort of like how a credit card works when you swipe it at the shop.

There are a few phones with Bluetooth but they seem to be all the European ones which nobody seems to buy anyway. All the top models don't have Bluetooth but do have hands free talking via the speaker and mic built in to the phone. This is great if you're driving or working with some messy stuff such as car engines because you don't have to hold the phone to use it.

Yakumo

 

Well infrared is a lot more cumbersome than BT...

 

Sorry, it was taken back when I got the replacement.

They are kinda though. Well here with the pre-paid services, you have to put like €250 into your account if you want to change your SIM card to a different service provider. Though I'm not sure if it's still like that now...

 

That's odd... well on pre-paid phones, we have SIM locks but then you can just as well buy just the SIM card and stick it in an unlocked phone... or have your phone unlocked by a dodgy Turk at the local market for 15e.

 

Same here

 

Yep, same except that unlocked phones without contracts generally cost ~2x as much as theres no network subsidies. Best to do is to either unlock it or buy one with a network and hope its unlocked (O2 phones often are)