Ever since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in January, the cell phone industry has been dizzy to compete on the hype alone. Now that iPhone has delivered the goods the cell industry is even more frantic to find a respectable competitor. A very unlikely, and by unlikely I mean unheard of, player called Sophia Mobile has stepped up to the challenge with a device called the Nani.

Sure, this thing looks like it may be a strong competitor, but we’ll see. Oh yes, we shall see. I <3 iPhone by the way.

This is quoted from some other blog.

Nani has a few things going for it: a large, 4.3-inch touchscreen (yes, a touchscreen!), video playback at 800 x 400 pixels, a MicroSD card slot, Wi-Fi capability, a camera and a TV tuner. Is this the iPhone killer? In Japan… maybe.

The odd thing about the Japanese cell-phone market is that despite the country’s love affair with Western pop culture, few Japanese consumers go out of their way to acquire electronics from the U.S. and Europe. Finland-based Nokia learned that lesson firsthand, getting repeatedly spanked over the years by the Japanese market, but the case for the iPhone isn’t as bleak. Apple has stores in Japan’s central hubs of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo and Fukuoka, and the iPhone has a huge cool-factor advantage. Unfortunately, the other Apple advantage — unending hype from high-profile Apple zombies like The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and The New York Times‘ David Pogue — isn’t something the iPhone can count on in Japan. — Adario Strange