There's nothing like it in the United States. Newsweek's Brad Stone played around with Vodafone's 905SH for a month at the Land of the Rising Sun, and came out at the end wondering if America will ever get to "catch up" to Japan in the mobile cellular department.

You see, what the iPod is to the US, the cellphone is to Japan. What the credit - or debit - card is in the US, the cellphone is in Japan. What a lot of other things involving high tech innovations are to the US, the cellphone is to Japan. The industry and electronic infrastructure there, Brad observes, totally supports the mobile phone as a multifunctional, multimedia device for communications, personal entertainment, and e-commerce convenience. No wonder more than half of Japanese phone subscribers have gone 3G, compared to only 5% in the US.

The 905SH, manufactured by Sharp Corp., is fully wired into that mobile infrastructure, and Brad's month with it was an education in Japanese mobile convenience. Its 2.6-inch LCD screen will swivel 90 degrees, perfect to watch mobile television with. Japan currently has unveiled a new digital broadcast standard dedicated to mobile TV that provides excellent quality. The 905SH will even record shows, TiVo style, if the owner's too busy with work or travel to flip that phone open to catch a show. Or maybe he's too busy playing mobile games or surfiung the Web on his cellular.

Unlike the iPod, which is tied to a PC to receive downloads, the 905SH and other Japanese 3G mobiles can download their music straight from the airwaves. Both saved video and downloaded audio are saved to a 1GB memory card. The phone also serves as an e-commerce device. Using a Vodaphone electronic cash service called Edy, users can "upload" cash credits into their mobile account, and spend it on practically the "thousand of stores, vending machines, train stations and taxicabs" that accept e-Yens. The mobile services are even planning to launch a "credit" version of the service soon, Brad notes. Man, those bills will be piling up.

One function Brad wished was included in the 905SH was GPS - though a friend demonstrated the GPS/mapping software on his own cellular to navigate the unfamiliar streets of Tokyo. But that wasn't the point. The point is that this kind of intensive support the mobile industry has for Japanese mobile consumers helps keep Japan at the head of the cellphone pack. Maybe it's a question of supply-and-demand - Japanese consumers demand these kind of things more than American consumers do - but that still translates to some of the coolest cell phones (and their functions) we've seen coming out of Japan.

It's nothing that can't be ported to America, though, given enough consumer demand and innovation among American mobile carriers. Japan's about to see a major upsurge in that kind of innovation. New regulations now allow Japanese subscribers to keep their cell numbers even when they switch cellular services - which makes it easier for them to switch cellular services if they want to. This means that the competition among the major Japanese mobile providers is going to heat up - promising a boatload of new features, dropping prices for phones and services, and greater innovation as they battle for the hearts and minds of Japanese subscribers. This kind of competition and service integration is one good way to kick-start a nascent 3G market outside Japan, too. American cellular providers may want to take notes.