NEC Medias: Docomo Offerring The World’s Thinnest Smartphone In 3 Weeks

On Monday, we’ve just shown you some leaked pictures, but we can now confirm the “world’s thinnest smartphone”, NEC Casio Mobile’s MEDIAS N-04C, is real. And provider NTT Docomo, Japan’s biggest mobile carrier, doesn’t want to lose time in bringing it to market: it will hit stores over here as early as March 15.

As reported, the Medias measures just 7.7mm, which makes it the slimmest 3G smartphone out there (the Galaxy S II is 8.49mm thick).

At 105g, it’s pretty light, too (the iPhone 4 weighs 137g), especially when you consider what the device packs:

• 4-inch LCD touchscreen with 480 x 854 resolution
• Gorilla Glass
• Android 2.2 (2.3 update in summer this year)
• 5.1MP CMOS camera
• i-mode compatibilty
• 1Seg digital TV tuner
• e-wallet function
• 3G/GSM roaming
• microSDHC card slot
• GPS
• Bluetooth Version 2.1+ EDR
• Wi-Fi
• HSUPA
• infrared communication

Docomo plans to offer the Media in black and white. No word yet from NEC Casio Mobile if this beauty will be available outside Japan, too, at some point.

Update:
Here is a good video shot at Docomo’s press conference today:

NEC's razor-thin MEDIAS N-04C Android launched in Japan, getting carefully manhandled

We've already seen product shots of the crazy thin, drool-inducing NEC MEDIAS N-04C, but for a product boasting the "world's thinnest" title, it's always useful to see comparison shots for the sake of our curiosity. Thankfully, the good folks over at Akihabara News were present at DoCoMo's launch event, and they were able to get up close to inspect this 7.7mm-thin Android 2.2 handset (with Android 2.3 upgrade available around July). It's pretty amazing considering all the goodies packed within this phone -- here's a quick recap: NFC, 1seg TV Tuner, infrared port, 5 megapixel camera, 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 chip, etc. Oh, and this phone uses Gorilla Glass, too. If you happen to reside in Japan -- which is where it'll remain exclusive to -- you'll be able to pick up this NEC in black or white flavor on March 15, though price has yet to be announced. Video after the break, and more hands-on photos over at Akihabara News.

NEC's MEDIAS N-04C is only 7.7mm thick, with Android 2.2, NFC, and no ambition to leave Japan

It's only been three months since the last avalanche of NTT DoCoMo phones, but that's not stopping the Japanese carrier from scheming up another hardware refresh. Leaked out ahead of what's expected to be a February 24th launch, we've now laid eyes on what's likely to be the highlight device of this year's spring batch : the 7.7mm-thick NEC MEDIAS N-04C. It follows last year's N-04B in nomenclature only, what with the older model being a flip phone, and offers a spacious 4-inch touchscreen, a 1seg TV Tuner, NFC contactless payments using Sony's FeliCa standard, and a skinned version of Android 2.2. Look out for it in Japan soon, but don't hold your breath if you live outside the sunlit kingdom -- history has shown devices like the N-04C tend to stick to their native market.