CTIA Preview: iPhone Wannabes and More

The annual CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment show kicks off next week in San Francisco, and I've already got in mind the cell-phone products and devices I expect and hope to see at the big industry event.

Technology journalists from around the world will converge next Wednesday on the Moscone Center for event, which comes at an interesting time for the cell-phone industry. Cell phone sales, worldwide, are not as red-hot as they once were. Just ask Nokia (NOK Quote). And Sony Ericsson. And, of course, Motorola (MOT Quote).

Now Apple (AAPL Quote) is leading the way. Despite the problems it's having with getting AT&T's (T Quote) 3G service to millions of new iPhone 3G customers, Apple has one of the hottest properties in the industry (priced $199-$299). And rightly so: iPhone has the best user interface on the planet.

But, consider the Samsung Instinct phone from Sprint (S Quote). It's an iPhone clone that is selling amazingly well -- probably because, at $129, it's a well-priced alternative to the iPhone, especially for Sprint customers.

Same for the Palm (PALM Quote) Centro. At $99 (with a two-year service contract), Centro has also become a huge hit. See a trend here? It's not hard to figure out. American consumers don't like spending more than 100 bucks on a cell phone. The Centro was, and still is, priced exactly right. Sprint's Instinct is a little pricier -- but is still less costly than Apple's iPhone 3G.

These days, every other phone on the market has to be compared to these three smartphones in some way or another. Either the new phones have far fewer smartphone features than an iPhone/Instinct/Centro and must be priced accordingly. Or, they have "luxury" features (higher-resolution cameras, diamond-studded covers, built-in HD movie cameras) and therefore must be priced much higher than an iPhone/Instinct/Centro.

And that's assuming one of the big-four cellular providers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon (VZ Quote)) agree to sell the phone and help subsidize the selling price. Otherwise, these other super phones have to be sold "unlocked" at artificially high prices. The fantastic new Palm Treo Pro is one such victim of these exclusionary practices.

Palm Gets Down to Business With Treo Pro

We're hoping to see some of the newest designs from Research In Motion (RIMM Quote) at the show. We've showed you sneak peeks of the new Blackberry Bold -- coming any day now. But, we also expect to see the new Blackberry flip-phone (being described as a Pearl phone with a cover) and, of course, the eagerly awaited Blackberry touch-screen design.