CTIA Day 1: Slow show? Yeah, right.
Remember when we said CTIA Fall 2011 was going to be slow and boring? Yeah, we were pretty wrong on that one. CTIA Fall 2011 has been a surprisingly busy show, with several product announcements, first-time looks, and a few industry tidbits as well.
It was as if we jinxed ourselves even before the show began. In our CTIA preview post, we said we expected a leaner show than usual mostly because Samsung and Google decided to pull out of the event at the last minute, and we hadn't heard of anything else on the horizon.
Boy, were we wrong. CTIA Fall 2011 has been a surprisingly busy show, with several product announcements, first-time hands-ons, and a few industry tidbits making us sit up and take notice. AT&T kicked things off with news of five new Android handsets, from the high-end Motorola Atrix 2 to the prepaid AT&T Avail. Seizing its opportunity, T-Mobile rolled out two new tablets too--the 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab along with a potential sleeper hit, the 7-inch T-Mobile SpringBoard, which is manufactured by Chinese company Huawei. The ball didn't stop rolling as the day went on, when Sonim went ahead and announced three new phones, and both Cricket and MetroPCS updated their lineups with new handsets as well. On the accessory front, even Plantronics had something to show the world with the introduction of the Voyager Pro HD.
It wasn't all product news either. AT&T has announced a new Toggle service to separate your work from your personal life, RIM introduced a new NFC-based BlackBerry Tag app, and Cadillac surprised the wireless crowd with a new instrument panel that takes inspiration from smartphone and tablet technologies. The usual carrier CEOs strutted their stuff too--Sprint's Dan Hesse said they'll give guidance on the iPhone, AT&T's Ralph de la Vega promises sexier new LTE handsets, and everyone tries to play nice with one another despite the odd comparison of one CEO to Abraham Lincoln's assassin.
Later today, watch out for a plethora of slideshows and hands-on posts of the latest hot handsets, like the Motorola Atrix 2, the Samsung Stratosphere, and lots more on our CTIA landing page. Don't let me say a show will be "slow" ever again.