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Every spring, the CTIA trade organization holds a well-known trade show for the U.S. mobile phone industry. Every fall, they also hold a smaller show, called CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment. The name of the show describes the official focus, but because of the timing, many companies use the show as an opportunity to launch regular consumer and phone products as well. This year's show was in San Francisco.

Some of the most exciting announcements at the show came from Audiovox. Their first EV-DO handset was the most significant. The CDM-8940 has the full list of features you'd expect for a high-end phone, including dual 262,000-color TFT displays, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a miniSD memory card slot.

EV-DO is the star of the show, though. The technology provides broadband data rates, suitable for high-quality streaming video and downloadable music. The phone can also provide high-speed connectivity for a laptop via USB. Audiovox has announced EV-DO PDA devices previously, but this is the company's first phone with the technology. LG's VX-8000 is the only other such phone announced for the U.S. market to date. Both phones are expected to be available for Verizon Wireless early next year.

CDM-8940

Also on display for the first time, although not yet officially announced, was the CDM-8700, Audiovox's first slide-style model. The features are fairly standard for a modern mid-range CDMA phone, including a VGA camera with flash, 1xRTT data, 262,000-color TFT display, speakerphone, and voice dialing.

Other notable models being displayed included a version of the CDM-8910 for Sprint, and the CDM-9200, a stylish little clamshell phone with dual color displays and a VGA camera.

More notable from a corporate standpoint was Audiovox's first phones manufactured by UTStarcom, the company that is currently in the process of acquiring Audiovox Communications.

CDM-7000

The lineup isn't terribly ambitious, but that's to be expected for a company entering a whole new market. The all-clamshell lineup consists of an entry-level model (CDM-7000), a dual-color-display model (CDM-7100), and a camera phone (CDM-7200). All three include BREW, WAP 2.0, voice dialing, and speakerphone.

According to Audiovox, the company plans to continue offering phones from multiple manufacturers even after the UTStarcom buyout is complete.

One small side-note is that Audiovox seems to be breaking from its previous model numbering scheme. It used to be that the 7000 series was made by Sharp, the 8000 by Curitel, and the 9000 series denoted Toshiba. But the new 9200 is made by a smaller no-name manufacturer - not Toshiba - and of course the new 7000 series are made by UTStarcom rather than Sharp.

Editor in Chief Rich became fascinated with cell phones in 1999, creating mobile web sites for phones with tiny black-and-white displays and obsessing over new phone models. Realizing a need for better info about phones, he started Phone Scoop in 2001, and has been helming the site ever since. Rich has spent two decades researching and covering every detail of the phone industry, traveling the world to tour factories, interview CEOs, and get every last spec and photo Phone Scoop readers have come to expect. As an industry veteran, Rich is a respected voice on phone technology of the past, present, and future.

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