DoCoMo is working on the Solar Hybrid phone, a “solar-powered” phone that is also rugged enough to be “waterproof”, according to DoCoMo. It comes with an 8 Megapixel camera too, so this one is made for outdoor shooting.

It’s not entirely “solar-powered” as it can’t run on solar power alone. It’s more of a “solar assisted” device. 10 minutes in direct sunlight will give you a whopping 1 minute of talk time. Oh and “waterproof” means that the phone can stay in water for 30mn and no deeper than 1 meter.

Japan has received their first Android-powered phone from DoCoMo. It’s known as the HT-03A, and it will run on Android 1.5 Cupcake.

If you think that the HT-03A looks familiar, that’s because this is actually the HTC Magic. There’s also some word that DoCoMo has a surprise for smartphone lovers up its sleeve and will be revealing it in about two weeks.

DoCoMo’s latest SMART cell phone series includes the clamshell F-04A that features an attractive, but plain design comprised of the following features: 3G/HSDPA, 3″ 480 x 854 resolution TFT display, 0.4″ 12 x 56 monochrome FSTN display, microSD/SDHC memory card slot, 2 megapixel camera with autofocus, VGA resolution camera for video calls, Built-in mobile wallet, Mobile Google Maps application and 1-Seg support. The F-04A should be available in Japan next February or March.

Many of us remember when projectors were bulky things the size of a suitcase. Not anymore. Now they are phone sized. NTT Docomo is getting into the act too. They unveiled a prototype cell phone that doubles as a video projector and demonstrated it at CEATEC JAPAN 2008. The projector would give you a 20-inch image from a distance of about 80 centimeters and roughly 100 minutes of viewing time, which is enough to watch TV shows, podcasts and short films, if not 2 hour movies.

Red, green and blue LEDs are used as the light source. Pixel count is 480 × 320 (HVGA), and its luminance is 7.5lm. The power consumption is about 3W. The company plans to have a working version of the device ready for market in about three years. The way the tech in these projector phones is shaping up, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took half that time.

As usual, Japan has it going on in the advanced concept phone department. This reconfigurable Fujitsu device was shown at CEATEC and allows the user to separate the screen and touchscreen keypad however they like. This comes from a research partnership between Fujitsu and Docomo.

Both parts can be used by themselves or joined together with magnets and used horizontally or vertically. What the touchscreen shows is determined by where you stick the screen on the keypad. The screen module houses all of the software functions, which includes video recording and games. The keyboard section is responsible for other tasks, like 3G and radio. Communication between both sections is done through Bluetooth. It would be nice to see this move from concept to reality, but who knows.