Fazal Majid asked an important question on Saturday in an entry on his weblog entitled Are Americans becoming second-class consumers? He cites several situations where manufacturers shipped products with the same name in two different markets, but the U.S. version had fewer features or lower quality components than the equivalent product destined for other markets. He cites:

• the Sony Clie PEG-TH55 Handheld, which ships without Bluetooth in the U.S. This was discussed on Operation Gadget on March 5.
• The Canon EOS Digital Rebel with 18-55mm Lens, which "has the smooth and fast USM ultrasonic motor in Japan, but uses the inferior AFD micro-motor in the US". That's news to me.
• The Epson Stylus Photo 2200 Inkjet Printer, which "does not include in the US the gray balancer, special software and calibration sheets used to improve the neutrality of black and white prints."

Majid also cites laptops and portable electronics imported by vendors like Dynamism that U.S. subsidiaries of international electronics companies consider poor fits for the largest single electronics market in the world.

These are all good points. But, when we discuss products that make it to the U.S. market late or not at all, how about GSM phones like the Nokia 6600 that's been out in Europe and Asia for months, but has only been made available in the USA by T-Mobile within the last week? This phone is hot and it's hard to understand why Nokia would not want to ship as many of these in this country as it could. I'd think this would be particularly important, considering Nokia's recent problems achieving predicted handset sales volumes.