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Till next year, Barcelona.
(Credit: Kent German/CNET Networks)We're all slowly making our way back to the States and back to our regular schedules now that the Mobile World Congress show has come to an end, but before we completely close the door on GSMA 2009, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what was (and wasn't) revealed at the show. After all, MWC often lays the groundwork for what we'll see in mobile space in the upcoming year.
For all intents and purposes, Microsoft provided the most news at MWC, as the company previewed the latest version of its mobile operating system and its partners unveiled upcoming devices. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in Barcelona to deliver a keynote address on opening day, during which he showed off Windows Mobile 6.5. He also participated in a panel about openness and innovation in the mobile market.
The big news: Windows Mobile 6.5.
(Credit: Microsoft)The revamped OS brings a handful of enhancements, such as an application store, a back-up and restore service, and an improved mobile Web browser. While welcome additions, it didn't particularly move the mark on innovation and, even worse, Windows Mobile 6.5 won't be released till the second half of 2009 and by then, who knows what Microsoft's competitors will have done.
Still, we were pretty excited about some of the upcoming devices that are set to run Windows Mobile 6.5. First, LG revealed the LG-GM730 and went one step further by committing to making Windows Mobile the primary operating system for its smartphones--a promise that would increase the number of Windows phones available in 2009 tenfold.
Acer also announced its entry into the smartphone space and held a press conference to reveal not one, but eight devices to debut in 2009 (with more to be announced in Q4), all running Windows Mobile. Despite joining the Open Handset Alliance, Garmin-Asus took the wraps off its second Nuvifone model, the M20, which will run Windows Mobile (and we finally got a chance to check out the Nuvifone G60). Meanwhile, longtime Windows Mobile partner HTC introduced its next-generation devices, the HTC Touch Pro2 and the HTC Touch Diamond2. The two smartphones will actually run Windows Mobile 6.1 when they ship during Q2, but the company said they will be upgradeable to Windows Mobile 6.5.
HTC also made another announcement that stole some of the spotlight away from Microsoft. The company, along with European carrier Vodafone, debuted the Android-powered HTC Magic on the second day of the show. It's the first Android device for Vodafone. HTC plans to bring the smartphone to market by spring. The HTC Magic features a 3.2-inch HVGA touch screen and trackball navigator, but doesn't have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard like the T-Mobile G1. The quad-band smartphone will offer support for Google's various applications as well as access to the Android Market, and includes a Webkit browser, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, HSDPA/WCDMA (900/2100MHz), and a 3.2-megapixel camera.
The HTC Magic is the first Android phone for Vodafone.
(Credit: Andrew Lim/CNET UK)CNET U.K.'s Andrew Lim got a good hands-on look at the Magic at the show, and we also got a peek at it while visiting the HTC booth. While giving us a demo, the company representative was very clear to say that the Magic was not the T-Mobile G2, which brings up our next point. As much as the Magic was news, the general lack of Google Android announcements was also news in itself. Sure, Huawei said it plans to launch Android handsets later this year, but it's doubtful we'll see those in the States. Plus, we didn't see the T-Mobile G2. Samsung delayed its Android phones until the second half of the year. All in all, a disappointment for Android fans.
Per its usual fashion, Sony Ericsson kicked off the GSMA World Congress by holding a standing-room only (that's a hint, Sony Ericsson, to give us chairs next time) event the night before the show began. The Idou quickly emerged as one of the most talked-about devices in Barcelona. Though still a concept phone, the Idou's expansive display, attractive interface, and multimedia-heavy features look promising. Sony Ericsson will officially launch the device later this year, at which point it'll change the name, so we'll be watching. The company also unveiled a new Walkman phone, the W995, which, to our surprise, has a 3.5mm headset jack and a nifty kickstand. Also at Sony Ericsson, we had the chance to check out the C903 Cyber-shot and W395 Walkman, which Sony Ericsson launched the week before GSMA began.
In addition, Samsung unveiled four media-friendly devices of its own. The Samsung Omnia HD and Ultra Touch focus on video, while the Beat DJ and Beat Disc major in music. All of the phones offer touch screens, but the Omnia HD and Beat DJ stand out for their unique interfaces and designs. Samsung revealed a release date and pricing for T-Mobile's Samsung Memoir and showed, albeit rather carefully, its Solar-powered Blue earth phone. We could look, but not touch.
The Nokia N86 sports an 8-megapixel camera.
(Credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET Networks)Nokia didn't make too much of a splash, despite having one of the biggest and most crowded booths on the show floor. The Finnish company took the wraps off the new E75 and the E55. Though both are smartphones, only the E75 offers a full keyboard. Its slider design is appealing and the feature set is functional. The E55 is a bit trimmed down and it offers just a SureType-esque keyboard. Nokia also sneaked in the 8-megapixel camera-toting Nokia N86 on the second day. The Nokia 5630 Xpress Music sat next to the E55 and E75 in Nokia's booth, so we checked it out as well.
Meanwhile, Moto was almost a no-show at GSMA. It had a bright booth in a prime location, but it offered only phones we've seen before, like the bling-worthy Aura. ZTE stepped in with its own solar-powered phone, the Coral-200-Solar, and LG offered the conversation piece GD900, which offers a never-before-seen (at least to us) transparent keypad.
Overall, we'd have to say Mobile World Congress 2009 was a quieter show than last year's, but obviously, it was still chock full of news. You can catch up on all the show's news, photos, and videos in our full coverage of GSMA 2009. And don't forget, the CTIA 2009 spring show is just around the corner (April 1-3) where there will be more North America-specific news, and once again, we'll make the trek to Las Vegas to bring you all the details.
The X1 becomes a cover story.
(Credit: Kent German/CNET Networks)Since I can read United Airline's in-flight magazine only so many times on a 10-hour flight between San Francisco and Frankfurt, Germany, I took a few minutes to leaf through the ubiquitous Skymall catalog as well.
Normally, for every one thing I would consider buying in Skymall, I find 20 completely useless things (seriously...who really wants to make a bulletin board out of wine corks?). But this issue of the catalog had the fancy Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 on its cover.
As you may recall, the touch-screen smartphone debuted at the 2008 GSMA World Congress. And even as the Idou grabbed most of the headlines in Barcelona this year, the X1 continued to be a top draw at Sony Ericsson's booth.
As my colleague Bonnie Cha said in her Xperia X1 review, the handset offers a full range of features and a unique panel-based interface. Yet because no U.S. carrier offers the X1, it's not readily available stateside. An appearance in Skymall might just help make the ordering process easier, but the first-class price of $799 for the unlocked model remains. No, we don't think it's worth it either.
As we wrap up our coverage of the GSMA World Congress and prepare to head home to San Francisco and New York City, we invite you to take a look at sights from the show floor in Barcelona. Indeed, GSMA is a massive, frenetic show that spreads over eight buildings and several outdoor pavilions. At first, it can be overwhelming and difficult to find your way about, but you learn quickly which areas of the show are worth visiting. Our GSMA show floor photo gallery gives you a guided tour, from the show grounds to the company's booths to the cell phones on display.
The GMSA Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona could have been a great place for Google to demonstrate progress establishing Android in the industry, but instead the open-source operating system showed only a slightly larger toehold.
Google has high hopes for Android, which the company launched in an effort to spur smartphone development, mobile use of the Web, and new search advertising. Although Android certainly isn't vaporware, and Google's clout makes the effort a serious challenge to other operating systems, so far Android's potential exceeds its real-world presence.
HTC's Magic is the second Android-powered phone to hit the market.
(Credit: HTC)The biggest Android news from the show was the debut of the HTC Magic. This new Android model is the second Android model from the Taiwanese company; the first, HTC's Dream, is better known as the T-Mobile G1.
... Read moreAt the GSMA World Congress here in Barcelona, there's a lot more to see than just the brand new cell phones. We also relish the chance to check out models that are rather rare in the United States.
Take the Nokia 5630 Xpress Music, for example. As one of Nokia's newest Xpress Music phones, it hasn't made much of a stateside appearance. So when we spied it sitting next to the new Nokia E75, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to give it a test drive and capture it on video.
Its thin candy bar design largely resembles the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music. The 16.7-million-color display is easy on the eyes, though it could be a bit larger. The navigation array also doesn't take full advantage of the phone's real estate--there's an awful lot of blank space around it--but the keypad is pretty standard. Dedicated music controls sit on the left spine while the camera lens and flash are on the rear face.
The 5630 has external music controls.
(Credit: Kent German/CNET Networks)Besides the Xpress Music player, the feature set covers a good range. You'll find a stereo Bluetooth, a 3.2-megapixel camera with video, voice command, personal organizer options, text and multimedia messaging, a speakerphone, and an external memory card slot. The quad-band 5630 also supports HSDPA 3G networks.
Showing that its Web application priorities extend to the mobile world, Google on Wednesday demonstrated a version of Gmail for the iPhone that could be used even when the phone had no network connection.
Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering, showed off at the 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona what he called a "technical concept" of Gmail even when the iPhone was offline. In January, Google released an offline version of Gmail for desktops and laptops, and like it, the mobile phone incarnation runs in a Web browser, not as a native application.
The software let Gundotra browse and read e-mail even after he switched the phone into airplane mode, which shuts off the wireless network. To watch a demonstration, check the demo video on iPhone Buzz.
Offline applications can't of course retrieve new data from the network, but they do synchronize when network access is restored. Meanwhile, e-mail is stored in a local database on the phone, even when online.
"You'll note that it's very, very fast because it's using that local database," Gundotra said. The application also showed a floating toolbar that was visible even as he scrolled through his in-box.
... Read moreThere's not lot of news from the third day of GSMA Mobile World Congress, but we did get more in-depth looks at some of the week's earlier announcements, plus a peek at a few interesting niche handsets.
Kent German and Bonnie Cha have been busy with brief, hands-on first takes of phones like the Sony Ericsson Idou, the Sony Ericsson W995, the Samsung BeatDJ, the Samsung UltraTouch, the Samsung Omnia HD, the HTC Touch Diamond 2 and HTC Touch Pro 2, and the LG Arena and LG GM-730.
Yes, this is a Hello Kitty cell phone.
(Credit: Darius Chang/CNET Asia)Our colleague from CNET Asia, Darius Chang, showed us a unique, modular NTT Docomo phone from Japan, fashion phones from Porsche and Hello Kitty, solar-powered Samsung accessories, and a few PDA-phones from I-mate. To go along with the solar-powered theme, Kent also told us of a new solar-powered phone from ZTE. Also, Verizon is once again leading the data-speed pack by saying it expects a 4G launch by later this year.
We also have a slew of First Look videos from Barcelona, so keep an eye out on our GSMA 2009 feature page for all of those and more.
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
Collaboration with fashion labels or iconic figures seems to be the rage these days. On the show floor of the Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona, we spotted some Sagem Wireless phones co-designed with Porsche.
The P9522 is a simple tri-band phone with a design inspired by the sports car label. Though not a PDA-phone, it does have a generous 2.8-inch AMOLED 400x240-pixel display (the Omnia HD also has the same screen technology), and a biometric fingerprint sensor for security. The unit also has a built-in GPS receiver and an autofocus 5-megapixel camera. It will be available in Europe later this year for 600 euros.
And who can resist this cute Hello Kitty phone? For now, all we know about it is that it comes with 10 Hello Kitty wallpapers, a 1.3-megapixel camera, FM radio, Bluetooth, and TransFlash (microSD) memory slot. It will be available only in Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
(Via Crave Asia)
LG Arena
(Credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET Networks)LG had a rather action-packed Mobile World Congress, making several product announcements including the high-end LG Arena multimedia phone and choosing Windows Mobile as the primary operating system for its smartphones. As a result, the company's booth was buzzing with a steady stream of visitors, and we stopped by ourselves to take a look at some of the company's offerings.
The one thing I came away with is that LG loves its touch screens. Everywhere I turned, there was a touch screen staring back at me. Not that I'm complaining, but it got to the point where the phones were almost indiscernible to me. It would have been nice to see a little variation in LG's design.
The biggest crowd pleaser was, not surprisingly, the LG Arena. It was a battle to get some hands-on time with the phone, and I can understand why. The Arena's S-Class 3D user interface makes quite impression. The cube layout and Elastic Lists and Reel Scrolling make it quite fun to use the phone, and certainly takes full advantage of the touch-screen capabilities. To be honest, though, I'm still on fence about whether the user interface is really helpful or all style and no substance. I mean I can see some advantages of the UI (the Reel Scrolling feature really comes in handy for going through photos and other files), but does it make phone navigation that much easier? I have yet to see it.
To be fair, I only had a few minutes with the device so I reserve the right to change my mind when we actually get to review the phone. Featurewise, the LG Arena is impressive with a 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of internal memory, Wi-Fi, 3G support, and more. Let's just hope it makes it way to the States.
The LG-GM730 smartphone was also at the booth, but unfortunately, it seemed as if all of the display models were frozen or not fully functioning, so I didn't really get a good feel for it. Still, I'm happy to see that the company is committed to developing more smartphones, though I know there are certainly some strong feelings about the choice of Windows Mobile as the chief operating system.
To get a closer look at these handsets and LG's other products, check out our hands-on photo gallery.
With so may cell phones on the planet, it's hard to find a model with a design that stands out from the crowd. Yet, Samsung manages to do just that with its new Beat DJ. I caught up with it at the GSMA World Congress in Barcelona.
With rounded edges and a bright blue trim, the Beat DJ offers a striking design that feels comfortable in the hand. As a touch-screen phone, the only physical controls on the front face are Talk and End controls and a back button. Over on the right side you'll find a memory card slot and a camera shutter, while a handset locking switch, a volume rocker and a Micro-USB port sit on the left spine.
I admit that the 2.6-inch display is a bit small for my tastes. It felt slightly cramped when browsing through the menu and tapping out messages and phone numbers. On the upside, the display is responsive but people with larger hands should give it a test-drive first.
The Beat DJ has its own look.
(Credit: Samsung)The music player interface is quite unique. In the center of the display you'll find a large circle that is reminiscent of the curves on either end of the phone. By tracing your finger around the circle you can advance through a song. It's a tad gimmicky, but it's cool nonetheless.
You also get access to a whole menu of DJ effects such as a record scratch. The music player on the model we examined wasn't completely functional but the whole experience looks fairly promising. Sound quality from the stereo speakers was impressive thanks to the Bang & Olufsen amplifier.
Other features include an FM radio, a 3-megapixel camera with video recording, stereo Bluetooth, an external memory slot, a 3.5-mm headset jack, organizer features, and a speakerphone.
To get the full effect, check out the Samsung GSMA slide show.
