Mobile World Congress

ZTE debuts solar-powered phone

Samsung wasn't the only company showing a solar-powered cell phone at the GSMA World Congress. On Wednesday, Chinese manufacturer ZTE launched a green model of its own.

Created with Digicel and Intivation, the Coral-200-Solar is designed for emerging markets where electricity may not be readily available. And, of course, it's Earth-friendly.

Exact feature details are sketchy at this point, but from what we can tell, the phone won't offer a lot of goodies. Considering its target markets, the Coral-200-Solar is really about making calls. It should be available in June.

The candy bar design is pretty plain more

Hands-on with the Sony Ericsson Idou

The Sony Ericsson Idou may just be a concept phone, but I had the opportunity to handle it while visiting the company's booth at the GSMA World Congress. Indeed, a press pass has its benefits, as other show attendees could gaze at it only in a glass display.

As the Idou is not a finished product, the Sony Ericsson rep wouldn't let the model out of his sight. We had a similar experience at CES 2009 when we examined the Palm Pre--we could touch the outside all we wanted, but we couldn't get an extensive tour more

Photos: Windows Mobile 6.5 hands-on

We've just had a super-sneaky peak at the future of Windows Mobile--version 6.5--and got to demo the new operating system in all its glory ourselves, on a brand-new HTC Touch Diamond2.

Microsoft has completely overhauled the user interface and the mobile OS, and aims to capture more of the consumer handset market with its launch later this year. Check out some of its features in the gallery below.

(Via Crave UK)

GSMA 2009 Day 2 summary

Another day at GSMA winds to a close, and even though there aren't as many new devices, we did get a few important announcements.

The most exciting announcement of the day was probably about the HTC Magic, Vodafone's Android-based smartphone. It doesn't have the slide-out QWERTY keyboard of the T-Mobile G1, but it does look quite sleek. Speaking of Vodafone, we also read news of a GSM Palm Pre that may be slated for Vodafone in the near future, but unfortunately Palm's lips are sealed.

As for other manufacturers, LG announced another handset, dubbed the LG more

UMTS Palm Pre displayed at GSMA but not much else

Disappointingly, Palm didn't make any major announcements at the show, namely a GSM version of the smartphone, but did have a bit of news. The company has joined Adobe's Open Screen Project and promised to bring Flash 10 Player to its Web OS devices by the end of the year. We asked Palm if it would be included on the Pre, and, unfortunately, it will not since the Pre is slated for release during the first half of 2009 and Flash 10 won't be available until the second half.

During my meeting with Palm, I asked about more

Modu and JBL show off music jacket

On the second day of the GSMA World Congress, Modu added to the gallery of jackets it released last week by unveiling a new music jacket with JBL. Called the Modu Music Jacket (the company really has a way with clever names), it's designed to turn the tiny Modu phone into a pretty snappy music device.

On one side of the jacket are two JBL Odyssey speakers and dedicated music controls, while the opposite side resembles a regular cell phone with a 2.2-inch display, a full navigation array, and a standard alphanumeric keypad. Admittedly, it's a little more

Hands on with the Sony Ericsson C903, W395

The new Sony Ericsson Idou and W995 Walkman weren't the only new handsets sitting pretty in the company's GSMA World Congress booth. We also spied the C903 Cyber-shot and W395 Walkman, which debuted before the show began. To refresh your memory, the C903 is a 5-megapixel camera phone and the W395 is low-end Walkman phone.

We dropped by the Sony Ericsson booth on Tuesday to put the handsets through their paces. First up was the C903. Sporting a slider design, the C903 has a rather angular look, even with the rounded corners. The slider mechanism is solid and more

Truphone offers local calling anywhere

BARCELONA--Mobile VoIP provider Truphone has a new service to help frequent international travelers bypass expensive roaming rates when using their cell phones.

On Tuesday at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009 here the company announced Truphone Local Anywhere. This new service allows travelers to use one GSM SIM card to make local phone calls in several different countries.

Details about how much the service will cost and which countries and operators it will partner with to offer the service aren't yet public.

The service is essentially a substitute for the tried-and -true method of swapping out SIM cards for more

Nokia N86 8MP now official

Well, it seems the Nokia N86 was so special that it deserved a separate announcement aside from the Nokia E55 and Nokia E75 and was officially unveiled on the second day of GSMA 2009. The highlight feature of the N86 is its 8-megapixel camera. Nokia N series models, including the Nokia N95 and the Nokia N85, have been equipped with 5-megapixel cameras for a long while now, and with competitors (e.g., Samsung Memoir) coming out with 8-megapixel camera phones, it's nice to see an upgrade.

The N86 8MP features a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for panoramic pictures and more

Alcatel-Lucent aims to lead 4G consortium

Alcatel-Lucent said on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it has joined with other companies to form a consortium to encourage the development of the next generation of wireless communications technology.

Called NG Connect--the "NG" stands for "next generation"--the consortium will bring together device manufacturers with content providers, application developers, and other interested parties, the Alcatel-Lucent said.

The consortium will be looking at different next-generation technologies, such as 4G, long-term evolution (LTE), and other ultra high-bandwidth technologies, Alcatel-Lucent said in a statement.

Other companies that have joined the consortium include Samsung, HP, Buzznet, Chumby, Connect2Media, Total Immersion, more