Cell phones

Motorola hits redial on handset biz

Motorola is hoping two is better than one.

On Wednesday, the company, whose cell phone business has been in a death spiral for several quarters, announced that after a two-month formal analysis, it has decided to split the company into two publicly traded entities.

One will handle handsets and accessories while the other will continue to concentrate on wireless broadband and enterprise communication products.

"Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus--as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders," CEO Greg Brown said in a release.

The Mobile … Read more

CTIA preview

CTIA always marks the end of a busy trade-show season for cell phones. We start at January at CES, travel to Barcelona in February for the GSMA World Congress, and then wrap it all up at CTIA. This year, it's back to Las Vegas for the wireless fun. The 3-day show will kick off April 1 at the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center, and I won't be the only one scouring the show floor. My reviews colleagues Bonnie Cha and Nicole Lee, News.com's Maggie Reardon and Tom Krazit, and Download's com's Jessica Dolcourt will … Read more

Hasta luego to GSMA

It's Valentine's Day and the GSMA World Congress is coming to a close. It's been a busy few days for the CNET team. Bonnie Cha and I journeyed from San Francisco with CNET TV's Ariel Nunez, CNET UK's Andrew Lim flew in from London, and John Chan of CNET Asia came all the way from Singapore. As one of the biggest mobile shows on the planet with more than 55,000 attendees, GSMA produced a lot of interesting news, from new smartphones to the first prototypes of the Android platform. Barcelona was a good host, … Read more

Battle of the trade shows: Why Europe rules

After attending CES four times, CTIA eight times, Macworld two times, and several smaller show in between, I thought I have the whole trade thing mastered. You spend the day meeting with companies, wandering the show floor, and battling crowds before returning to your hotel for a night of work. You also go a few days without enough sleep or a decent meal. As I prepared for the GSMA World Congress, I knew it would be different--a different continent, a different culture, a different language, and an international focus. I had no idea of just how different it would be. … Read more

Photos: Spyker unveils iPhone-a-lot-like

While wandering through the mobile theme park that is the 3GSMA Mobile World Congress, we stumbled across a strangely familiar-looking phone at the Spyker stand. Spyker is mostly known for making cars, which gave us pause.

There was no model name on the handset, but of course the first thing we thought of when we saw it was the iPhone. The available press materials failed to shed any light on its name, but when we asked the man at the stand whether or not it belonged to the Spyker portfolio, he responded with a straightforward "yes." Click here … Read more

Loco for NTT DoCoMo superphones

Yesterday, I finally got a chance just to walk around the vast halls of Fira de Barcelona and really take in the sights of 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress. While doing so, I stumbled upon NTT DoCoMo's booth and ended up spending a fair bit of time there, wandering in awe. For those of you who don't know, NTT DoCoMo is Japan's leading cell phone provider, and they have got some amazing devices. There are ones that you can fully submerge in water. There are gaming and mobile TV handsets, and I know we've got those … Read more

GSMA Day 3 wrap-up

The GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, is winding to a close, but that doesn't mean mobile phone news have stopped streaming in. The third day of GSMA 2008 saw AMD announcing big plans for mobile phone processors, RIM's co-CEO downplaying the recent BlackBerry outage, and the LiMo Foundation possibly giving Google's Android a run for its money with its own effort at an open, Linux-based operating system. Of course, we also took the opportunity to look at phones and carriers off the beaten path.

For starters, Senior Editor Kent German explored the large Vodafone plaza (… Read more

All's pretty quiet in Palm's house for GSMA

There's a lot of Windows Mobile and Symbian news at GSMA Mobile World Congress, but things have been pretty quiet in Palm-land. Still, the company is here at the show, and there was a wee bit news. First, a GSM version of the Palm Centro will be coming to Europe. According to Treonauts, the unlocked Centro will be available in the United Kingdom on February 14, and at the end of the month for the rest of Europe with a price tag of 299 euros. A Web site called TamsWMS also has what appears to be the first unboxing … Read more

Chinese cell phones in Barcelona

Chinese cell phone manufacturer ZTE has a sizable presence at the GSMA World Congress. Not only did it supply almost every show attendee with a canvas bag, but also its large booth in one of the main halls faced off with the likes of Samsung and Sony Ericsson. I toured the ZTE area to see the cell phones available in China and found a few that caught my eye.

The ZTE i766 is a candy bar phone with a 2.4-inch, 262,00-color touchscreen. Primed for multimedia, it plays broadcast TV, has an MP3 player, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and … Read more

Hands-on with Modu

Modu has generated a lot of buzz for itself at the GSMA World Congress. The Israeli company has developed a concept for a modular cell phone that can be placed into "jackets" that change the both the appearance and the functionality of the handset. I got the chance to check out the Modu phone today, and I admit it's an intriguing concept that could prove to be successful if it evolves as Modu promises.

The overall concept is quite simple. The primary device is a small black cell phone, aka a Modu (clever name, huh?), that's … Read more