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 join me in Sin City to bring you the latest in phones, accessories and applications. This time, what happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas.

Viva Las Legas

(Credit: Kent German)

As always, all the big players will be jostling for the spotlight. It's still to early to predict exactly what we'll see in Vegas, but you can be sure that companies like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG will unveil a few new handsets. Nokia has invited us to a press conference on April 1 that will be "180 feet above Las Vegas." Unless it's an April fool's joke, we're not quite sure what to expect. Sony Ericsson hasn't scheduled a media event just yet, but after its almost stealing the show at GSMA, we expect good things.

Motorola will be on hand as well. But after its quiet showing in Barcelona, we hope that Moto will wow us again as it did at CES. Moto really needs to step up to the table to impress us. Also, we'll check out the goods from Kyocera and UTStarcom and see what smartphone high-rollers like HTC and RIM have to offer. And last but not least, there undoubtedly will be news from the carriers, and we'll find plenty of new Bluetooth headsets.

As for trends, we anticipate a few things. Look for continued convergence in the areas of music, video, and GPS. As the cell phone continues to take on more duties, new devices will compete with each other to best combine those multiple features. Hopefully, we'll also see some more developments with Google's Android platform. Though it's still too early to see commercial devices, more demonstrations would be very cool. And just like last year, Apple won't be at CTIA, but iPhone competitors will abound.

Remember, the show begins April 1, so check back here to see our full coverage live from the show. We'll bring you all the latest in words, pictures, and video.