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GSMA 2009 Day 1 summary
A summary of Day 1 of 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress.
GSMA Mobile World Congress
(Credit: Kent German/CBS Interactive)Even though Monday has just come to an end here in the U.S., a brand-new day in Barcelona is just beginning. So before we hear more news from Day 2 at GSMA Mobile World Congress, here's a brief wrap-up of Day 1.
It was a big opening weekend at GSMA Mobile World Congress with Garmin announcing its whole line of Nuvifone phones before the show even began. They were the Nuvifone M20 Windows Mobile smartphone and the original Linux-based Nuvifone G60. Also, T-Mobile and Samsung announced the Samsung Memoir for the U.S. market. The 8-megapixel camera phone will be available for sale in February 25 for $249.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate.
Sony Ericsson Idou
(Credit: Sony Ericsson)Sony Ericsson was up next in the big news department with the introduction of a multimedia wonder phone. The Sony Ericsson W995 is a Walkman handset with features like shake control and an adjustable bass level, plus an 8.1-megapixel Cybershot camera. To go along with that, Sony Ericsson also introduced Media Go, a new service for transferring media files between your computer and your Sony Ericsson phone. And even though it didn't have many other products to show, Sony Ericsson did give a sneak peek at the Idou concept phone, a multimedia all-in-one device with a 12.1-megapixel camera and a Symbian operating system.
Samsung also had a few announcements despite the lack of an Android handset. It introduced the Samsung S8300 UltraTouch, an 8-megapixel camera phone with a touch screen, the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD, an HD-level improvement over the existing Omnia, the Samsung Beat DJ, an all-touch music phone with a 2.8-inch screen plus a virtual scroll wheel, and the Samsung Beat Disc, which is very similar to the Beat DJ but it uses a mix of the touch screen and the number keys for navigation--only half of the screen is touch-friendly.
HTC is set to make improvements to its Touch line of devices with the Touch Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2. Both Windows Mobile smartphones sport a slightly more refined design and a boost in screen size. Huawei announced it will be coming out with Android handsets, and LG sealed its new relationship with Microsoft Windows Mobile with the LG-GM730, a touch screen smartphone that will hopefully come out this year. We also took a sneak peek at the LG Arena with its S-Class 3D interface.
HTC Touch Diamond 2
(Credit: HTC)Nokia made several announcements as well, with the E55, which it claims to be the world's thinnest smartphone. It has a hybrid keyboard similar to the SureType keyboard on the BlackBerry Pearl. Nokia also rolled out another E-series phone, the E75, a horizontal slider with a full QWERTY keyboard. To go along with this, Nokia also announced the Ovi Application Store, following Apple and Google's example with the iPhone and Android devices. This way Nokia users will be able to download apps easily to their phone over-the-air. Nokia plans to release this for all Nokia phones in the future.
Last but not least, Acer introduced a whopping eight new smartphones, known as the Acer Tempo smartphone series. They include the Acer M900, the Acer F900, the Acer X960, and the Acer DX900, which will come to market in March and April. The rest of the line will follow later in the year.
We also covered INQ Mobile, Flash 10 coming to most smartphones next year, Xperia X1 getting Skype and CNN panels, a sneak peek at the Windows Mobile 6.5, and more.
We'll do another wrap-up of Day 2, but meanwhile why not just stay on our GSMA 2009 page and keep refreshing? We'll have more news, slide shows, and video from Barcelona all day long.
