GSMA Mobile World Congress, 2009, held in Barcelona recently was a paradise for journalists and writers and a battlefield for manufacturers. It was filled with exciting announcements, eye-catching displays, demos, hands-on trials and lots more. Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, LG, Acer and many more leading mobile phone giants, unveiled their latest treasures creating much excitement amongst the media. A brief on some of the major displays and announcements is given below.

Sony Ericsson's announcements - Media Go Service, W995 Walkman Mobile Phone and Idou
Sony Ericsson did the honours of opening the Mobile World Congress, 2009, with the announcement of their W995 Walkman Mobile Phone.

Sony Ericsson also hinted the announcement of a new mobile phone called Idou in the 2nd half of the year. Idou will be a candybar phone and will feature a 3.5" display, a 12.1 Megapixel camera, Xenon flash, Symbian OS and rich multimedia options.



Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 Panels
New panels for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Smartphone were launched by the company in MWC, 2009. The Skype panel lets you access calling services quickly. This panel eases tasks like browsing contacts, finding out who's online, instant messaging and calling. The CNN panel gives you updates on the news, weather and sports depending on your location. The Mytopia panel has been designed for the gamers. It lets you play bingo and poker with players around the world. It also lets you collect virtual coins. The On the Road panel featuring large icons is most suitable for people who drive. It lets you handle calls, access music and navigation tools.

T-Mobile Samsung Memoir will be available round the corner
In a joint press conference held by Samsung and T-Mobile, the Samsung T929 Memoir 3G Touchscreen Mobile Phone release date was announced to be 25 February. Supermodel and photographer, Helena Christensen, who was the first to use the mobile phone, was the special guest for this event. The photos she had captured with the phone were put on display. She also shared the wonderful experience she had had, with the camera phone.

Samsung's displays


Samsung Blue Earth Mobile Phone was showcased too. The company is on a "Go Green" spree and has come out with some innovative ideas that they would be implementing in future eco-friendly products.

The other Samsung phones that stole the show were the Omnia HD, the Beat DJ and the Ultra Touch. They are all touchscreen phones. While the Omnia HD and Ultra Touch feature 8 Megapixel cameras, the Beat DJ features a 3 Megapixel camera. They also pack in loads of functionality options like Bluetooth, FM radio and more. The Ultra Touch has a numeric keypad along with a virtual keyboard for user interfacing.

Nokia News


Nokia had on display Nokia E75 Smartphone and Nokia 5630 Xpress Music Phone. The Nokia 5630 Xpress Music Phone features an Xpress Music player, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a speakerphone, SMS, MMS facilities, an external memory card slot. It supports stereo Bluetooth, voice commands, quad-band GSM and HSDPA 3G networks. The screen of this phone can display 16.7 million colours and offers comfortable viewing. There are dedicated music controls on board this phone too.

Nokia N86 Mobile Phone was given a special announcement in the Mobile World Congress. It features an 8 MP camera, Symbian OS, a 2.6" scratch proof display, support for stereo Bluetooth, WiFi and is expected to be available for sale in the second quarter of the year.

Google's offline Gmail Access on iPhones
Google's vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra, demonstrated at MWC 2009, how the iPhone could be used to access Gmail even when the phone was not connected to the Internet. An in-phone database stores these emails when online, so the mails can be retrieved and read when offline. Since these emails are locally stored in the phone, the access speed is faster.

HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch Pro2



HTC had on display the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 Smartphones, which are more enhanced versions of HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro. The Touch Diamond2, is sleek, yet solid in build. It has a brushed metal case. This phone also features a better user interface and a new Start screen which gives easy access to applications. It is more customisable too and has more user-friendly icons. There is a touch-sensitive toolbar as well that makes a lot of operations easier.

The Touch Pro2 is much bigger in size than the Touch Pro. It features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a tilting screen. The keys are well spaced on the keyboard, enabling comfortable typing. Windows Mobile 6.1 OS has been employed in this phone as well. The speakerphone quality has been improved with the Straight Talk technology and large speakers.

HTC Magic Smartphone which would feature Google's Android OS, was announced in the GSMA MWC too. It has been designed for Vodafone and would be hitting the market this spring.

Sagem Porsche P9522 Phone


A joint venture of Sagem and Porsche, the P9522 Mobile Phone features a 2.8" touchscreen, a 5 Megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, GSM and EDGE capabilities, a finger print reader for security and lots more.

i-mate's Innovations
Jim Morrison, CEO of i-mate, said that he plans to innovate and not imitate when creating handsets, making each of them unique in their own rights.



i-mate 810-F PDA-phone was show cased at the MWC. It is a credit card sized phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. This phone is expected to run the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS.

A second PDA phone called i-mate Legionnaire is a touchscreen phone, also running Windows Mobile 6.5 OS. The special feature of this phone is that it can fit into an ultra-mobile PC called Warrior and serve as its touchpad.

From the LG Arena



The LG Arena Multimedia Smartphone and the LG-GM730 Smartphone that were on display attracted a huge crowd. Both support Windows Mobile OS and have touch sensitive screens. The LG Arena was the main attraction during the show. It features a 5 Megapixel camera and 8GB of internal memory. Wi-Fi and 3G support are also offered.

The LG GD900 Mobile Phone, which is the first to have a transparent design was also introduced in the MWC.

Pantech Matrix Pro Smartphone
Pantech's latest smartphone Pantech Matrix Pro Smartphone that was announced at the MWC, features a dual slider hand-set. It slides vertically to reveal a numeric keypad and horizontally to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. This Windows mobile phone offers loads of features like a 2 Megapixel camera, music and video player, threaded SMS, microSD card slot with support of up to 32GB memory; networking capabilities like A-GPS, Bluetooth, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA.

ZTE Is Going Green Too
Chinese mobile manufacturer ZTE also launched a solar powered phone called the Coral 200 Solar Mobile Phone. The ZTE C78 and ZTE D92 were on display too.

Palm's Announcements And The Palm Pre
Palm would be bringing out a Flash 10 player along with Adobe's Open Screen Project and would feature in phones released during the latter half of this year.

The Palm Pre in all its grandeur was also basking in the admiration of onlookers at the GSMA Mobile World Congress. With easy to use and innovative features, this phone ships with Palm's native OS.

Acer's Tempo Smartphone Series


Acer, a leading netbook and notebook manufacturer have also set foot on the mobile phones soil. They announced the release of 10 mobile phones into the market this year, of which 8 were displayed in the GSMA MWC. The Acer M900, Acer F900, Acer X960 and Acer DX900 will come into the market by April, while the Acer L1 and Acer C1 would be available in the second half of the year.

The dust has settled after the four days of hustle and bustle. The GSMA Mobile World Congress, surely has created a hang-over that will last for some time now. All the products which were announced to be released this year are eagerly awaited.

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