14 DAY TRIAL // The mobile industry has been pretty busy during this week, as all eyes were looking at the Mobile World Congress that kicked off on Monday in Barcelona, and that closed its gates on Thursday. According to the GSM Association, this year's event gathered more attendees than before, something that shows the great importance MWC has for the industry. With the congress come and gone, we'll reserve this week's summary to a short roundup of the event, bringing back to your attention some of the most important announcements.
Even before the MWC opened its gates, some of the leading mobile-phone makers in the world had unveiled their new handsets, including Samsung, which went official with its first handset powered by the bada OS, the Samsung Wave. The company also announced a new Android 2.1-based device, the Samsung Beam, which packs inside a pico projector, and is expected to release the Wave on the market sometime in April, with T-Mobile and Orange UK already planning its launch.
Sony Ericsson is another handset vendor, which went official with new mobile phones, and we had the chance to spot the new Vivaz pro, running under the Symbian platform, as well as the Xperia X10 mini and Xperia X10 mini pro, which are smaller versions of its Android-based Xperia 10, expected to soon arrive on shelves in various markets around the world. Also in the Android area, we learned that ZTE had five new devices running under the OS, and that Motorola announced the QUENCH with MOTOBLUR, which will arrive in the US as CLIQ XT, exclusively via T-Mobile.
Redmond-based software giant Microsoft went official with the long-expected, long-rumored Windows Mobile 7, which is now called Windows Phone 7 OS. The new mobile client sports a radically different look than the previous versions of the OS, and the first Windows Phone 7 Series devices are expected to arrive sometime in the October-December time frame, with a nice range of new features for enthusiasts. HTC already committed to launching handsets powered by the new OS, and might even upgrade HD2 to it, but the MIX10 conference in March is the place where all details will be unveiled, including info on what application developers can do with their existing WM solutions.
While Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series was one of the main characters at this year's MWC show, other platforms also made their notable presence felt, including the older Windows Mobile 6.5.3, which was packed in new mobile phones from Acer, or in the HTC HD Mini, a smaller version of the high-end HD2, which will soon arrive at T-Mobile USA with a nice range of new features. Toshiba also announced new such devices at MWC, the TG02 and K01, and the latter already got a hands-on treatment.
On the Android side of the story, we have the new Acer Liquid e, the successor of the older Liquid A1, an HSPA+ Android smartphone from Huawei, and two already rumored phones from HTC, the Legend and Desire, both of which should land in the UK in April, with Desire set to arrive at various carriers in the country, including Orange. HTC Desire got the hands-on treatment too, and its ROM was ported to the Nexus One, offering the latter a chance to taste HTC's Sense experience.
Still in the Android segment, though outside MWC, we learned that Milestone was already available for purchase in Canada via Telus, and that it was even cheaper when acquired from Best Buy, as well as the fact that motorola Devour would land February 25 at Best Buy priced at $149.99, and that AT&T would launch the Motorola BACKFLIP on March 7 for $99.99 on contract, not to mention that Motorola unveiled officially its Android 2.1 update plans for existing handsets (DROID can be seen here with Android 2.1 on board).
Symbian was also at MWC, with the new Symbian^3 flavor going official and expected to land on the market soon, probably on a newly leaked Nokia X10 too, but had a small presence at the event, though we know it should soon receive support for Flash Player 10.1. Quite notable was the Nokia-Intel announcement regarding the Moblin-Maemo merger in a new OS, MeeGo, and the same applies to the unveiling of new LiMo handsets from ELSE, NEC and Panasonic, some of which will land at docomo.
Among the other interesting announcements made at the MWC show, we can count a PUMA PHONE, which should arrive in April, the SPB Mobile Shell 5.0 that will come to Android, Symbian and Window Mobile, the BOLT 1.7 mobile browser, the free BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express from RIM, the fact that Verizon will deliver Skype to its smartphone users, that RIM introduced the Super Apps concept, or that Adobe unveiled AIR for smartphones, with Flash Player 10.1 to follow shortly.
Outside the MWC, we had a 3-way sync demonstration on LG Mini (LG GD880), the launch of Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU, along with a Windows Mobile 6.5.3 DTK and new enhancements to the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, an exclusivity that O2 had on HTC Smart, Android 2.1 arriving in early Q2 for Sprint's Hero and Moment, as well as a final flavor of Nokia Ovi Suite 2.1, and the beta Nokia Software Updater 2.4.5 available for download.
