We’ve been spending the third day of Mobile World Congress getting a close look at all of the booths, and getting pictures and videos of the most exciting handsets to come out over 2009.
One of the most exciting booths is from Japanese network NTT DoCoMo, which has a wide range of services that we will never see!
Mobile television, an Oyster card-style top up system to pay for food and services, even arcade perfect versions of popular video games! However, the most exciting stuff was from their concept handset, a modular magnetic device that….just watch this video!
Also, the people looking after the booth were immaculately turned out…
…as was a line up of all of their pretty phones!
We will be bringing a comprehensive booth round up for all the major manufacturers, and some of the cooler surprises too! Stay tuned to Omio!
Today, Vodafone and HTC announced their HTC Magic smartphone, available from spring of 2009 and an exclusive to the Vodafone network.
The device is the second handset powered by Google’s Android interface and offers a similar, yet more refined experience than the T-Mobile G1, with a 3.2 inch QVGA touchscreen whilst losing the slide out QWERTY keypad that made the G1 such a striking device.
A 3.2 megapixel camera, MP3 player and scrolling trackball are all present and correct, and yet all carry-overs from the G1 device it so closely resembles…
The user interface however, is an major advancement over the original Android device, offering many Google powered applications including Maps and Search, as well as many touted features like a virtual QWERTY keypad for typing (a necessity now that the physical one is no more!), as well as access to Vodafone-specific online services.
Some of the odd shortcomings like a lack of video recording are thankfully no longer present, but there is a multi-purpose HTC ExtUSB port instead of a normal old 3.5 mm audio jack. Weird.
This video offers a much closer look at what the HTC Magic can do for Vodafone, and you!
The only question that no-one seems to be asking is why on Earth is this not the T-Mobile G2? It looks like the G1, works like G1, is a network exclusive like the G1, was even called the G2 on the leaked HTC roadmap, what gives?
Perhaps the G1 underperformed, perhaps HTC wanted too much money this time. Whatever it was, T-Mobile’s loss is Vodafone’s gain as the HTC Magic looks to be the one to watch this quarter!
Still not sure about quite why the slick new S-Class User Interface makes the LG Arena streets ahead of the competition? Check out the official demo video (WARNING: icons not alive in actual handset).
It seems that Nokia weren’t the only ones to benefit from Skype on their mobiles, Sony Ericsson is soon to receive free voice calls over wi-fi and instant messaging via the unique Panels interface on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1!
Due to be released on the 31st of March 2009, the Xperia panel offers a unique ‘balloon’ interface on a skyline, where each of your contacts is represented by a floating icon. Online, and they will be vibrant and in the air. Offline, they will be greyed out and fall into the background.
A quick demo of some of the other Panels on the Xperia X1 followed, and it is safe to say they are leaps and bounds ahad of the stuff available at launch. Check out the new CNN.com Panel, complete with geographically relevant news!
Great to see the Panels interface coming into it’s own, and the power of the Xperia X1 being applied in new ways.
We rocked up to Nokia’s stage at the Mobile World Congress, ready to be blown away by all their new handsets…but came away a tad underwhelmed. The Nokia N97 was a tad broken but the UI was way closer to the concept videos from way back, Matt’s potential new love the Nokia E75 wasn’t quite as sexy when fiddled with up close (video to follow!), and the newly announced Nokia N86 was just…not!
Despite the nice booth lady’s constant reassurances that the handset before us was in fact an N86, the phone itself told a different story… As you can see in the above shot, it was actually liveried up as the N85 8MP, an upgrade to last year’s N85 handset, with a bigger camera than the 5 megapixel offering first time around.
So what’s the deal? A truly new addition to the N-Series family, or last minute costume change to beef up an otherwise unassuming handset? You be the judge!
We’ve just come out of the Skype Press Conference, reeling from the news that the Nokia N97 will come preloaded with Skype! The world famous web chat client will be seamlessly integrated to your contacts and messaging, in a way previously only seen in dedicated devices like 3′s Skypephone and the quirky INQ1!
Presented by Nokia’s Vice President of N-Series devices, it makes the N97 even more of a must-have handset, and that Q3 release date seem even further away!
At Microsoft’s Press Conference, there were…things. And stuff. And a guy. Or maybe two guys, I forget.
I’m sorry, it’s early o’clock, I’m dying here!
I know, read what I wrote when I was there on the Omio Twitter feed! Windows Mobile 6.5, MyMobile, the HTC Touch Diamond 2 demo, it’s all there!
I know how to do it now, there will be many fun insights into mobile-y stuff on our Omio Twitter throughout the day as well as on the blog! Do follow tomorrow!
LG was another press conference we managed to get some ringside seats for at this year’s hectic Mobile World Congress, and we were glad as there were some exciting things to see!
Led by LG’s CEO Skott Ahn, we learned a great deal about their new product range, as well as the conceptual processes behind their exciting new 3D S-Class user interface.
The first phone that was demoed to show off was obviously…the GD-910 Watch Phone!
A great little surprise to open the show was a video call that Mr. Ahn made on his GD-910 to Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer, congratualting him and unofficially announcing their new mobile phone alliance!
It was pretty funny, and an awesome opener to a great press event. Check it out below!
The LG Arena has been plastered in the airports, on the sides of buses, and on pretty much every building in Barcelona. Yet it was still impressive to see the new S-Class user interface demonstrated on it for the first time.
An innovative 3D swiping interface, the S-Class takes the iPhone’s menus and spruces them up with many more intuitive motions, such as the Rolodex-style contacts list, or tuning in a radio station like an old analog dial. You can immediately see they enjoyed creating such a fast and fun interface, and it consequently made the phones using it much more endearing!
The LG Arena KM900 is the first S-Class UI handset, the first to have Dolby surround sound, a 3″ VGA screen, and support for up to a massive 32GB of memory. Further info about this handset is both all over the blog and on our LG Arena features page. Let’s move on to the newest releases!
These phones were both glossed over a bit we thought as the focus was the future of LG with the S-Class UI, but both the GD900 and GM730 handsets were shown briefly to us also.
The GD900? Transparent keypad. What?
Yes. See through! With a tagline of ‘crystal clear design leadership’, the GD900 is bound to be the must have fashion phone when it is released in the second quarter of 2009.
As for the GM730, LG’s premier Windows Mobile device comes through with a host of impressive features, including a sprinkling of the S-Class UI on the top. A 3 inch screen and 5 megapixel camera round out the stats, and it’s seen as a ‘convergence phone’ by LG. Despite unique add-ons like GPS tracking and realtime messaging, it will be interesting to see if LG finds more success with Windows Mobile than Samsung did on the Omnia…
All in all, a great range of handsets delivered by LG, all sporting a truly inspiring new UI, and I look forward to getting some footage of them up close at their booth later in the week!
One thing they did mention but not reveal was handsets based on Android. We would be very intrigued to see which one takes centre stage between Google’s OS and LG’s own, as they are both quite robust…interesting times indeed!
How could I have forgotten possibly the most interesting announcement out of Nokia this morning!
They began by stating the mainstream nature of apps, plus the fact that 50% of 18-24 year olds access social networking sites via their mobiles. Soon after, my App Store senses began to tingle…
Nokia recognised that application stores need to be quicker to access from a handset, and also anticipatory of a user’s contextual needs by offering access to location-aware content.
Presenting…the Ovi Store!
The store will deliver games, applications, widgets and media. It will be location aware to offer apps related to your current location, and even show items that your friends have downloaded!
Nokia even goes so far as to suggest that the Ovi service will be a ‘smart store,’ offering a Tivo-style suggestion of apps that you may want to download based on previous choices!
The coolest thing is that the Ovi Store is in fact backwardly compatible for earlier Symbian S40 and S60 powered handsets, not just the latest smartphones like the E71 or multimedia devices like the 5800 XpressMusic.
With the same 70/30 revenue share for developers as another famous online application vendor, selling wares on the Ovi Store is a promising proposition for big business and backroom coders alike! Big businesses have definitely signed on, EA, Facebook, Lonely Planet and Fox Mobile are already on board with more to follow.
With the service rolling out in a modular fashion from June 2009 (which they let slip is the Nokia N97‘s launch month!), Ovi Store will be a ready made marketplace for over 1 billion compatible handsets all over the world.
That is something even the App Store cannot hope to compete with…
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