Geekshow

Best Of Mobile World Congress

The annual Mobile World Congress took place this week in Barcelona. This conference reveals the latest in phone technology. What was the star of the show? Is Android about to take over the world?

Going into this years Mobile World Conference (MWC) the hottest topics of discussion were new Android phones and new mobile app stores to rival the Apple app store.

So far only the G1 has been available to test the potential of Google’s mobile phone operating system, Android. Although the G1 hardware has had mixed reviews the operating system itself has generally been praised. The market had poised itself for a whole mix of new Android phones to flood the market. So, what came out of Mobile World Congress this year? Answer, the HTC Magic. One phone – not the flood that was expected. It does look like a very nice phone, but then there is nothing else to directly compare it with.

The Apple App store for the iPhone and iPod Touch has been one of the biggest success stories in the past year. Other manufacturers want to get a piece of this very lucrative pie and ‘OnlyAndoid.com’ was launched late last year to support the Android operating system. The handset giant Nokia and Microsoft have now announced their own versions of app download markets for their own operating systems.

From May, Nokia will open up the ‘Ovi Store’ to offer apps and multimedia for their own range of phones. Microsoft will launch ‘Windows Marketplace’ later this year to support their range of ‘Windows Phones’.

Below are my top three phones to be announced at this years congress. All are high end phones that have the standards of wi-fi, 3G and GPS. These are the phones that I feel will make it big in 2009.

HTC Magic

The phone formally known as the G2 has now been renamed the Magic. This is a slimmer, cleaner version of the G1 and in my view a lot nicer. Gone is the slide out keyboard and this has made the device smaller and lighter. All the other specs are very similar to the G1 with the 3.2″ touchscreen providing the majority of the control for the device. The Android operating system has changed slightly to the ‘cupcake’ version to try and address some of the teething problems with the first version. The device will now also record video.

This device appears to be aimed at the group of people who didn’t like the form factor of the G1 and may like the new body of the Magic. Unfortunately the lack of device options that are on the market may still limit the spread of Android (although it didn’t seem to stop the iPhone!)

Sony Ericsson Idou

Sony have gone for the high end multimedia features for their latest phone. The Idou is packed with a 12.1 MP camera (seems a tad over the top for the size of the lens) and a 3.5″ 16 million color touchscreen (same size as the iPhone). What looks interesting with this phone is that will have a similar interface to what is currently used on the PS3 and PSP. I do like this interface, it is very clear and easy to use. Combined with a touchscreen, this is definitely an interface that could rival the iPhone.

The operating system looks to be a variant of the Symbian S60 so there should be plenty of apps available to compete with all the other app markets that are in development.

Samsung Omnia HD

Thanks to the iPhone, touchscreen phones are top of the pops when it comes to phone tech. To complete my trio of the best of MWC comes another touchscreen phone, the Samsung Omina HD. Yes the ‘HD’ gives away the Samsung’s killer feature – it can record 720p HD video at 24 fps. It comes with a 3.7″ AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) display that has the iPhone style capacitive touchscreen technology. This makes the screen very responsive and thanks to the OLED tech, it should look very impressive.

Like the Sony, this phone will use a version of the Symbian S60 operating system so can make use of the solid base of apps available on the market.

Now what could trump all of these phones is the rumour that Apple will be releasing a new iPhone this summer. As with all new Apple rumours, Apple are saying nothing and very little information can be found about what this new version would look like. I personally do not expect anything radical from Apple (there’s not that much wrong with the iPhone design). If Apple do release a new iPhone I would expect more memory (64GB), a weight reduction, color options, a better camera (with video) and some new OS options.

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