Mobile World Congress 2009 has just finished in Barcelona. The annual mobile industry product announcement and booze fest continues to be one of the key platforms for new mobile phone launches. All the major manufacturers previewed some super cool mobiles that will launch in 2009.
Sony Ericsson Idou
One trend that shows no sign of slowing is the relentless quest to produce more advanced camera phones that will further compete with the humble standalone digital camera. Sony Ericsson’s Idou features the first 12.1 megapixel camera. The brand new, high-spec Panasonic camera I got for Christmas only featured 10 megapixels so the phone industry may have finally caught up. The Idou will also sport the brand new open source Symbian user interface which is expected to bring SonyEricsson touchscreen phones much closer to the iPhone experience.
Sony Ericsson W995
SonyEricsson’s other big hit was the W995 (aka Hikaru). This Walkman phone looks similar to the popular C905 and will be SonyEricsson’s flagship music phone. There’s an 8 megapixel camera with geo-tagging, GPS, a YouTube application and an FM radio. One quirky feature is a kick-stand on the back to aid the watching of video.
Samsung’s top snapper announced at the show was the i8910 Omnia HD. Its 8 megapixel camera will also capture 720p HD video at 24 fps (frames per second), the first camera phone to do so. There’s a TV Out connector so you can watch your lovely videos on your lovely HD TV. The Omnia HD is chock-full of other features including a huge 3.7 inch OLED touchscreen, GPS, WiFi, and comes with either 8 GB or 16GB of memory built in. Expect the Omnia HD to be one of the stars of 2009.
Samsung i8910 Omnia HD
Samsung also announced the Blue Earth eco-phone as covered on this blog last week. Whilst on the green theme an agreement was signed between manufacturers and operators to move to a standard, eco-friendly charger over the next 3 years. The mobile industry finally seems to be taking some degree of responsibility for it’s impact on the environment, although this should all have happened several years ago.
Nokia where a little quieter on the new phone front. Their main announcement was the launch of their own 8 megapixel camera phone. The N86 8MP looks very similar to old favourite the N96 albeit with the addition of an OLED display. It will be the first camera phone to offer variable aperture values and a 28mm wide angle lens which should improve the photo quality. There’s also an FM transmitter, just like those iPod accessories that let you play music whilst in the car.
LG GD910 Watch Phone
LG won the quirkiness award, announcing the LG GD910 wristwatch phone and the LG GD900 Crystal, a phone with a transparent keypad. Their more serious offering was the LG KM900 Arena, another touchscreen which aims to challenge the iPhone user experience whilst squeezing in a 5 megapixel camera.
Moving away from the mobile old boys, Apple continued to do things their own way and simply didn’t attend. The influence the iPhone has had over the industry was apparent from the number of touchscreen phones and new user interface concepts that were announced.
HTC Magic
Other mobile newbie, Google’s Android, will see it’s second phone the HTC Magic, launch exclusively with Vodafone. HTC will also launch a raft of updates to their Windows Mobile range of Touch devices in 2009.
All in all, lots of great new mobiles on their way and a few surprises still waiting in the wings, not least the heavily rumoured iPhone Nano…
What’s your favourite new phone announcement from Mobile World Congress? Add a comment below.
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