Dec 04

HTC exec promises Hero successor in 2010, debut at Mobile World Congress

Posted in: hero, HTC, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Yet another reason to love the Swedes: they give us juicy details. Former LG Sales Manager turned HTC Sweden exec Patrik Andersson has dropped word that a sequel to HTC Hero is coming next year. We know what you’re thinking: an upgrade to the company’s successful multi-carrier flagship Android device? You don’t say! The real interesting point here is when it’ll make its debut, and that’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this February. Happy Valentine’s, indeed, and if you get to the press conference early, save us a seat?

HTC exec promises Hero successor in 2010, debut at Mobile World Congress originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 30

Mobile World Congress Staying in Barcelona Through 2012

Posted in: mwc 2009, Today's Chili

barcelona.jpgThe world’s biggest cell-phone trade show, Mobile World Congress, aims to stay in Barcelona through 2012, GSM Association spokesman Daniel Lowther confirmed this morning.

“The GSMA has signed an agreement which will keep the Mobile World Congress in the city of Barcelona for an additional three years following the 2009 event,” Lowther said in an e-mail.

There’s a lot of buzz around whether Apple will show up at CES in Las Vegas next January, but for the mobile-phone guys, MWC is where it’s at. It’s safe to say that everybody who’s anybody in the mobile industry has to keep an eye on MWC, which has grown over the past few years from a regional European show into a globe-girdling behemoth.

Last February I filed more than two dozen stories from MWC; if you’re doubtful about the value of trade shows in general, you might want to read my column championing them.

Siting very large trade shows is a difficult task; there are only a few cities that can handle a really huge crush of people. That’s what keeps CES in Las Vegas, though periodically they murmur about leaving if hotels don’t lower their rates. Smaller trade shows have more flexibility; my other major show, the biannual CTIA (the US mobile phone show) has bounced between Las Vegas, Orlando, Atlanta, San Francisco, San Diego and New Orleans over the past several years.

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Feb 24

Microsoft gets big support for Mobile Broadband enhancements in Windows 7

Posted in: Microsoft, mobile broadband, mobile internet, MobileBroadband, MobileInternet, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7, Windows7, wwan

Just in case Microsoft hadn’t locked down enough support for Windows Mobile at MWC last week, the company also managed to shake hands with a slew of PC makers in order to extend support for Mobile Broadband enhancements within Windows 7. It’s still quite unclear what all this means, but we’re guessing that the likes of Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP and Fujitsu will happily support WWAN modules from Huawei, Option, Qualcomm, Sierra Wireless and ZTE. The writeup also gives us reason to believe that WWAN connections will be more tightly integrated than before, possibly even showing up alongside potential WiFi hotspots when looking for a wireless connection. At any rate, we’re all about getting a signal regardless of location, so we’ll take this as a definite positive despite the glaring dearth of details.

[Thanks, Jacob]

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Microsoft gets big support for Mobile Broadband enhancements in Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 23

The Engadget Interview: Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility

Posted in: att, Features, interview, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili

We had an opportunity to sit down with AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega last week — one of the most influential individuals in the wireless world today — at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for a nice little chat covering all the topics that have been burning in our minds the last few months: Android, the Pre, LTE, and more. Read on!

Continue reading The Engadget Interview: Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility

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The Engadget Interview: Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 21

LG shows off solar phone, battery cover at MWC

Posted in: LG, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, solar, Today's Chili

Proving (as usual) that it’s not too big for a little tit-for-tat with its crosstown rival, LG showed its own concept solar phone at MWC this week to match up with Samsung’s Blue Earth. The prototype LG handset doesn’t have a name — takes a whole team of high-priced consultants to christen a product like that, we’d wager — but we do know that the slider can eke 3 minutes’ worth of life out of a 10-minute charge in natural light. The thing looks like it was thrown together in a week, but hey, as long as it works, we know LG can take care of the design side of things by the time production rolls around.

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LG shows off solar phone, battery cover at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 20

Bye bye Barcelona and Mobile World Congress 2009

Posted in: mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Another MWC is done and we’re on one hand happy we were there to cover it for y’all, sad to see it gone, but relieved we can start eating normally and sleeping again. So what did we see? Well, so many things that made us laugh, smile, and scratch our heads that we can barely remember them all. Notable things from Barcelona this year include Sony Ericssons’ first 12 megapixel camera phone, Windows Mobile 6.5’s launch, Palm Pre for the GSM market, A smile pile of Android unveilings — including Vodafone’s HTC Magic launch — INQ’s INQ1, Sonar, and a really creepy mannequin that never failed to freak every single one of us out as we walked by her. If you’re finding the list of links overwhelming, check our daily podcasts from the show and hear all about it instead of reading all about it. Check the links below for a quick rundown of some highlights.

Read – Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo
Read – Texas Instruments and Wind River do up Android right
Read – HTC Magic is official, bringing Android to Vodafone sans keyboard
Read – HTC Magic first eyes-on!
Read – Nokia N86 hands-on with video!
Read – Samsung OmniaHD hands-on
Read – First hands-on with the HTC Touch Diamond2 (with video!)
Read – First hands-on with the HTC Touch Pro2 (with video!)
Read – Nokia E55 hands-on
Read – Windows Mobile 6.5 walkthrough with Engadget (now with video!)
Read – INQ¹ wins “Best Mobile Handset or Device” at MWC, golf claps
Read – Stantum’s mind-blowing multitouch interface on video!
Read – Amosu hands-on: pink, pricey, and plenty of diamonds
Read – Toshiba TG01 hands-on and video walkthrough
Read – modu hands-on with the set, jackets, and some far out visions

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Bye bye Barcelona and Mobile World Congress 2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 20

LG affirms that 12 megapixel cameraphone is in the works

Posted in: LG, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Here at MWC, the only cellphone maker to actually come forward with proof of a 12 megapixel phone was Sony Ericsson. Still, you know that everyone else is apt to follow suit as quickly as possible, and it seems that LG will be one of the first. In fact, said company “absolutely” has a 12 megapixeler in the works. That’s according to Jeremy Newing, LG Mobile’s head of marketing in the UK, who also proclaimed that the KS360 would be LG’s first Android phone. In his words: “We’ll very much be releasing a 12MP cameraphone. However, it’s important that people realize when taking 12MP images, they’ll be using huge amounts of data, and it will be more difficult to do things like send such files.” Honestly, we’re a bit tired of the megapixel race — get an optical zoom onto a slim cellphone, and then we’ll talk.

[Thanks, Jimb]

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LG affirms that 12 megapixel cameraphone is in the works originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 19

Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo

Posted in: Android, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, social networking, SocialNetworking, Today's Chili

As with any trade show, flashy, high-end products have a tendency to steal the lion’s share of the spotlight at MWC — but the fact is, featurephones still outsell traditional smartphones by an order of magnitude. Companies like INQ are betting the farm on the belief that today’s ultra-connected generation of Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook users are ultimately going to pick fashionable, cheap, easy-to-use handsets over the complexity of an iPhone, G1, or Omnia. There’s something to be said for that — most people don’t know the model of their own phone, after all, and have no interest in learning how to download and install an app, let alone learn an entire mobile operating system. Plus, for the youngest members of this profitable group, there’s a lot of price sensitivity — smartphones are typically out of reach.

If startup Sonar has its way, that’s where its new platform comes in. The idea was to fundamentally rethink the way average consumers — you know, the ones who are plugged into three, four, or fourteen social networks and don’t know a G1 from a P1i — use a phone to communicate, and they’re ready to show off their efforts for the first time here at MWC. We had an opportunity to sit down with Sonar’s founders this week for a tour of the system, and we’re pretty stoked about what we saw. Read on.

Continue reading Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo

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Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 19

INQ¹ wins “Best Mobile Handset or Device” at MWC, golf claps

Posted in: Features, hands-on, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc2009, Today's Chili

INQ’s social networking monster took away top honors at MWC with a win for best mobile device or handset at the show. Taking a gander at the competition, it is the who’s who of high end stuff including the T-Mobile G1, BlackBerry Storm, LG KS360, and Nokia’s E-71. So why, you ask, could the admittedly middle tier set win out against what seems like some pretty serious — well, Storm aside — competition? INQ won because of how they’ve enabled Facebook deep integration, focus on your contacts as living, breathing, and ever-changing entities, great pricing, and a compelling user interface. We’d set a meeting to catch up with INQ at MWC hoping to see how things are moving along post-launch and talk about the future. Down the road was the bit we were most interested in, and lucky for us, INQ was willing to share some secrets. Let’s just say with QWERTY confidence, the future looks absolutely stunning, both in form and potential. Congrats INQ, way to win an award. Gallery of the newly-crowned INQ¹ after the break.

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INQ¹ wins “Best Mobile Handset or Device” at MWC, golf claps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 19

Palm Pre’s Touchstone charger requires matte, soft-touch battery cover

Posted in: mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, palm, pre, Today's Chili

We’ve got this image burned in our brains of the Pre as this slick, black, streamlined, ultra-glossy pebble of a phone, and by and large, that’s an accurate image — unless you spring for the Touchstone. The inductive charging accessory — which seems like an almost automatic purchase for any Pre buyer with a single geeky bone in their body — needs magnets in the Pre to hold it in place when it’s attached, but it turns out that the standard glossy battery cover doesn’t have those magnets. Instead, the Touchstone will include a replacement cover that has the magnets and loses the gloss for a stickier matte soft-touch surface, ostensibly to help secure the phone against the charger’s slanted top. For some, the soft-touch is going to be perceived as an upgrade — but others are undoubtedly going to be bummed that they won’t be able to see their own reflection against the shiny Palm logo dead center. What’s more, if you want the matte without the Touchstone, you’re out of luck (at launch, anyway) — it won’t be available separately. Whatever; it’s not like you weren’t planning on getting this thing Colorwared anyway.

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Palm Pre’s Touchstone charger requires matte, soft-touch battery cover originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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