MWC day three: return of the Jedi

Okay, an Android RAZR would have been amazing, but sadly Motorola didn't announce anything at all at MWC, so our dreams are on hold for the moment. In fact, day three was bereft of any major announcements, but there was some action: Telstra boss Sol Trujillo's prototype HTC handset running Windows Mobile 6.5 was pickpocketed, we played with a few real Android prototypes, and we even saw Windows Mobile hacked into compatibility with a capacitive touchscreen. What else did we learn?

• After a day of reflection, we broke down the ten reasons we think Windows Mobile 6.5 is smoke and mirrors. Turns out a lot of people agree with us... and a lot of people don't.
  

• We played with one of the only other real Android devices at the show, the General Mobile DSTL1, and while we're not high on the WQVGA screen, we're happy to see non-HTC Android sets actually exist. Now if only we'd see them launched.

• Pantech announced the Matrix PRO dual-slider Windows Mobile 6.1 phone for AT&T. It's interestingly different, but without an upgrade path to 6.5 we're not interested enough.

• I-Mate let us peek at the very first production model of the Centurion, which is one of the smallest WinMo handsets we've ever seen. Seriously, it's tiny.

• We took a look at Samsung's solar-powered Blue Earth handset through some glass. A fun gimmick for now, but we'll wait for this tech to go mainstream before we get too excited.

• We also peeped Sammy's answer to LG's GD910 Watch Phone, the GT-S1100, uh, watch phone. We're wondering why these two can't battle it out with, say, large touchscreen Android devices, but we're not going to ask too many questions.

• Verizon announced that it's starting US LTE trials this year with a launch planned for 2010 in 25 to 30 markets. Your move, AT&T.

• Google revealed plans for offline Gmail on the iPhone, and also gave a cool demo of the Google Maps web app running quasi-natively on the Palm Pre. It's sad that we're more excited about these two developments than any of the Android announcements we've seen so far.

• We got up close and personal with a couple projector phones: a Sharp model headed to NTT docomo and the Samsung Show headed to Europe. We're not sure if anyone actually needs a pico PJ in their phone, but damn, do we ever want one.

• TI gave us some time with its sweet OMAP3 platform development device, running both Android and Windows Mobile. If you're not convinced Microsoft still has a lot of work to do, this is all you need to know: Android screamed, WinMo stuttered.

• We played with Samsung's nifty WMG100 WiFi HD video streamer for the OmniaHD and found ourselves one step closer to the dream of playing media from directly from our phones to the TV.

• We spent some time with Viliv's latest MIDs, the S5 and X70, and we were pleasantly surprised, although we're not sure these Korea-only models will do a lot so shake up the market.

Yep, overall things have quieted down a ton, but there's still a couple days to go, and we've got our eyes on some of the crazier gear we've spotted in the smaller Chinese OEM booths. Keep it locked!

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