Mwc2009 -- Engadget

Mwc2009 posts

Microsoft gets big support for Mobile Broadband enhancements in Windows 7

by Darren Murph posted Feb 24th 2009 at 5:43AM

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]

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

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 23rd 2009 at 1:00PM

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

LG shows off solar phone, battery cover at MWC

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 21st 2009 at 11:31AM

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.

Gallery: LG shows off solar phone, battery cover at MWC

Bye bye Barcelona and Mobile World Congress 2009

by Sean Cooper posted Feb 20th 2009 at 10:09PM

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

LG affirms that 12 megapixel cameraphone is in the works

by Darren Murph posted Feb 20th 2009 at 9:04AM

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]

Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 19th 2009 at 1:59PM

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.

Gallery: Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo

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

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

by Sean Cooper posted Feb 19th 2009 at 12:09PM

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.

Gallery: INQ wins "Best Mobile Handset or Device" at MWC, golf claps

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

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 19th 2009 at 6:16AM

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.

Gallery: Palm Pre's Touchstone charger requires matte, soft-touch back

Samsung's pricey wall of prototype OmniaHDs at MWC 2009

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 19th 2009 at 3:03AM

Alright, look, Samsung, this is excessive. All we want is one OmniaHD -- one, for cryin' out loud -- and here you go showing off your whole frickin' wall of 'em. We think the "!" shape these 3.7-inch OLEDs form is a particularly appropriate choice to represent the reaction the OmniaHD's display has garnered from passers-by this week.

Oh, and if you're curious, we count 97. Video after the break.

Continue reading Samsung's pricey wall of prototype OmniaHDs at MWC 2009

Samsung SCH-M830 hands-on

by Sean Cooper posted Feb 18th 2009 at 10:14PM

While perusing the Samsung booth for something fresh and fun we happened upon this, the Samsung SCH-M830. The M830 is a WiBro (mobile WiMax) and HSPA set, WiFI, Bluetooth, 3 megapixel camera, a 3.3-inch LCD, memory expansion with microSD, and runs Windows Mobile 6.1. The interface and all the UI elements were in Korean (see that Anycall branding? That's the hint) so if there were any special goodies in there we definitely didn't catch them. Impressions? It felt great and was really solid, but as to performance we can't add much there -- though just that big display had us smiling. Lovely gallery and a quick video flip-through follow the break.

Gallery: Samsung SCH-M830 hands-on

Continue reading Samsung SCH-M830 hands-on

MWC day three: return of the Jedi

by Nilay Patel posted Feb 18th 2009 at 9:03PM

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?

Continue reading MWC day three: return of the Jedi

Google demos HTML5-based Maps on the Palm Pre

by Nilay Patel posted Feb 18th 2009 at 8:32PM

Looks like offline Gmail on the iPhone wasn't the only trick Google's Vic Gondotra has up his sleeve during his talk at MWC -- he also gave a quick demo of Google Maps running as a web app on the Palm Pre. Of course, what's interesting there is that the Pre's HTML-based SDK means that web apps can act like first class citizens on the device -- which is probably why Vic called the Pre "arguably one of my favorite devices." Hopefully that means we're going to see a lot more Pre devs really blur the line between local and cloud-based applications, but for now we'll just settle for the short demo video after the break.

Continue reading Google demos HTML5-based Maps on the Palm Pre

Caption contest: the most depressing thing we've seen all day

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 18th 2009 at 8:01PM

We've seen many wonderful, exciting things at Mobile World Congress this year.

This isn't one of them.

Chris: "Listen, you (expletive), I'm only two months behind on the Easy Bake."
Darren: "Hawha? Iaowe u six five dolars? Huh? Moommiieeee!"
Josh: "It will be a $35 charge to reinstate service, and no, you can't have a cookie."
Richard: "How could I have sent that many SMS? I can't even read. Put your manager on."
Joe: "Is this what they mean by 'the future underwriting the present?'"
Jose: "Sshhhh! I'm talking to my marketing consultant - he loves the banner!"
Paul: "Sure, the hold times suck, but at least they play tunes from The Wiggles in the background."
Nilay: "I'm sorry, but they just haven't taught us the difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents in math class yet."

Google demos offline Gmail for iPhone, Android at MWC

by Jacob Schulman posted Feb 18th 2009 at 6:47PM

If you were thinking offline Gmail on your desktop was the greatest thing since sliced bread, prepare yourselves people. If an MWC keynote from Google's VP of engineering, Vic Gundotra, is any indication, the same functionality might be coming soon to an iPhone / Android phone near you. Amongst other things, the souped up web app boasts an overhauled interface, supports labels, and of course, offline access. Despite our own hunch that Google's just using black magic and voodoo to make this happen, Gundotra claims that it's all made possible through HTML5 standards -- AppCache being the biggie. This development certainly opens the doors to more offline-enabled web apps in the future -- Docs, anyone?. Of course, we know Apple has a thing about people messing with its own apps, so it's probably going to take some time / knee-breaking to get them to come around, but for some reason, we don't think it'll take as long with Android. There's a demo video available after the break, and please, try to contain yourselves.

Continue reading Google demos offline Gmail for iPhone, Android at MWC

NTT docomo and Sharp show projector phone at MWC

by Sean Cooper posted Feb 18th 2009 at 4:47PM

We had a brief peek at yest another pico projecting set at MWC, this time an NTT docomo Samsung affair without a name, price, or even a release date. Specs are as sketchy as these are usable in a brightly lit room, but the hopes are this device will be used for services like mobile TV, home theater (yeah, right), document editing, presentations, and video calling. We were enthused to see the mock ups (pictured above) of where the design of this device could go -- and we're hoping that by next year the bricks we've seen lately will be gone and sleek design will become the norm. We filmed a bit of it in action and honestly, we've seen TI's pico projector before and it doesn't seem to have changed significantly. Follow the link to see the media.