Mobile World Congress 2008 - The Incremental Show

[slitchfield]

Mobile World Congress 2009 certainly hasn't been a washout - there have been announcements right, left and centre that are definitely of interest. But there haven't been any slam dunk launches that have got the whole show floor talking, argues Ewan. For those, you'll have to wait until MWC 2009...

Read on in the full article.

[Cjp]

so i wasnt the only one that thought something was missing then re my ns and es whatever post in the forum!

[Bassey]

Although it didn't warrant much of a mention on AAS I thought the story that DID get the whole show talking was the announcement by SE of a Windows Mobile phone - and a nice looking piece of kit too.

Personally, I don't think it's as significant as some are making out. As SE themselves have said, they are basically responding to feedback for the North American business sector. It isn't going to be a big seller. It won't be a major part of their portfolio. They just want a foothold in that market segment and their UIQ devices weren't doing it. They aren't even making it themselves.

But it did seem to be the announcement everyone was talking about.

I did actually comment before the show that I couldn't see where the "next big thing" was going to come from.

We've had hi res screens, we've had GPS, we've had touchscreeens, huge amounts of storage etc.

I can't really see what's left to add to a mobile phone? The FM transmitter thing looks like being quite useful but hardly a biggy. Maybe the smartphone world has finally matured and we are just going to see small, incremental improvements for a while, rather than huge leaps forward?

I also find funny how you guys managed to ignore the biggest news on the show - the SE X1, and this article is just another example.

You tend to talk alot of the iphone, although it also is not Symbian, and sometimes you mention some winmo devices. However, this time you choose to ignore completely something than can be so important in the smartphone world...

AAS is getting more and more biased everyday..... :(

[stuclark]

AAS is All About Symbian, not All-About-Symbian-and-Windows-Mobile-just-for-good-measure, so no, it's not being biased to not mention a phone which runs Windows.

Although, granted, the SE X1 probably was the biggest talking point of the show.

[Jay3gsm]

Mobile World Congress 2009 certainly hasn't been a washout

Should read 2008....

As for AAS being biased, I like a Symbian site to focus on Symbian phones

Yep, this site is very Nokia it must be all those free phones these dudes get. I agree the X1 looks nice even though it is really an HTC device. Nokia just churn out the same old song over and over. By the way I use a E51 and N82, just thought I would get this in before the storm. Having said that I do fancy a breath of fresh air. The N96, yet another rehash. As pointed out all will have to wait till 2009.

[Bassey]

I don't see why a Symbian site would report on a Windows Mobile device, even if it was the biggest news of the show. I was merely pointing out that, when it was mentioned that there wasn't one "big" story that this didn't seem entirely true as most tech websites seemed to have locked onto the launch of a WM device by SE.

Of course, I wasn't at Barcelona (dead jealous!) so it could be no-one THERE was talking about it. But that wasn't the impression from the outside.

I think that Femto cells were the big talk of the show ... After a lot of announcements, finally there were real products shipping real soon, and that means better indoor or company-wide 3G-coverage after all.

There is something to be said to refine a product before building another layer on it. Improved Li-On battery capacity is around the corner, hardware with HD-video support is already here, 3D graphics are established but mostly unused. Software design patterns to develop origami like user-interfacing exist. But time is needed to permeate all layers of a design and convert classical thinking into new directions. To turn a tentative approach into a desparate plunge to reach the other side first.

[slitchfield]

The Sony Ericsson may look sexy, but:

1) it wasn't THAT big a story in the grand scheme of things
2) it's largely a concept device, running a version of Windows Mobile that's not even finalised yet and with very little of the interface finished. It won't be in shops until at least 2009, you mark my words
3) as others have said, it's nothing whatsoever to do with the focus of this site 8-)

Steve

Please guys...AAS is talking about the iphone ALL THE TIME...its the iphone running Symbian???????

On other hand, does the fact that SE, the second biggest player in Symbian world after Nokia, decided to make a smartphone not with Symbian UIQ but with WM, not worth mention on AAS???

Cmon...what kind of news site is this??? Again...

And again...the freakin iphone is mentioned all over the place, even in this article...be SERIOUS

All the major news sites talked about the x1....it was on top of digg.com for sometime, etc...hardly a non-issue

[2more]

I can't see anything wowish in Sony-Ericsson X1...
IMHO some ppl are trying very hard to make it something its not.

[slitchfield]

Can't.... resist..... defending..... the site.......

8-)

The iPhone is the device that has shaken up the entire industry like it's never been shaken before. Which is why we often mention it in passing.

The Sony Ericsson X1 is a concept Windows Mobile device that only breaks ground because of who makes it. The Toshiba G900 has all the same features, and form factor. And had it a year ago. The X1's pretty, but not special.

[ajck]

The X1/XPeria is really nothing special technically, the only thing nice about it is the screen resolution and size which Nokia could learn from. Windows Mobile is a major drawback, being bloated, buggy, and inefficient. Just like all Microsoft's other software. So, it's got a qwerty keyboard, so what? The touch aspect is not WinMo, it's custom stuff Sony are building on top. All in all, Nokia will produce something much better, sooner. Still at least the X1 will keep Microsoft fanboys happy for a little while longer