In the words of Howard Beale, I'm mad at all the MWC coverage and I've had enough. With Rafe still replacing fluids via the healing power of Lucozade, and Steve off to help ailing family and leaving me the keys to the CMS for the weekend, I might just let off a little humorous steam about the pointlessness of the Mobile World Congress.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic may not be a S60 flagship, but it's selling well wherever it launches, apparently. S60 celeb Sittiphol (the Mobitubia guy) reports here in an illustrated post on the 5800's launch and sell-out in Thailand.
Rafe's still pounding the floor at MWC 2009, of course, but he took time with MIR's Ben Smith yesterday to give his opinions of Nokia's latest camera flagship, the N86 8MP, in great detail. Below the break is the full six minute video interview, enjoy.
Ovi Store has been announced, and many people just saw another smartphone applications shop. But it's actually a lot more than that, and its launch could be the most significant thing Nokia has done since entering the mobile phone business, or so reckons Tzer2 in an All About Symbian editorial.
With so much news flowing through this front page over the last 72 hours, I thought a brief link summary might be in order. Sony Ericsson went first, with their display of their early prototype 12mp, S60 5th Edition Idou. Then we had Nokia's main keynote, introducing the S60 3rd Edition Nokia E55 and side-sliding E75, plus the Ovi Store. They also quietly dropped the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. Samsung chipped in next with their launch of the Omnia HD, running S60 5th Edition and with 3.7" OLED screen and 8mp camera. Nokia then showed off the new N86 8MP at a breakfast launch, an N85 with significantly reworked camera. LG brought up the rear with their latest, the KT770, an otherwise unremarkable 3rd Edition slider.
Continuing to round up Mobile World Congress 2009, a few links of interest for Wednesday morning. Nokia Messaging just got itself an upgrade, with the return of Access point selection and a better experience for Yahoo! Mail users; well spotted Symbian's William, showing a veritable wall of Samsung Omnia HD phones all waiting to be carted off to AAS for review(!); plus our own Rafe has been busy overnight, see the live link above for his own photos and thoughts on the new phones announced; finally, Rafe was cornered by the chatty MIR team at the show and asked for his thoughts so far.
Nokia and Skype have announced plans to fully integrate Skype into selected Nokia devices. Kicking off with the Nokia N97, Skype will be part of Contacts, enabling users to easily see when their Skype contacts are online, to call and to chat using a data connection. Other selected Nseries devices are also likely to come with integrated Skype functionality, through initial inclusion and through firmware upgrades.
While the Symbian ecosystem has been making a lot of noise at the Mobile World Congress, most of the rest of the mobile industry has also been making its own wave. Ewan takes a little look around the other highlights coming out of Barcelona. Read on...
Nokia has now officially announced the N86 8MP, its latest imaging champion, with 'SLR-like optics'. The N86 8MP features an 8 megapixel camera with variable aperture, large sensor and mechanical shutter. The device has plenty of metal detailing, a N96-like kickstand for video watching, AMOLED screen, N-Gage compatibility, 'scratch resistant' glass, GPS, Compass and the usual S60 connectivity specs. More details, photos and high-quality video below, plus hands-on time through the morning.
Not launched from the stage but merely leaked out by press releases were the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. The first features pre-licensed Nokia Maps (of course), a dedicated navigator key, plus a 'touch area for easy zooming'. The 6720 Classic is a candy bar design and its innovation is 'active noise cancellation' for voice calls, a S60 first. Both devices have the usual 5mp camera and S60 spec level, including TV out. More details and photos below.
Possibly the most leaked (not by us, though) Nokia smartphone ever, the E75 finally got official just now after being introduced on stage at MWC, priced at 375 Euros. Billed as the best messaging smartphone ever and a direct descendant of the 9300i, the E75 has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard beneath a standard Eseries frontplate. Official images, videos, comment and details below.
Sony Ericsson has just unveiled 'Idou', a 'concept' Symbian Foundation Platform phone with a 12.1 megapixel camera, Xenon flash and 16:9 aspect ratio, 3.5" touchscreen. The Idou will go on to become a device, but it is considered a concept because it is at an early stage in its development. Sony Ericsson will release more details, and a launch date in the summer. Read on for more details and our first hands-on impressions.
Someone in Barcelona will be going round all the stands at this years Mobile World Congress (starting on Monday) to see how big the displays are, how much floorspace is being used by each company, how large are the parties... in short, how much money has a company spent on their presence at MWC?
On the Nseries Innovation News Desk, an official blog on Nokia's Nseries.com website, there's a teaser post with a photo taken by a Nokia device. Closer examination reveals that the image is 2448 x 3264 pixels, that's around 8 megapixels, suggesting that Nokia will be releasing a new Nseries device at MWC with an 8 megapixel camera. We'll have to wait until Monday to find out more though.
The Nokia 5800 is to make its debut in Singapore soon with Nokia's all-you-can-eat "Comes With Music" service built-in, which allows unlimited downloads from the Nokia Music Store for one year. In related news, the Nokia Music Store has just opened up branches in Switzerland and in Austria. The Nokia Music Store is now available in 15 countries.
