Alcatel may be better known for budget devices, but the company has obviously decided that cheap needn’t mean basic. Two new handsets - one a full touchscreen and the other with a QWERTY keyboard – have been spotted, in the shape of the Alcatel OT-707 and the Alcatel OT-800. Neither will tempt harried execs away from their iPhone 3G or BlackBerry, but they’ll likely find a warmer welcome in the budget section.
Unsurprisingly we’ve been Mobile World Congress obsessed this week, with myself and Vincent jetting off to vaguely-sunny Barcelona to see what’s new in the world of mobile devices. Whether a sign of a tighter consumer purse or a slowing in development, there were fewer big-hit devices than perhaps we expected, but Palm still made a strong showing with their Pre, while HTC caused ripples with both the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 as well as the Android-based Magic.
It was at Intel’s booth rather than Samsung’s at Mobile World Congress where we got our hands on the Samsung SWD-M100 Mobile Internet Device, and while the unit they had to play with was mysteriously non-functional, the hardware is certainly promising. Hidden behind a 4.3-inch touchscreen there’s a full slide-down QWERTY keyboard, together with WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 and – its crowning glory – WiMAX.
Check out our hands-on video with the Samsung SWD-M100 MID after the cut
After my brief hands-on with the UMID M1 mobile internet device at the start of the week, and coming away not entirely convinced by its keyboard or OS, we stopped back to see the MID again and test out just how suitable the keyboard is for thumb-typing. The good news is, a combination of two-handed use and the standard Windows XP scheme make this ultraportable a whole lot more tempting a prospect: check out the second hands-on video after the cut.
Video and more images of the UMID M1 after the cut
LG officially debuted their touchscreen Arena KM900 at Mobile World Congress this week, a touchscreen feature-phone with a 3-inch WVGA display, 3G HSDPA supporting up to 7.2Mbps, WiFi, A-GPS and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with the ability to capture DVD-quality video. The LG Arena KM900 also introduces the company’s new 3D S-Class User Interface – you can see it demonstrated in the video after the cut – which blends icons, task-specific controls inspired by standalone devices (e.g. the digital camera has the control wheel you might associate with a dedicated digicam; it also has manual autofocus settings) and gestures.
If you’ve not been keeping up with our sibling site Pre Community, you might not know that we shot a full 26-minute demo video of the Palm Pre at Mobile World Congress. All the main functionality is covered: calendar, mail, Synergy synchronisation with Exchange, GMail and Facebook, and more.
26 minute Palm Pre video demo after the cut!
We caught up with Samsung’s flagship Omnia HD handset at Mobile World Congress this week, and there’s certainly a lot to be said for an AMOLED touchscreen rocking in at 3.7-inches and an 8.1-megapixel camera. In the hand, the Omnia HD almost feels like a small MID; the display is responsive and incredibly bright, and the sliding pane-based GUI animates smoothly. TouchWiz is an acquired taste, but at least there’s plenty of room for the new internet-connected widgets.
Samsung Omnia HD video after the cut
In the second of our HTC Touch hands-on pieces, we’re looking at the HTC Touch Pro2. SlashGear met up with HTC’s Dave Catt and Eric Lin at Mobile World Congress today, to find out exactly what makes this QWERTY flagship so impressive. After the cut, the fruits of our interview, a huge hands-on gallery and, as soon as it’s processed, live video of the HTC Touch Pro2.
Update: Video now added – and in HD!
At a Mobile World Congress where headline-devices have been relatively sparse, HTC have done themselves proud with not only their second Android device, the HTC Magic, but two new Windows Mobile handsets that already look to be best of breed. SlashGear sat down with HTC’s Dave Catt and Eric Lin to discuss both the Touch Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2; in the first of two articles, we have hands-on feedback and a huge image gallery of the HTC Touch Diamond2, plus a video.
Update: Video now added – in HD!
Google’s Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering at the search giant, this morning demonstrated an offline version of the GMail web-app. Right now it’s a technical concept, but what it means for developers is that any browser compliant with HTML5 standards – for instance the webkit browser engine which the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android platform browsers are all based on – will be able to support the technology, but also that developers can code a single offline webapp for any HTML5 compliant device.
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