SlashGear At Mobile World Congress 2009!

The SlashGear team are in Barcelona and we're ready to bring you all the top stories from Mobile World Congress 2009.  Although the last two weeks have been filled with leaks – Samsung, we're looking at you – and early announcements, we're still expecting a few interesting surprises.  Of course, we'll also be bringing you hands-on reports, exclusive video and photo galleries of all the biggest launches.

We know that Samsung will be bringing their new flagship feature-phone, the Samsung UltraTOUCH S8300 (aka Samsung Tocco Ultra), as well as a number of other devices, many of which use AMOLED display technology rather than the more traditional (and generally more power-hungry) LCD TFT screens.  LG, meanwhile, have their Arena KM900 – which is being heavily advertised across Barcelona – complete with its nifty new 3D GUI.

MWC 2009 predictions after the cut

What are we hoping to see?  Well, a GSM Palm Pre would be a welcome announcement, and we're keen to see which manufacturers bring Android-based devices now that Samsung have taken theirs off the agenda.  We've seen plenty of mock-ups and renders, but with the T-Mobile G1 still the only Android handset on the market, vendors need to step up if Google's boasts about its open-source OS aren't to fall flat.  We're also expecting at least one LTE (Long Term Evolution) announcement from a US carrier, discussing their next-gen rival to WiMAX.

Plenty on the agenda, and with just three days to pack it in you'll be seeing a whole lot of phone news on the SlashGear frontpage!  If there's anything you'd particularly like us to get around to, leave a comment – we can't promise to cover everything, but we'll certainly try to get to as much as we can.  You can follow all the Mobile World Congress news with the MWC 2009 tag.