New mobiles from the MWC 2008 show

As each year, the Mobile World Congress (previously titles 3GSM) provides us with a look at the coming trends in the field of mobile telephony; services, content and mobile networks  for the coming year and strategic decisions for the two or three years after that.

This professional show that we attended over four days brings together all major players from all levels (1700 exhibitors this year, against 1200 last year) in the mobile phone sector, showing off a number of tendencies.

Advances made to the WiMAX network and 3G LTE, major services present in new mobiles, professional and general public services that allow you to better use mobile networks, all representatives can be approached and questioned for these few days.

Due to the increasing number of people attending, it is becoming impossible to cover all new features that are being released at the show. We have therefore concentrated on the most visible aspect, the handsets that have been announced by the major makers at the show.

This allows you to get an idea of the “state of the art” releases, along with the number of other faces of mobility, putting technology to the front with content access modes and new uses.

For the Mobile World Congress 2008, two tendencies marked us, being underlined by the new mobiles: the first was the wide presence of GPS functions in handsets, no longer restricted to top of the line models, allowing the developer new uses through the network. The second is the increased use of touch screens, also now being seen in general public handsets and not just top of the line offerings.

But even if the touch screen offers undeniable interactivity that should seduce a large number of the general public, it shouldn’t be considered the be all and end all. Instead, keeping an alphanumeric keyboard in conjunction with the touch screen is of more use for the end user.

These evolutions are detailed in this article on the Mobile World Congress 2008.