Smartphones

It's the first day of the GSMA World Congress and the big players are already battling it out to steal the show. Nokia was one of the first companies out of the gate when it announced four new devices at a 10am press conference on Monday morning (that's just 1am for you West Coast folks). We've wrapped all the announcements up into a Nokia GSMA slide show.

Of the new phones, two are additions to the company's N-series line. The Nokia N96 is an update to the Nokia N95 and the Nokia N78 offers a raft … Read more

It's no surprise that at GSMA we're seeing a lot of cool things. Since the show is geared toward the worldwide market (Europe in particular), the phones on display are a lot more exciting than the usual sort we see at home. But on the other hand, there's no guarantee that any of the devices will come to North America. Drool as we may, we're also green with envy.

Take, for example, the Nokia N96. As a slicker, stronger update to the already powerful Nokia N95, the N96 has just about every feature you could want … Read more

Update: 10:25 p.m. with photo, more details

Handset maker Sony Ericsson is announcing plans for its first Windows Mobile device, a move aimed at boosting the company's presence in the North American smartphone market.

The first product is a business-oriented phone with a QWERTY keyboard, but a family of devices is expected. Over time, Microsoft hopes Sony Ericsson will leverage its camera and music expertise to help build more consumer-oriented devices.

"They've really got some great consumer brands that we'd love to partner with and bring to Windows Mobile," Microsoft Vice President Pieter … Read more

As the GSMA World Congress begins, Sony Ericsson has proven again that it can surprise us. While we expected that it would spend much of its time in Barcelona concentrating on its strong points, like a new Walkman phone, it instead introduced a completely new cell phone line with its G700 and G900.

Designed as "touch-screen organizers with a broad appeal," the G700 and G900 are Symbian smartphones that are designed a busy, on-the-go audience. The company said it was trying to snag a new segment of customers with the two handsets, and from I can tell, it … Read more

ARM plans to demonstrate prototype phones based on ARM processors and Google's Android operating system next week, possibly paving the way for the chip designer to join Google's Open Handset Alliance.

It won't be the first Android prototype to get a public airing, but this one will come on one of the biggest stages of the year for the mobile-phone industry. An ARM representative distributed invitations Wednesday to come see and play with the Android prototypes next week in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.

ARM's technology is found at the heart of almost every mobile … Read more

On February 11, thousands from around the world will converge in Barcelona, Spain, for the annual GSMA Mobile World Congress (formerly known as the 3GSM Mobile World Congress). The four-day show brings together the cell phone industry to discuss and showcase the latest GSM technologies and developments. This year Senior Editor Kent German and I, along with CNET News.com's Maggie Reardon, CNET UK's Andrew Lim, and CNET TV's Ariel Nunez, have the fortune of traveling to Barcelona to cover the show so that we can bring you the latest news through blogs, pictures, and videos.

What … Read more

Just when you've gotten to the point where you can type on your BlackBerry upside down in the dark, they're thinking about changing the keyboard.

A patent application filed on behalf of Research in Motion was recently revealed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and it describes an "angular keyboard" where the keys are set at a 45-degree angle to the base of the unit.

Anybody who has spent hours dashing off e-mails on a BlackBerry would have to learn a whole method of text input, but the payoff might be felt in the … Read more

Palm reported sharp declines in revenue and earnings on Tuesday, as expected, but demand for its Centro smartphone is outpacing the company's ability to supply its carrier partners, according to executives.

We already knew that Palm's second-fiscal quarter, which ended November 30, was going to be a bad one. In fact, Palm has been laying off employees this month as a result of the earnings shortfall. The company confirmed the ugly numbers: It lost $9.6 million, or 9 cents a share, and revenue fell 11 percent to $349.6 million.

CEO Ed Colligan revealed that the mystery … Read more

It's not going to be a happy holiday season for Palm employees.

The company issued a statement after the close of the market Thursday warning that revenue for its second fiscal quarter would be about $30 million less than it had predicted. In addition, its gross margin is expected to be about four points lower. It's just the latest item of bad news from a company that can't wait for 2007 to end.

The reasons? Palm failed to qualify "a product that the company had previously expected to have certified within the quarter," it said … Read more