Inside Vodafone Land

Just to tease myself I stepped into the Vodafone pavilion at the GSMA World Congress. I knew I'd come out with pangs of jealousy, but it's important to see what the rest of the world's carriers are up to. The pavilion is certainly impressive enough by itself. Set out in a plaza between two show buildings, it's a two-story, glass-walled affair. Inside there's the usual reception desk and meeting areas, but there's also a wall of phones that Vodafone carries. Though quite a of the few handsets were no different from what we get in the United States, there also were some models that we're just hoping to get stateside. And best of all, they were attached to the wall only by magnets so I could get up close and personal.

I spied the Nokia 5310 and the Samsung F700. Both phones have been around for some time now, but there's still no sign they'll make it to a U.S. carrier. I also got to fondle the eye-catching Samsung P110. Introduced at last year's show, the SGH-P110 has a unique design that features a multiway hinge that both swivels and slips open. The result is a bit of a Frankenphone, but you can't argue that it's a striking concept. It also has a full keyboard that partially shares space with the standard numeric keys. We saw something similar to this in 2005 with Cingular's Samsung SGH-D307, but then we weren't too impressed the result. But Samsung redeemed itself last year with Verizon's SCH-U740, so we'd be willing to give them another chance. So thank you, Vodafone, for a nice visit.