The show took place at the Fira de Barcelona (basically, a convention center) on the city's busy Placa de Espana. Venetian-style towers mark the entrance to the show grounds.
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A scenic site
Montjuic, a huge park and site of the 1992 Olympics, stands above the Fira. The domed building at the top of the hill is the Palau Nacional, which houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.
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Cavernous Hall 8 was just one of the buildings that housed the GSMA. Yet, it was probably the most crowded, since it had most of the major manufacturer's booths. The natural light is a nice touch.
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What's on a Sony Ericsson?
Sony Ericsson's booth had a massive wall of TVs.
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Choose your color
The W908, which debuted at the 2008 GSMA World Congress, was on display in several designs and colors.
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A sign of Samsung
The Samsung booth sat in the middle of Hall 8. Besides plastering its booth with photos of its new phones, the company posted advertisements all over town.
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Nokia packs them in
Nokia's constantly crowded booth was a big draw.
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New at Nokia
A long gallery held examples of Nokia's new handsets and cell phone speakers.
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Looking at LG
LG's booth housed its new Arena phone and several other high-end models.
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A conversation piece
The LG GD900 concept phone offers a transparent keypad.
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Naturally, the RIM BlackBerry booth held its Storm touch-screen phone.
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ZTE Pure
A highlight of GSMA is seeing the fancy phones, like the ZTE Pure, that will never make it to the United States. The only bad thing is that they're often secured in glass cases.
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You'll never get these
Speaking of phones that will never land Stateside, the NTT DoCoMo booth had a gallery of quirky Japanese handsets.
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Hot at HTC
You could catch the full line of HTC smartphones at booth.
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T-Mobile had its own pavilion with a terrace, bar, and lounge.
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T-Mobile phones
T-Mobile's phone gallery had several models that were announced in Barcelona. From left to right are the RIM BlackBerry Bold 900, The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, the LG K900, the Sony Ericsson W995 and variants of the Samsung Beat DJ and Samsung Beat Disc.