Mobile World Congress

Second wave of Windows Phone 7 devices coming at Mobile World Congress

December 16, 2010 | By David Gatti

china-director-speech-was-confidential This is according to Digitimes’s unnamed sources at least, who are expecting a new set of handsets running Windows Phone 7, including the Asus E600.

The source also confirmed that support for Chinese localization for Windows Phone 7 will have to wait till the second part of 2011, with Microsoft trying to rope in Lenovo, Huawei Technologies and ZTE.

Lending further support to this is this tweet by shinji koshikiawa, the Mobile Business Lead of Microsoft Japan, who complains:

(Microsoft) China is in trouble. Executives’ speech often makes the headlines even if they preface it is "strictly confidential".

The tweet appears to relate to a speech by Yang Tianyang, Microsoft’s Greater China director, regarding both late 2011 support for Chinese Windows phone 7 and also the “Mango” update which will bring Windows Phone 7 up to version 7.5.

Thanks Tezawaly from nanopho.jp for the tip.

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Microsoft directly confirms Windows Mobile 7 for Mobile World Congress

January 29, 2010 | By Surur

Microsoft has been extremely cagy about Windows Mobile 7, preferring to always couch statements about it in vague terms such as their favourite, “the next generation of our mobile OS”.

Clearly no-one told Peter Klein, CFO of Microsoft that, as he came out and responded directly to a Windows Mobile 7 question in this Fox news interview.

Fox News: “Are we going to see Windows 7 Mobile come out in 2010? What is your plans for that?”

Peter Klein: “We are heads down working on Windows Mobile 7 and we will have much more to say about that at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February.”

There we have it. Let any speculation about whether Windows Mobile 7 will be discussed at Mobile World Congress end now.

Check the video at the 4 minute mark to hear this in person above.

For all our Windows Mobile 7 coverage follow up at twitter.com/wmpoweruser.

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Official Microsoft press event at Mobile World Congress announced, we will be there!

January 21, 2010 | By Surur

We do not have any more details yet, but Microsoft has made their (annual) press event at Mobile World Congress official.

The event will be held at on Monday, February 15, 2010, at 15:00-16:00 Central European Time at the Conference Garden Room, Catalonia Barcelona Plaza Hotel , Plaza Espana 6-8, 08014 Barcelona .

That translates into:

	Local Time
Los_Angeles	06:00:00 15-Feb-2010
New_York	09:00:00 15-Feb-2010
Berlin	15:00:00 15-Feb-2010
London	14:00:00 15-Feb-2010
Rome	15:00:00 15-Feb-2010

Due to the momentous announcements we expect WMPoweruser.com have made a special effort to get first hand coverage of the event, and we can now announce that we will be in attendance, and attempt to provide live streaming coverage of the event as it unfolds.

A safe bet for the announcement is improvements in Windows Mobile 6.5, but expectations are high for some showing of Windows Mobile 7, and possibly of new hardware the OS is intended to run on.

Follow us on twitter.com/wmpoweruser to stay up to date with this and other Windows Mobile news.

Via MSMobiles.com

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Garmin-Asus M10 with Windows Mobile 6.5.3 coming at Mobile World Congress

January 21, 2010 | By Surur

Pre-announcing things a bit, Garmin-Asus has told ZDNET that they expect to release 2-3 Windows Mobile handsets this year, including their first Windows Mobile 6.5.3 device, the Garmin Asus M10.

The M10 will feature a 3.5 inch WVGA resistive screen, 600 Mhz MSM7224 processor and 5 megapixel camera for around $400. Garmin-Asus will also be releasing Android units, but notes Windows Mobile still has a high acceptance factor, and that the latest iterations of Windows Mobile greatly improves finger friendliness.

Pictures are not yet available, but all should be revealed in less than 4 weeks at Mobile World Congress.

Windows Mobile 7 to be announced at Mobile World Congress, “sets the bar forward”

January 8, 2010 | By Surur

Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach has been talking about Windows Mobile 7 at a January 7 Financial Analyst Briefing at CES.

Bach said to expect in WM7 “things will be talked about at MWC.” and regarding the consumer-focussed OS he said:

“I’ve seen it and played with it,” (Windows Mobile 7 will) “set the bar forward not in (just) an evolutionary way.”

Bach further said Microsoft intends to step up its “go to market approach” so that it will be “more engaged” with its mobile OEMs. We know Microsoft has spoken a lot about speeding up the release cycle of both its OS’s and actual devices, reducing it from a common 2 years to as short as 6 months.

Mary Jo Foley, who reported on the discussion, believes Mobile World Congress will also see Microsoft announcing improvements to its My Phone service, which should integrate even more deeply with Windows Mobile phones, for example allowing ring tones to be changed directly from the web interface, applications and themes to be installed, and better integration with Windows Live and Live Mesh.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is between the 15th and 18th of February 2010 and will be held as usual in Barcelona.

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Windows Mobile powered netbook shown off

February 25, 2009 | By Surur

Still catching up with the less headline catching news from Mobile World Congress, this little bit is quite interesting.

At Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm showed of a Snapdragon-based netbook with a wide screen and large keyboard. The device, like all netbooks, is aimed at web browsing, document editing and displaying video, and besides WIFI features integrated HSDPA so you can stay connected to the Internet everywhere you go.

The device, like the Toshiba TG01, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at 1GHz CPU, has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3D graphics, XGA display, support for up to 12-megapixel cameras and DVB-H (mobile TV).

Apparently several netbook manufacturers are lining up to use the platform, so we should see products some time this year.

I imagine a product like this, in a very thin form factor and with GSM only connecting on demand, would have great battery life, and with an on-device application store concerns around software compatibility may be greatly alleviated.

Toshiba TG01 to “run a day under full operation” on 1000 mAh battery

February 22, 2009 | By Surur

Here is another Toshiba TG01 video from Mobile World Congress, this one showing more of the customization options.

The main new information from the video however is some information about the battery life of the new device.

In possibly the first statement regarding the battery life of the TG01, we learn that the device’s 1000 mAh battery will power the device to 11 days standby time and 5 hours talk time, with an 8 mAh current draw in standby.

This is comparable to the battery life of the 900 mAh European HTC Touch Diamond, with 4 hours talk time and 12 days standby time.

See the 5 minute video below.

Thanks Wishmaster for the tip.

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New 8 Megapixel G-smart smartphone unveiled

February 20, 2009 | By Surur

HTC’s Touch Diamond II is not the most exciting new device in the world. In fact a new Windows Mobile 6.5 device by Gigabyte, the GSmart S1204 may very well have it beat.

The GSmartS1204 is only 107 x 53 x 12.1 mm, it has a 528 MHz Qualcomm 7200A CPU, 3.1″ WVGA screen, HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, accelerometer and also TV-out, all powered by a respectable 1250 mAh battery.

The pièce de résistance however is the 8 megapixels camera, a first for Windows Mobile.

It is powered by Windows Mobile 6.5 and features Gigabyte’s Flash based SmartZoneUI.

Via MobileArsenal.com and Journaldegeek.com

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Windows Phone World Podcast 4 – Day 4 wrap-up

February 20, 2009 | By Surur

This is the fourth installment of our daily Mobile World Congress podcast, highlighting the Windows Mobile news streaming out of Barcelona at present, and also some news from elsewhere.

In this podcast we cover today’s Windows Mobile news, including the:

Download directly or subscribe to our podcast feed here or using iTunes here.

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Windows Phone World Podcast 3 – MWC day 3 wrap-up

February 18, 2009 | By Surur

This is the third installment of our daily Mobile World Congress podcast, highlighting the Windows Mobile news streaming out of Barcelona at present, and also some news from elsewhere.

In this podcast we cover today’s Windows Mobile news, including the:

Listen below or download directly or subscribe to our podcast feed here.

[audio:http://wmpoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/WinMo_World_003.mp3]

Download directly from here.

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TI’s capacitive screened Windows Mobile smartphone caught on video

February 18, 2009 | By Surur

Texas Instruments’ capacitive screen smartphone prototype has been caught on video. Engadget complains that the interface is still far from smooth, but TI has said they intend to rectify this before releasing the product, which is more of an evaluation board, onto the market.

First Touch Pro 2 stolen

February 18, 2009 | By Surur

The device has not even been released yet, but a HTC Touch Pro running Windows Mobile 6.5 has already been stolen from the pocket of Telstra boss Sol Trujillo, who was attending Mobile World Congress and was apparently trying the device out.

In a way this is probably good news, as it does indicate to our Australian readers that the device is being tested for their market.

Analysts expressed concern that Microsoft’s trade secrets may be lost.

“What if news of those bugs is released early before a final version goes on sale. Those sorts of things could affect the shares of Microsoft,” industrial espionage expert Les Goldsmith said.

Of course regular readers of this site will know Microsoft is a notoriously leaky boat, and the OS in its various versions has already seen wide circulation.

Read the full article at News.com.au here.

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Armageddon – Windows Mobile 6.5 on a capacitive screen spotted!

February 18, 2009 | By Surur

(click for larger versions)

WMExperts has been scouring the MWC floors looking for Windows Mobile news and came up with this doozy.

Texas Instruments has been showing of their reference design for their new TI OMAP 3430 processor, and the device is pretty packed, with a 4.1 inch 800×480 screen, 6-in-1 cards slow, HDMI out (!) and also, surprisingly, a capacitive touch screen.

According the WMExperts in use it was still a bit hit and miss, but this is likely because of the imprecise nature of the screen rather than anything to do with the OS. Hopefully this will put paid to the various rumours than Windows Mobile and capacitive screens will never meet.

Texas Instrument’s device is no slouch either, supporting as mentioned about HDMI HD output, which was demoed for the WMExperts team live.

Read more about their impressions of the device, chip and Windows Mobile 6.5 over at WMExperts.com.

Thanks Dieter for the tip.

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