Mike Puchol

Barcelona Mobile World Congress first impressions

Today the 2009 Mobile World Congress got started in Barcelona. I was planning a couple of visits, but they got postponed at the last minute, so I went on a tour. Most impressive was the new iMate 810-F. This has to be the most rugged smartphone I have ever seen – with impressive specs, such as GPS, full QWERTY keyboard, QVGA display, a 624MHz CPU, 2Mpx camera, Bluetooth, and WiFi. And it also stands ketchup, salt, orange juice, and an array of crud and produce that was thrown at it live. Then, the demonstrator dropped the phone into a water bucket and washed it. He “rinsed” it by throwing it onto the stage, and he later faked tripping up and stepping on the phone. Finally, he picked it up and dropped it into a fish bowl while playing a video clip. In all, very impressive indeed. Yours for around $699, available in 3-4 weeks (got this straight from an iMate rep).

There wasn’t really anything else that caught my eye, other than the bigger stands being considerably more modest than years past, such as Motorola, Nokia, SonyEricsson, and other big players. They were also notably barren of any sort of freebie, not even leaflets! Congress tip for freebie hunters: go to Hall 2, the exhibitors there have tons of stuff.

If you are in Barcelona and want to grab a coffee, drop me a line in the comments.