[Ben]

Trusted Reviews (http://www.trustedreviews.com/) are one of the many that will be following 3GSM this year. While I suspect the many new handsets we're about to see will appear all over the forum, feel free to post any commentry on the event here!

A little writeup from the 13th is available here: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2483

Bring on the 3G!

[3GScottishUser]

Follow the link below to some pics from the 3GSM show in Barcelona.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4711888.stm

[Ben]

Further details of Nokia and Sony Ericsson's unfurlings are available here: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2489

Has anyone noticed that Sony Ericsson's design seems to have gone a little bit weird? They're definitely off the ball. Meanwhile that gorgeous Nokia flip, 2G though it may be, with WiFi and UMA is going to cause quite a stir with the operators!

[getti]

I was due to go this year but canceled as it was about £400 to get in for the whole event.

Little did i know i could have got a free press pass and only pay for my hotel and flight so i could be sitting in a hotel room in Barcelona right now!.

Really wanted to go too so i could have seen HPDPA and all the new stuff :(

[Ben]

Luckily there's plenty of sites covering 3GSM this year, even the BBC seems to have picked it up, so all that's left for us to do is discuss.

I must say, so far it's not looking a patch on last years. The announcements have been somewhat thin on the ground thus far, with the most revolutionary probably being the W950i due to it's 4GB of flash memory.

We do now have a BenQ Siemens EF91, a compact looking clam with a 3.2mp camera and HSDPA, while Fujitsu Siemens adds another 3G Windows Mobile device in the LOOX T series. There's also a 1" 12GB HDD on show from Seagate that we may find in our mobile devices before too long.

[maxspank]

The only nice model (in looks) was the last pic of the sony erricson, looks like it'll be just the same as the first 3g models, packed with features first, then working on the looks in the later models.

[Ben]

A nice little summary from TR:

"In sum, unlike 3GSM 2005 (which was almost entirely about the hardware innovations inside each handset), 3GSM 2006 has excited most when discussing the changes to voice and content delivery. From the Samsung’s decision to throw the SGH-Z560 completely behind HSDPA, to Nokia’s hearty backing of UMA and Hutchison’s brave move to embrace VoIP, manufactures and telcos are talking less about fluff (megapixels and file formats) and more about how to put cash back into your pocket.

Sure, there have been some awesome handsets out there too – notably the Samsung SGH-i320 (which wins my award for phone of the show), the Z710, the SE W950i, HTC/T-Mobile/Orange horizontally sliding smartphone and more – but they seem superficial compared to the deep seated changes now going on with networks globally.

For while 3GSM 2005 gave us brighter and shinier devices to use on a flawed and highly expensive infrastructure, 2006 saw the first moves to knock that infrastructure down. The tide turns here my friends, you mark my words… "

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2498