O2’s flame to fame

O2 showcased its day flame at the event. Its wide 3.6 inch VGA display caught our eye at once. Knowing that the device has been equipped with an NVIDIA Go force chip, we expected it to have a superior graphics quality. And we were not disappointed after we switched it on for a first hand experience. The graphics are meme rising and the Flame would be a boon for mobile gaming enthusiasts (thanks to the large display). The handheld supports TV out support as well and we are sure people wouldn’t mind watching TV and movies on the wide screen.

Other features include 3G support, extendable memory up to 2GB and a 2 megapixel camera. Apart from the flame, the Xda Atom Life was also put up on display at the exposition.

The juiciest Berry

There was no way Research in Motion could have escaped the race for being slim. At the 3GSM World Congress, they launched what they are claiming to be their slimmest Smartphone-the BlackBerry 8800. The quad-band device is slim only in terms of the literal width. It packs in a wide array of features like GPA (including BlackBerry maps), noise cancellation, speaker and independent voice recognition for voice activated dialing. Other features include multimedia support for voice and data applications like e-mail and text messaging.

The device has a QVGA display along with a built-in light sensing technology that automatically adjusts the brightness. The famous trackball navigation brings with it the ease of navigation.

Slimmer than the slimmest

Samsung’s Ultra Edition I series devices that were launched in India in 2006, took the market by a storm. The devices defied the 10mm benchmark of cell phones. For the uninitiated, the 10mm bench meant that it was not possible to include many features in a waistline as thin as 10mm. Beaming with pride at the success of I its Ultra Edition I series, Samsung showcased of its Ultra Edition ill series at the exposition. Comprising four handsets-SGHU600 and SGH U700 (sliders), SGH U300 (a clamshell) and the SGH U100 (a candy bar the series has it all. With a waistline of 5.9mm, the Samsung U100 is the kind of features that it has. The tri-band EDGE enabled device sports a 3.2 megapixel camera.

Further to Samsung’s partnership with Yahoo! The handset also packs in the Yahoo’s search engine and its instant messenger. Other features like uGo, uMenu, utrack and A2DP profile for Bluetooth are also packed in the slim form factor.

Beyond Music

Though the N918GB has been developed keeping music as the core element, the telephony aspect hasn’t been ignored. It is a 3G device and also boasts of Wi-Fi connectivity, which is rarely provided on a music phone. The 2 megapixel camera is decent though we have seen better onboard cameras. The battery backup is impressive and it managed to see us through two days with around two hours of internet browsing and almost four hours of music playback.

However, keeping the Bluetooth turned on and using a pair of stereo Bluetooth turned headsets to listen to music cuts the backup by half, which is understandable.

The N91 8GB would score over Sony Ericsson’s W950i in terms of its internal memory and onboard camera.