Things to Watch for at MWC 2009

The dust from CES 2009 has hardly settled and we are already coming up on the next big technology showcase, this time for mobile phones and broadband devices. Mobile World Congress 2009 kicks off this month and runs from February 16th to 19th in Barcelona, Spain.

Each year some of the most interesting mobile devices show up first at this show and 2009 will be no exception. There are several things we can watch out for that should be debuting at the show and a number of rumors about products that we could see.

One of the devices we know will be turning up for the first time at the event is Acer's first entry into the smartphone market. There are few pieces of information about the Acer smartphones so at this time we don’t know if the handsets will be running Android or Windows Mobile. My money is on Windows Mobile considering the relationship between Acer's computer arm and Microsoft.

Rumors also point to Acer launching the obligatory iPhone-like touchscreen smartphone. An image of one of the Acer smartphones floating around honestly looks like a dud. It has a weird rotating keypad and just doesn't look very nice to me. Perhaps the real thing will be more attractive.

LG has been rumored to be preparing a Google Android based handset to set loose on the market in early 2009. Well this is early 2009 and the time to unveil the device would be at Mobile World congress for sure. Don’t be surprised if LG whips out an Android device. In fact, I suspect that we may see multiple Android powered handsets coming from several phone makers at the show.

One of the most interesting rumors for MWC is that Adobe may be showing up (FINALLY!) with a working flash player for the iPhone. Adobe and Apple have been working together to build a flash player for the iPhone. The firms say that there were technical issues that required close ties between the two to bring Flash to the iPhone. The rumor is that Adobe will be announcing partnership news at the show; we are all hoping it’s the iPhone flash player. This is one of the huge chinks in the iPhone armor and MWC would be the place to announce Flash.

Other interesting things that we expect to come from MWC is the NVIDIA Tegra system that will power some next generation smartphones. The Tegra system is expected to debut in a new Windows Mobile smartphone, whether or not that debut will be at MWC 2009 remains to be seen. It could be that the first use of Tegra will be in the long rumored Zune Phone that Microsoft is sure to be working on.

One new platform we are sure to see at MWC is the Toshiba TG01, which has already been unveiled. The device looks cool and offers a new 1GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm. The phone has a big 4.1-inch touchscreen and many other features that will make iPhone users envious.

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