Last, but definitely not least, is the news from LG, who, although without as much fanfare as Nokia will achieve, have made a number of key announcements, including statements over their plans for the next year within the mobile space…

Firstly, as we have already covered, they have announced the LG Arena, which will take over from the LG Renoir as their lead phone.  This features the new 3D menu layout and UI, which is also said to be a lot faster than their current UI, and they seem to have made good use of this new interface and the 480 x 800 3″ touchscreen; for example, in the image gallery, if you move the phone from vertical to horizontal, it will make the photos cascade off the screen, and then reappear bigger.  Sliding a finger from top to bottom will show photos taken on different days, whereas sliding left to right scrolls through the pictures taken on the same day.  They’ve also used similar functionality in the Tactile Analogue Alarm Clock and Radio Tuner, where you get the sensation of moving the hands, or turning the dial.

More information in the rest of the article…

As with the LG Renoir, Dolby Mobile and DivX support are included in this phone, and a builtin FM transmitter allows you to transmit that stereo sound to your home or car stereo.  The 5 megapixel camera can store data to either the internal 8GB of memory, or to microSD (support up to 32GB), and the phone will come in either silver or black titanium metal body, measuring 105.9 x 55.3 x 11.95mm. weighing 105g, and featuring a 1000mAh battery.  Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS are all included, as is a 3.5mm audio jack too.

If you want to see more of the new S-Class UI that features in the LG Arena, then watch this video from LG:

LG also launched the first transparent mobile, the LG-GD900 (below), which is a designer phone, offering a crystal glass-like keypad which, when slid open, illuminates with a “cool glow that reflects the phone’s sleek and polished silver body”.  We like the look of this phone, and expect it to be a popular model for LG when it goes on sale in Q2 (more technical specs will be made available closer to that time).

LG also showcased their 3G Watch Phone, which features a fully functioning phone in a watch!  Yet it does not compromise technology; it includes HSDPA support, and can provide video calls via the builtin camera.  The 1.43″ touchscreen can be used to help the wearer send and receive texts, making phone calls, and of course, to tell the time!  The Watch Phone support voice recognition technology which can be used with or without a Bluetooth Headset for placing calls or looking up contacts, as well as TTS (Text to Speech) support can read text messages and other information out for convenience.  The phone support stereo Bluetooth, and even has a speaker for playing back music.

In other news, LG announced that they will concentrate on Windows Mobile as their key OS for smartphones, but they also mentioned they will release an Android phone by June, and two more before the end of the year.  They talked about over 50 phones to be launched over the next 12 months.

On top of all of that, they even launched a new S60 phone, and it even features a native Facebook application (although whether this is unique to LG, or due to appear on other Symbian phones we don’t know).  The LG KT-770 is 111 x 51.5 x 15.8 mm, and features a 2.8″ 400 x 240 non-touchscreen display, with the phone running S60 3rd Edition FP2.  The phone will come with 1 or 2GB of internal memory, with microSD support, GPS and a 5 megapixel camera.

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