Mobile World Congress Day 1 recap: Nokia Ovi Store, LG GD900, Arena, Windows Mobile 6.5, Samsung OmniaHD

Here is a recap of the top news story on this the first day of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona:

Nokia announced 4 new phones and the Ovi App store which will be available in March for publishers to upload content and on the N97 when it comes out in June. There are two new E-series devices: Nokia E75 and Nokia E55 with revamped email interface. The Navigator series got two more devices too: Nokia 6710 Navigator, and the Nokia 6720 classic. As the name suggest the 6710 Navigator is GPS centric device while the 6720 classic has advanced noice cancellation and form factor designed to fit around the face. Nokia, in an unusual move, announced its N86 phone far from the action in Singapore. This 8Mpxl camera phone is an update to the to-be-launched N97 with similar form factor and dual-sliders.

LG and Microsoft announced a partnership wherein LG will launch 50 new Windows Mobile based phones by 2012. I am sure a lot of these phones will see the S-Class treatment which we saw in LG Arena (also announced today with March availability in Europe). LG also announced the GD900 which has a transparent keypad slider with a very thin, 13.4″ thick casing, and have 7.2 Mbps HSDPA.

Speaking of Microsoft, it also announced the availability of Windows Mobile 6.5 with its honeycomb home screen; MyPhone, its cloud-based backup solution; Recite, the voice memo organization tool; and its own marketplace called Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which will be available on all phones running WinMo 6.5 and above.

Finally, Samsung had the best news of all: the new OmniaHD (review here), its Symbian S60 OS-based,12.7mm thin beauty with a huge 3.7″ glass AMOLED touchscreen display, an 8 Mpxl camera that shoots 720p video, HD video out, video calling, Wi-Fi, GPS and 8 to 16GB internal storage plus microSDHC support with aluminum body. It also announced the BeatDJ (see video review) with Bang & Olufson audio, 3 megapixel camera, DivX support, a 2.8″ AMOLED touchscreen and DJ features which allows the user to record tracks, scratch and add effects.

[Via Boy Genius Report, Engadget Mobile, Mobile Review, UnwiredView]

LG to release its media Arena soon

According to leaked photos and specs, LG is set to announce its first touchscreen media phone with an updated UI that looks very much like the iPhone UI. The phone called LG Arena comes with 5Mpxl camera with DVD quality video recording, DivX playback, WiFi, and built-in GPS. The phone will launch in Europe in March with possible announcement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in two weeks.

[Via UnwiredView]