Alcatel's not known for its high-end fare, and we wouldn't get our hopes up here, either -- in fact, the full touchscreen set is so low-end that there's nothing "full touchscreen" about it. As you can see here, the QVGA display on the OT-707 actually only takes up about three-quarters of the front, the remainder treated to a listless matte black plastic. Good news is it'll only run about 100 euros ($127), but you'll have to put up with GPRS -- yes, GPRS, not EDGE -- to use it. Moving one tiny rung down the luxury ladder at 95 euros, the OT-800 is a portrait QWERTY phone that'll be available in a variety of fun colors at launch; it seems that the keyboard's surprisingly usable, and the quadband EDGE radio means you could theoretically take it stateside if you were so inclined. No word on release dates or carriers, but these would make great prepaid offerings, wouldn't they?

None of these look particularly easy to use, but ZTE showed off some wild concept devices at Mobile World Congress this year. There were a couple of wristwatches in the mix that unbuckled to become USB modems, but our favorite has to be the "Xer," a handheld "inspired by family theater." It's not clear how you'd hold it effectively if you wanted to type on the QWERTY keyboard, but we suppose that's what makes it a concept instead of a production device. Also shown was the "Pure," featuring a "globoid keypad design" that looks only marginally more usable than the Xer -- or, as ZTE puts it, a "novel key-pressing experience." Click on for the full gallery.

Complementing TechFaith's and General Mobile's offerings, SIM Technology came to MWC with a very, very rough remix of its Windows Mobile-based U1 running Android. Before you blow it off, check it: you're getting quadband EDGE plus tri-band HSDPA, 3 megapixel primary and VGA secondary cams, AGPS, WiFi, TV-out, microSD expansion, and a 2.8-inch VGA display. Almost perfect on paper, isn't it? It's not the prettiest handset in the world, but if these guys are the first in town to come to market with a fully functional VGA Android device that works unlocked on North American bands, we know a few hundred dollars that are just waiting to find a good home. Right now, the device is strictly a proof of concept -- the touchscreen doesn't exactly "work" yet -- but we're sure they'll have something ready to ship shortly.

The big news out of General Mobile at MWC was that Touch Diamond-alike DSTL1 running Android and a pair of SIM slots, but to think that's all they brought to the table would be... well, downright foolhardy. For one, they brought along the pictured DST 250, a "Slider" and "Double SIM" mobile phone of the world, which may or may not cause your palms to sweat depending on how you hold it. They also brought along a couple Nokia Supernova knockoffs, an 8800 rip, and a few anonymous bars and sliders (or rather, "Sliders") that look ready to do battle in the tricky low-end market. Fortunately, they were located several halls away from Espoo's outpost, so the odds of a tussle were kept to a minimum.

Proving (as usual) that it's not too big for a little tit-for-tat with its crosstown rival, LG showed its own concept solar phone at MWC this week to match up with Samsung's Blue Earth. The prototype LG handset doesn't have a name -- takes a whole team of high-priced consultants to christen a product like that, we'd wager -- but we do know that the slider can eke 3 minutes' worth of life out of a 10-minute charge in natural light. The thing looks like it was thrown together in a week, but hey, as long as it works, we know LG can take care of the design side of things by the time production rolls around.

Here at MWC, the only cellphone maker to actually come forward with proof of a 12 megapixel phone was Sony Ericsson. Still, you know that everyone else is apt to follow suit as quickly as possible, and it seems that LG will be one of the first. In fact, said company "absolutely" has a 12 megapixeler in the works. That's according to Jeremy Newing, LG Mobile's head of marketing in the UK, who also proclaimed that the KS360 would be LG's first Android phone. In his words: "We'll very much be releasing a 12MP cameraphone. However, it's important that people realize when taking 12MP images, they'll be using huge amounts of data, and it will be more difficult to do things like send such files." Honestly, we're a bit tired of the megapixel race -- get an optical zoom onto a slim cellphone, and then we'll talk.

[Thanks, Jimb]

As with any trade show, flashy, high-end products have a tendency to steal the lion's share of the spotlight at MWC -- but the fact is, featurephones still outsell traditional smartphones by an order of magnitude. Companies like INQ are betting the farm on the belief that today's ultra-connected generation of Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook users are ultimately going to pick fashionable, cheap, easy-to-use handsets over the complexity of an iPhone, G1, or Omnia. There's something to be said for that -- most people don't know the model of their own phone, after all, and have no interest in learning how to download and install an app, let alone learn an entire mobile operating system. Plus, for the youngest members of this profitable group, there's a lot of price sensitivity -- smartphones are typically out of reach.

If startup Sonar has its way, that's where its new platform comes in. The idea was to fundamentally rethink the way average consumers -- you know, the ones who are plugged into three, four, or fourteen social networks and don't know a G1 from a P1i -- use a phone to communicate, and they're ready to show off their efforts for the first time here at MWC. We had an opportunity to sit down with Sonar's founders this week for a tour of the system, and we're pretty stoked about what we saw. Read on.

We just got a look at some amazing touchscreen interaction, running on a humble resistive touchscreen with some OMAP hardware backing it up. Stantum's technology is a software-based refinement to resistive touchscreens that allows for accuracy beyond the pixel density of the display, a complete lack of touchscreen "jitters" and some fairly incredible input methods. Termed "TouchPark," the multitouch framework provides gesture recognition, cursor management and physics processing for phone builders to stick on top of the phone OS (Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android are currently supported), and works with hardware such as Texas Instruments Zoom, Freescale i.MX and ST Nomadic. The PMatrix multitouch firmware allows for unlimited inputs, detection of any contacting object (a finger, a stylus or even a paintbrush) and pressure sensitivity. We played with the demo unit for a bit and were frankly blown away, it's far and away the best touch experience we've ever seen or felt, and the multitouch functionality is just gravy on top. Stantum is targeting resistive touchscreens because they're still considerably cheaper to build than capacitive ones, and from our perspective there seems to be zero tradeoff -- for sensitivity and accuracy this destroys everything else we've seen on the market, capacitive or not. Sadly, there's no word on when this will make it into real, shipping handsets, but we'll certainly be tracking its progress obsessively. Video is after the break.

99.99 percent of the population has no "need" for a phone capable of switching between GSM and satellite reception on the fly, but let's be clear: that has absolutely nothing to do with us wanting one. We checked out the reference design for Elektrobit's satellite-GSM hybrid smartphone powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 today, and here's the thing: it's not the best-looking device in the world -- nor the thinnest -- but when you consider the raw radio firepower it's packing, your mind should be fully blown. Unlike Iridium-based handsets that require huge, unsightly external antennas to connect you to outer space, Elektrobit's device connects to TerreStar's entirely IP-based network, meaning voice is sent over the interwebs and you can get relatively high-speed data even if you're in some lean-to in Wyoming just seconds away from being consumed whole by a grizzly. When you're closer to civilization, you've got HSDPA and WiFI, so this is basically the total package as connectivity goes. On the downside, the keyboard's mushy and uncomfortable with little dimples in the middle of each key -- and, you know, satellite service isn't the cheapest stuff in the world -- but hey, Elektrobit says there'll be a Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade available later in the year. Sold.

We got a quick look at the latest version of the Access Linux Platform (ALP) today, running on an early build of TI's OMAP 3-based Zoom hardware. Access seems excessively enthused with widgets, and really isn't doing a bad job at them, featuring transparency galore and even a second home screen for housing a separate set of them (perhaps "work" or "home" or "really great world clocks"). The machine also run's Access' own NetFront browser, which isn't quite as butter as we've seen WebKit get lately, but might be about on par with Microsoft's new builds of Internet Explorer Mobile. Unfortunately, aside from a jerky, barebones "flickable" photo browser, that's all Access is showing off of LiMo-compliant 3.0 at the moment, and we didn't get a look at that Garnet OS compatibility layer we all know and love. Still, if you suffer from some irrational fear that we'd be short on mobile operating systems here at MWC you can at last rest at ease. Video is after the break.

We sat down with Palm today and in addition to spotting that soft-touch cover we chatted them up on where things stand, how things are progressing, and various other clarifications about webOS and the Pre that have yet to be made. Palm's staying pretty tight-lipped and under-the-radar at the show, despite bringing a Europe-friendly HSDPA handset to show off -- they're not making any big announcements along those lines until there's a carrier firmed up, and not even clarifying what bands are supported. The build of webOS is exactly the same as what was at CES, and Palm still isn't letting the device slip out of its firm grip for a bit of rogue hands-on time.

Palm did confirm that games are in development for webOS, and seems a little defensive at accusations that the OS can't handle that stuff -- Palm hasn't changed its stance on app development, of course, there are no "native" apps allowed currently, but they seem more reticent to admit that web-style app development will limit gaming options. Perhaps they're hoping Adobe's Open Screen Project will save them some grief on this front, since Flash will be ready for webOS by the end of the year. Palm's currently working with a small amount of developers in private beta, refining the SDK to their feedback and needs, and will slowly expand that as the phone approaches launch, but we don't expect a full SDK to reach Joe the Coder until very close to before or after the launch. We asked about the potential for a soft keyboard, and they said that there's no reason that developers couldn't build their own -- though we're not sure how that would work. Out of the gate developers won't have super deep access to the OS from what we understand -- they wouldn't be able to do something like Facebook's level of OS-wide contacts integration, for instance -- but Palm hopes to open those APIs up further down the line.

We get the impression that Palm feels version 1.0 of webOS is very feature complete, and that the most surprises we'll get from here to launch will be mostly along the lines of 3rd party development and release details.

We've got this image burned in our brains of the Pre as this slick, black, streamlined, ultra-glossy pebble of a phone, and by and large, that's an accurate image -- unless you spring for the Touchstone. The inductive charging accessory -- which seems like an almost automatic purchase for any Pre buyer with a single geeky bone in their body -- needs magnets in the Pre to hold it in place when it's attached, but it turns out that the standard glossy battery cover doesn't have those magnets. Instead, the Touchstone will include a replacement cover that has the magnets and loses the gloss for a stickier matte soft-touch surface, ostensibly to help secure the phone against the charger's slanted top. For some, the soft-touch is going to be perceived as an upgrade -- but others are undoubtedly going to be bummed that they won't be able to see their own reflection against the shiny Palm logo dead center. What's more, if you want the matte without the Touchstone, you're out of luck (at launch, anyway) -- it won't be available separately. Whatever; it's not like you weren't planning on getting this thing Colorwared anyway.

Maybe we're just imagining things, but it sure seems like a lot of deals are going down here in Barcelona. The latest partnership to arise from the middle of nowhere is this one, a tie-up between Yahoo! and Opera that will see the search engine company distribute and pimp the Opera Mini web browser to its many Yahoo! Mobile users. Under the deal, Yahoo! is expected to begin distributing Opera Mini via Yahoo! Mobile (gratis, of course) and also as a standalone download from Yahoo!'s mobile Web sites in the near future. A curious matchup, yeah? Should be interesting to see where this leads -- we get the feeling this is just the beginning of something much, much bigger. Or maybe just bigger.

[Via phonescoop]

Alright, look, Samsung, this is excessive. All we want is one OmniaHD -- one, for cryin' out loud -- and here you go showing off your whole frickin' wall of 'em. We think the "!" shape these 3.7-inch OLEDs form is a particularly appropriate choice to represent the reaction the OmniaHD's display has garnered from passers-by this week.

Oh, and if you're curious, we count 97. Video after the break.

It's not clear if Telstra chief Sol Trujillo was sporting an HTC Touch Pro2 or a Touch Diamond2 at MWC this week, but one thing's for sure: he's doesn't have it anymore. A pickpocket apparently lifted the handset off another Teslsta exec who was checking it out today -- and making matters worse, it was running an early build of Windows Mobile 6.5. Oops. Of course, we doubt Microsoft is too concerned -- 6.5 ROMs are leaking all over the place anyway -- but it looks like Sol's picking up Ballmer's tab at the bar tonight.

[Thanks, Boy Genius]