"18 remarkable facts and 15 amazing phones from MWC 2010"

Back in 2001, Microsoft laid siege to the Web. Thanks to its dominant desktop position, it dominated the browser market with IE6 and ultimately killed off its competitors. The result was years of stagnation, a willful disregard of Web standards, and a Web development environment that actively discouraged any innovation throughout the Noughties.

Today, Apple is doing the same to the mobile Web. Not by a dominant market position, but by a lawsuit for patent infringement that it’s thrown at HTC.

And not just any old lawsuit. If they win, Apple will get a permanent injunction against HTC, which will bar them from importing or selling touchscreen smartphones in the US, along with triple damages and maximum interest for all such smartphones they’ve already sold.

In other words – the end of HTC, the end of Android, and the end of any innovation in the smartphone market.

This is is huge. This has the potential to be more damaging than Microsoft ever thought of being.

Read on for how Apple is threatening the mobile Web in the most aggressive attack yet made.

The Nokia C5 has just been announced by Nokia, heralding the dawn of a new age in mobile phones, and a new range to go with it – the C-Series.

At first glance, the C5 doesn’t seem like it’s the dawn of anything particularly exciting. Its features are average, with a 3.2 megapixel camera, aGPS, 2.2″ display, Symbian S60 and Ovi Maps.

So far so dull.

What is new, though, is that the C5 is a budget phone – just 135 Euros unlocked will get you all that, plus a range of social media apps as well.

It’s therefore the first time that high-end features such as Symbian S60, GPS and social media apps have reached their way to the lower reaches of the mobile phone food chain, pushing the functionality of budget phones up to the levels of Nokia’s N-Series just a few short years ago.

Hmmm, that certainly seems like the dawn of something!

More details and pictures of the Nokia C5 after the jump.

If you’ve got a T-Mobile G1, the first ever Android phone, you might be a bit envious fo all the new Android wizzardry crammed into Android 2.1 phones such as the Google Nexus One and Motorola Milestone.

The G1 only supports Android 1.6, and although T-Mobile are in the process of updating this with a minor tweak, it is just that – minor!

But wait, what’s this? Android 2.1 running on a G1? Must be one of those dodgy ports, right?

Well yes, obviously, but here’s the thing – Android 2.1 is so optimized, adn the code so much more efficient than the older 1.6 version, that it actually runs much faster than 1.6, and faster, even, than the original Android 1.0.

So should you try and install Android 2.1 on your G1? Read on to see…

Just two short weeks after Microsoft announced its new Windows Phone 7 Series mobile OS comes news of the first Windows Phone 7 Series, er, phone! Made by LG, the new WinPho phone is a slider with a 5 megapixel camera that looks almost identical to the LG InTouch GW620.

OK, so there are a few differences – the InTouch has an extra row of keys (a row of dedicated number keys at the top), for example, and uses Android – but externally, at least, the two are remarkably similar.

Check out the video of LG’s new WinPho phone after the jump.

Time now for a Motorola Milestone review. The Motorola Milestone was released late 2009 in the US, where it was called the Motorola Droid and hailed as the saviour of Motorola.

It’s recently been launched in the UK as the Milestone, and is Motorola’s attempt to convince the world that it really can make great phones again – in this case, a great Android 2.1 device designed to take on the wealth of super-smart phones that are on the market.

The question is, though – can it? Does the Milestone offer enough to make it better than its rivals from the likes of HTC, Samsung, Palm, and the iPhone? Does it have a better interface, better features, and a better all round user interface, and is it more than just another Android phone?

In short, is the Milestone worthy of your cash?!

Let’s find out with our Motorola Milestone review…

Those lovely people at e2Save have been doing some stellar deal making again, and have somehow managed to persuade T-Mobile to part with an LG Cookie for free, with a monthly contract at an unbelievable 99p a month. And without any exaggeration, that’s literally all you’ll pay – just 99p a month, with 300 mins and unlimited text thrown in!

The Cookie normally sells for £25 per month, so this is a monstrous bargain!

You can buy it in black or pink for this price by clicking here, so whether you want it as a main phone, a second phone, or a gift for your boyfriend, girlfriend, brother, sister – whoever! – it’s the perfect phone at the perfect price!

You’d better be quick, though, as it’s an online-only deal that won’t last for ever.

I reviewed the LG Cookie personally last year, and gave it 9/10. Now it’s only 99p, it simply has to score 10/10. A true bargain if ever there was one!

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz has been one of the highlights of the year – and its only February! The Vivaz is a fantastic new 8.1 megapixel camera phone that can shoot superb video in HD, and comes with a tonne of features not found on other camera phones that ensures the pictures you take are as good as they would be from a dedicated digital camera.

The Vivaz is one of the most eagerly awaited phones of 2010 – but you can ensure you’re the first to get your hands on it by preordering it with Vodafone.

Check out Vodafone’s tasty online-only deal after the jump.

With MWC 2010 previewing a raft of new smartphones all snapping at the iPhone’s heels, Apple might just throw off the competition this year by releasing a brand new iPhone with a distinctly new form factor.

That’s the view of Ben Reitzes, a Barclay’s analyst who follows Apple. Talking to EETimes, he said:

I think they will try to change the game on everybody – it bothers them that everyone stole their form factor.

If true, it would certainly be ironic. Apple changed the mobile phone game by shifting the emphasis away from hardware and onto software. Now that the other manufacturers have caught up with software, Apple are now trying to shift back towards hardware again!

[Source: EETimes]

The crazy mobile phone week that is MWC 2010 has now ended. This year’s MWC 2010 started off with a bang, with Sony Ericsson and Samsung showing off all manner of new tech-loveliness. The buzz continued on the second day with HTC and Microsoft announcing some seriously cool new tech.

With so much news coming from so many different sources, though, it’s easy for some tasty tidbits of info to get drowned out.

So we compiled this little guide to all the best announcements from MWC 2010, together with a compilation of some amazing facts about the mobile phone industry today and over the next five years.

If you want to see the state of the art for 2010 and get a peek into the future of the mobile industry, read on after the jump.

A Nokia insider has managed to smuggle out a video showing details of the forthcoming Noia X10, a new unannounced phone that wil be the first to feature Nokia’s new Symbian^3 OS.

Nokia were surprisingly quiet during MWC 2010 – in fact, disappointingly so – and so any hint of a new mobile phone from the company is being welcomed with open arms by a Nokia fan base desperate to see some innovation from the Finnish company to take on the multitude of superphones that were launched in Barcelona last week.

Alas, the new X10 may not be that phone. See the video after the jump to see what I mean.