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

Today must surely be Android Day if the raft of news, leaks and announcements is anything to go by. Everything’s Android from every direction and seemingly every manufacturer!

First up is this, the gloriously named HTC Incredible. Nothing like boasting about your achievements, I guess, but does the Incredible live up to its name? Well, it’s got the 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.7″ screen (possibly AMOLED) and the usual raft of features you’d expect from an Android machine.

Speaking of which, it’s Android 2.1, which, combined with HTC’s renowned Sense UI should certainly make the Incredible glorious if nothing else!

More leaked pics of the HTC Incredible after the jump.

LG are slowly but surely jumping on the Android bandwagon. Not only have they got a couple of Android handsets on the market now, but they’ve also got a few high-powered phones lined up for release later in the year as well.

Take this for example. It’s rumoured to be the LG Arena Max LU9400, which as well as featuring a 3.5″ touchscreen, GPS, WiFi and 5 megapixel camera, will also come with the legendary Snapdragon 1GHz processor.

Mmmm, tasty!

Samsung are getting ready to release the Samsung SHW-M100S, a new Android 2.1 phone with quite possibly the best screen of any phone ever made.

The phone itself has the usual array of great features – 5 megapixel camera, 720p HD recording, DivX playback, GPS, 800MHz CPU – everything you’d need in a high-end superphone really (I must stop calling them that!)

But by far the biggest attraction must be the screen.

See the pics after the jump to see why.

Sony Ericsson have announced the Sony Ericsson Aspen, a new business-oriented touchscreen Windows-Mobile phone taht actually looks pretty slick. Indeed, if you were looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous Blackberry and don’t like Nokia’s E-Series of business phones, the Aspen could be right up your street.

Not only does it look the part, but it comes with a range of features that make it perfect for business.

Find out why after the jump.

The hottest rumours surrounding MWC 2010 at the moment are all about Windows Mobile 7, which apparently will be announced at the show. Not just Windows Mobile 7, though – a brand new Microsoft phone.

Yes, it’s time to roll out those well-worn Microsoft Zune rumours out again!

Japanese phones used to be years ahead of anything we had here in Europe and decades ahead of those in the US, but not any more. The latest US and European smartphones are super-slick devices with gorgeous user interfaces, while the latest Japanese phones are almost the exact opposite.

Take these two new Japanese phones, for example. The top one is the KDDI Lotta (derived from the English word ‘lot’, which, amusingly, KDDI seems to think means “luck”!), which was designed to be minimalist and inexpensive.

Although it’s obviously unfair to compare it to the much more expensive iPhone, it looks bland, and it hardly has any features – it doesn’t even have Bluetooth!

Compared to the LG Pop, which is a low-end phone sold across Europe and the US that manages to add a touchscreen and smart user interface for a similar price, the KDDI Lotta looks like something from the 1990s!

But worse is to come though…

The Apple iPad has now launched and all the hype has dissipated like the lancing of a grotesquely engorged ulcerous boil. Through the clearing mist lies reality and the path to the future, which, oddly, doesn’t feature the iPad at all.

In fact the only thing that’s caused the iPad to exist in the first place is the limitations of current display technology.

Find out why after the jump.

OK, here we go – news of the Apple Tablet, and, more importantly for us mobile mentalists, the iPhone 4! Event has just started…

(More after the jump).

Boy, this is obviously the night for fugly phones! This is a leaked pic of the Sony Ericsson Kanna, which apparently will be announced at MWC 2010 next month.

Now, granted, these are just pics of the pre-production model, but even it smother couldn’t be proud of a design like that! Whether it’s the ugly looking keyboard or grotesque user interface (yep, Symbian S60 unfortunately!), it’s almost like Sony Ericsson put anti-designers to work designing this thing!

The specs are good, though, which they should be, andin many ways echo those of the newly-announced Vivaz.

More details after the jump.

This year, we’ve been treated to the Google Nexus One, HTC Supersonic, Nokia X6 (out today), Sony Ericsson Vivaz and X10, and a pair of Palms, to name just some of the highlights.

And it’s still only January!

I say this because today, the whole mobile phone and gadget industryies are battening down their hatches ready for the big one – the Apple Event of the Year, where Steve Jobs will be announcing not just that Apple tablet thing, but also (possibly) the iPhone version 4.

Consequently, there isn’t a peep to be heard from the rest of the mobile phone industry, as they know any new announcement now would be lost in a blizzard of hype in seconds!

It’s exciting stuff, though. Will the iPhone 4 herald a new chapter in the iPhone’s history, able to take on the new challenge threatened by Android? Or will it just be an incremental upgrade, with the Apple Tablet taking centre stage? Will Steve Jobs even mention the iPhone, for that matter (of course he will!)

We’ll know tomorrow at 6pm GMT. Stick with us, as we’ll be live-blogging the event again (albeit from across the pond!), focusing on the mobile news. We’ll also be tweeting all the important juicy bits, so follow us if you can’t make it to your PC in time.

After all this excitement, surely next month will be calmer (no wait, next month’s MWC 2010!!!)