The new crop of mobile phones was thin [at] the industry’s big event, the Mobile World Congress [in Barcelona]. But despite scaled-down promotion, empty hotel rooms and a murky future, a few trends appeared to emerge.
A subtle but unmistakable move this year was the demise of the flip mobile phone, also known as the clamshell design. Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG all had models on display at the show, but none were center stage.
Its departure from the scene would leave consumers with two basic design formats — the sliding handset and the “bar” design innovated by LG and Apple, said Bill Morelli, director of mobile technology at IMS Research.
“We have seen a complete shift away from the flip and clamshell handsets,” Morelli said. “The focus is solely on bar phones and maximizing screen size.”
But minimalist bars can start to look alike. That is one reason Samsung developed the Blue Earth, which it called the first mass-market, solar-powered mobile phone. The phone, whose back is a grid of solar cells, is made from recycled plastic and was one of several models that makers at the show promoted for their green credentials.
A Samsung spokesman, Roger Fonteller, said the phone needed 10 to 14 hours of sunlight to charge completely and would be available worldwide during the second half of the year.
Samsung may be on to a second trend. It got together with Texas Instruments to introduce a mobile phone, the Samsung Optoma, with an embedded projector that can show videos, business presentations and e-mail messages on any flat surface.
To do so, Texas Instruments shrunk its DLP Pico projection chip, used in rear projection televisions. Christian Thevot, a spokesman for the company, said the phone, which could operate for two hours on battery, was being sold in South Korea and…