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If you remotely rely on your phone, you know this is the big event of the year for new phones.  Beautiful Barcelona is where all the hot action happens and this year (should be) the year of the touchscreens.  Will we see the industry’s response to the iPhone?  I have no idea, but here are what the contenders are releasing early to get our attention:

Andriod: there has been some speculation about Google getting a good SDK out there, we’ve been promised no phones for a long time to come, but who will bravely show?  Doug Berger had this to say:

The story sites “a source close to the company”, but both Google and ARM have yet to comment on the claims.  Will we see the first Gphone?  Who knows.  Hey - they could even run the new OS on a computer and we’d still be happy to see it.  Do you think Android sounds ready for the public-eye with its recent delays?  I sure don’t.

Motorola.  Much has been said about the mighty Moto, but what will stick.Will we see a haptic update to the Q9?  Will they sell their mobile division?  Robert Nelson reports on the M990, a business-like car phone:

I think the best part is when the document mentions that “it is targeted to a broad band of markets looking for exclusivity like business men, limousines and private cars looking for stylish communication and navigation solution.” Even the description of the intended market makes this phone sound like a device from the 1980’s.

Then there is the Moto ZiNe Z12, a good looking PDA style phone.  Our Indraneel has this to say:
Is this the Motorola Z12? While the phones on the far left and in the center are the Z8 and Z10, the device to the far right may well be the new ZiNe Z12. The rumored Motofone is said to have built in GPS and Wi-Fi, as well as a 5 or 8-megapixel camera. Also supposedly in the package is a 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen, which seems to be pictured above.

Samsung is showing off some fun ones.  Robert Nelson posts on the G810 stating:

While the image of the phone is not that impressive, the specs are solid...The G810 smartphone is rumored to feature a 2.6-inch 262k color QVGA TFT display, 5-megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom, face recognition, macro mode and auto-focus, 150MB of internal memory with a microSD card slot, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 and GPS navigation. The G810 is also expected to feature GSM/UMTS/3.6 Mbps HSDPA connectivity and be running Symbian 9.2.

Samsung also is showing off the flagship Soul, I described just this morning:

What sets this phone apart from other good-lookers?  Actually a couple of really cool things.  Check out the User Created Skins and you’ll create a skin all your own, additionally Sammy packed in different UI themes.  A Magical Touch (and yes, they capitalize it, good grief), application specific buttons that change depending on what you are doing.

Glofish, an up and comer is dropping two new phones.  I had this to post earlier this week:

E-TEN dropped two new phones for their Glofish brand, and they look impressive.  E-Ten’s Glofish brand is getting sexier and these new phones are the latest proof.  These new phones are Pocket PC phones geared to always connected freaks like me rather than business folk.  Both models feature HSDPA, WiFi and GPS.

What have I left out?  Many say we’ll see nothing super impressive come out of this show, do you agree with them?

Stay tuned to phone-obsessed Gadgetell for the very latest from Spain.

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