CeBIT diary: it's all about Samsung on day one

By Mary Lojkine on 09 March 2006, 8:28pm

The first day of CeBIT belonged to Samsung, which had a working Ultra Mobile PC (aka an Origami device) at one end of the fairground and a 10-megapixel camera phone at the other. We're sceptical about the appeal of the former and we don't expect to see the latter in the UK, but we have to give Samsung credit for the two hottest stories of the day.

The busiest exhibition hall was number 26, where the mobile phone companies hang out. Visitors were keen to get their hands on some of the phones that have been announced, but aren't yet available, such as Nokia's N91 and Sony Ericsson's W950i. Both these music phones offer 4GB of storage, but the more recently announced W950i is the clear leader in the style stakes. If Nokia doesn't launch the N91 soon, it needn't bother.

Most manufacturers were displaying handsets designed to receive television broadcasts via DVB-H (a standard for broadcasting digital television to handheld devices). However we don’t yet know which standard will be adopted in the UK, or when services might start, so Crave found it even harder than usual to get excited about the prospect of watching Life on Mars on a 51mm (2-inch) screen. Best we can say is that if DVB-H arrives, there'll be plenty of handsets to support it.

Elsewhere there was a great deal of noise, more dancing girls than you could shake a pom-pom at and a plethora of cars promoting everything from laptops to games. Yesterday's building site is now a heaving mass of press, trade visitors, computers, televisions, gadgets and footballs (apparently there's some kind of football thing happening in Germany this year). Crave's off for a quick kick around in the snow... more tomorrow. -ML