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Noah gets his hands all over the T-Mobile Samsung Memoir, an 8 megapixel cameraphone with a full touchscreen and 3G connectivity. Marvel at the Xenon flash, be amazed by the 720x480 video capture, and astound yourself to the TouchWiz UI and full HTML Web browser. Live from Barcelona, Baby.

Like the narrator of Palm's new video touting all of Pre's goodness, Noah is not a morning person. Nor does he have a sister. But like our narrator, Noah is a sucker for a good cup of coffee and a cool smartphone. While Noah hunts for some hands-on time with Pre at MWC this week, you can check out this video from the comfort of your own computer screen.

Live from Barcelona, Noah gets a demo of the Nuvifone M20, Garmin-Asus' navigation-focused Winodws Mobile smartphone.

Greetings from one of the coolest cities on Earth: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.  After about 20 hours of travel across nine time zones (SFO to JFK to BCN), I arrived early Saturday morning local time and soaked in all I could while struggling to keep myself awake for long enough to acclimate to the time change.  Barcelona's widely known for being the real city that never sleeps (sorry, NYC), but I barely made it past 9pm last night before finally succumbing to sweet, sweet sleep.

But that doesn't mean I didn't take in some sights, sounds, and pre-MWC gossip yesterday.  I wandered the narrow cobblestone streets and gazing in awe at the beautiful buildings that somehow maintain their rich European history while housing thoroughly modern shops, cafes, and tapas bars (and yes, I found myself some fried little fish, chorizo, and a glass of Rioja along the way), and somehow found myself on a street packed full of mobile phone shops.  Yes, kids, it was a cell phone geek's dream come true.

 

For all of you reading this from the United States, what they say about mobile phone culture in Europe is true: even the tiniest, dingiest phone stores here in Barcelona are packed full of handsets that make us Americans drool with envy.  The Vodafone shop (akin to your local AT&T or Verizon store) offers high-end gear like the Nokia N95 & 5800, SE Xperia X1, and LG Viewty alongside the BlackBerry Bold and Storm, while indepedent stores were packed to the gills with these devices and other treats like the Nokia N96, SE C905, and virtually every LG and Samsung phone I'd ever heard of.

 

Even better, virtually all of the phones are offered unlocked.  While we in the States are used to signing up for two year contracts in order to get a semi-reasonable deal on a new handset, buying unlocked devices contract-free is more the order of the day here in Europe.  While subsidized phones are available with a contractual agreement, Europeans are used to paying up front for unlocked devices and using them with whatever service provider and rate plan they like.

 

As such, I was tempted to fork over 295 Euros (about $380) last night to pick up a Nokia XpressMusic 5800 just because I could.  But luckily I remembered - even in my jet-lagged, dazzled by Barcelona frame of mind - that I was just a day or so from entering the world's biggest mobile phone playground: MWC 2009.  Soon I'll be up to my ears in all of the newest, highest-tech phones in the world, so why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free, right?  

So I handed the 5800 back to the shop owner with an American-accented "Gracias," and found my way back to my hotel where I managed to upload some photos to Facebook before drifting off to sleep at long last.  I've added a few of them to this article so you can see what I dreamt about in my hotel room last night.

 

 

 

 

 

Wandering the streets of Barcelona last night I spied this giant Samsung billboard advertising three new phones that should be unveiled this week: Omnia HD, Ultra Touch, and Beat.  I've heard tell of all three devices before (Beat DJ is that new touchscreen music store developed in conjunction with high-end audio gear maker Bang and Olufsen) and managed to get a bit of juice on the Ultra Touch (Ultra Tocco), in particular.

 

The Ultra Touch S8300 is a 12.7mm slim touchscreen slider phone with an 8MP camera.  The camera optics and flash are housed on the back of the device and are concealed when the phone is "slid shut," so to speak.  Someone who's used the device said that its most eye-catching feature is its 2.8" AMOLED display, which is "amazingly bright" and shows "colors that just pop ... really pop."  The display is capable of showing16 million colors at 400x240 pixels, and has full haptic touch feedback and will run Samsung's TouchWiz interface.

Speaking of TouchWiz, Sammy's newborn UI gets a much-needed update this week, as well.  TouchWiz's first upgrade brings Web-ready widgets (like an RSS reader) to the system, and will be accompanied by an online widget store and development kit for widget programmers.