You wouldn't want to come to Barcelona this week with a battered old Nokia phone that you've been abusing for years. With 60,000 mobile industry executives in town for Mobile World Congress, there was a lot of phone envy around.
Despite the relatively high number of US visitors touting their Apple iPhones, Nokia's N95, which it styles a "multimedia computer" rather than a humble phone, was the weapon of choice for the mobile elite. Sadly for them, Nokia used the event to launch its successor, the N96, which is now optimised for video and TV.
Sleeker than the N95, it has a 2.8in screen, 16GB of internal storage and built-in 3D stereo speakers.
Rival LG announced the LG- KT610, with high-speed internet and GPS navigation capabilities, while Samsung - the second-largest player in the handset market - unveiled the G810, a dual-mode WiFi phone, both of which use the same Nokia S60 software as the N96.
Asian manufacturer HTC had some of the coolest handsets on display including its Touch Dual, which utilises the touch screen to full effect for navigation via a futuristic "cube" user interface. Samsung went a step further with the SGH-F700 which adds a qwerty keyboard to the touchscreen interface.
Redmond giant Microsoft had a moderate presence as it evangelised the advantages of putting Windows on your mobile device - whether it be a smartphone, a PDA or an ultra-mobile laptop.
Veterans of Mobile World Congress, however, were underwhelmed by the amount of innovation they saw in Barcelona this week. Many of the things on show - like location-based tourist information, digital wallets on your mobile and even mobile TV have been promised for years. The difference this time around is that they are available and being used by consumers in the real world.
Yahoo confirmed OneSearch, its mobile search tool, which was available to a potential six million subscribers at launch last year, can now be accessed by 600 million people following an exclusive deal with T-Mobile International.
While studiously avoiding questions about Microsoft's interest in the company, the web giant also announced the mobile killer application for social networking addicts - OneConnect. It aggregates all your communications from corporate e-mail accounts to Facebook updates and makes them available on your mobile.
Barcelona also saw the debut of Google's Android operating system for mobile phones on prototype devices. It is based on the open source Linux operating system better known from the world of PCs and this could be its Achilles heel.
The Open Handset Alliance pushing Android includes big operators and handset makers but, on this showing, the demos looked too much as if Android is providing access to the web of PCs on a small screen with little or no customisation for the limitations of a mobile device.
Garmin, the maker of GPS navigation systems, introduced the Nüvifone which includes a navigator, mobile phone and web browser with a 3.5in widescreen and high-speed internet connectivity
