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The Coral-200-Solar gets its power from above.

(Credit: ZTE)

Samsung wasn't the only company showing a solar-powered cell phone at the GSMA World Congress. On Wednesday, Chinese manufacturer ZTE launched a green model of its own.

Created with Digicel and Intivation, the Coral-200-Solar is designed for emerging markets where electricity may not be readily available. And, of course, it's Earth-friendly.

Exact feature details are sketchy at this point, but from what we can tell, the phone won't offer a lot of goodies. Considering its target markets, the Coral-200-Solar is really about making calls. It should be available in June.

Text and dial with the ZTE D92.

(Credit: Kent German/CNET Networks)

The candy bar design is pretty plain and not nearly as appealing as the Samsung Blue Earth. On the front, there's a display, a functional navigation array, and a keypad. Except for the solar panels on its rear face, the Coral-200-Solar largely resembles the ZTE C78 that's currently with MetroPCS. On a side note, a C78 is on my desk back in San Francisco awaiting a full review.

Unfortunately, hands-on time with the Coral-200-Solar was difficult. Apparently, the phone is as scarce in Barcelona as the Blue Earth.

When we wandered around the ZTE's booth the day before the announcement, it was nowhere to be seen, yet we did spy the aforementioned C78 and the interesting ZTE D92 slip phone, which features a Fastap keypad that combines a full alphabetic keyboard and a standard numeric keypad. The D92 also offers Bluetooth, 3G, and a 1.3-megapixel camera.

(Credit: ZTE)

The wonderful and torturous thing about GSMA Mobile World Congress is that you get to see handsets from a number of international manufacturers that are beyond imagination but will most likely never make it Stateside.

Take ZTE for example. It may not be a recognized cell phone brand in the United States, although the company does offer a couple of its handsets through MetroPCS, including the ZTE C79 and the ZTE C88, but it happens to be one of China's largest handset manufacturers.

ZTE will, once again, make the voyage to Barcelona this year and revealed on Tuesday that it will unveil a full portfolio of smartphones at Mobile World Congress. The company said it will display 10 different designs, ranging from low end to high end, and the highlight of the show will be the VF 1231 Windows Mobile smartphone, which was developed specifically for Vodafone.

We'll be sure to stop by ZTE's booth at GSMA to get more information about the smartphones and snap some photos, so be sure to check out our full coverage when the show starts on February 16.

The C78 is purple.

(Credit: MetroPCS)

MetroPCS added the previously announced ZTE C78 phone to its lineup this week. This marks the third ZTE phone to hit MetroPCS this year; the no-contract, regional carrier continues to be the main place for ZTE fans in the United States to get their fix.

The C78 offers a candy-bar design in an eye-catching purple hue (didn't we tell you that purple is the new red?). That's a change from MetroPCS's previous ZTE phones, as both the and C88 are flip phones. Features are slim, but functional. You'll find Bluetooth, a VGA camera, personal organizer options, and a speakerphone. You can get it for $129.

(Credit: ZTE)

ZTE on Monday announced the U990, the world's first HSDPA TD-SCDMA mobile handset (TD-SCDMA is a 3G mobile standard in China). It claims seamless transition between EDGE/HSDPA and TD-SCDMA, which is a good thing for those who do business in China. The U990 is a touch-screen phone with GPS/AGPS technology, Windows Mobile 6.0, and a high-speed transmission rate of up to 2.8 Mbps.

ZTE C79

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET Networks)

ZTE is certainly trying to get into the ground floor in the U.S. market this year, with two brand new handsets -- the C78 and the C79 -- debuting at CTIA, mostly for the entry-level market. The C78 is a fairly basic handset with a VGA camera and Bluetooth, while the C79 is a slightly more advanced clamshell with a 1.3-megapixel camera, an MP3 player, stereo Bluetooth, and a microSD card slot. The C79 even features external music player controls right on the front surface. Check them out in our brief ZTE photo gallery.

ZTE C78

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET Networks)

Chinese manufacturer ZTE is making further headway in the U.S. market with two new simple phones, the ZTE C78 and the ZTE C79. The ZTE C88 for MetroPCS was its first ever handset offered in North America, and these two handsets are part upgrade, part downgrade. They're both among the first in the country to operate via AWS frequency bands, which theoretically let users have access to data and multimedia applications if the carriers allow. The C79 is the more advanced model; it's a flip phone with a MP3 player, a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, and a microSD card slot. The C78 is a more affordable one; it's a candy-bar handset with only a VGA camera and Bluetooth. As yet, there's no news of pricing and availability.

Vodafone makes itself known at GSMA.

(Credit: Kent German/CNET Networks)

The GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, is winding to a close, but that doesn't mean mobile phone news have stopped streaming in. The third day of GSMA 2008 saw AMD announcing big plans for mobile phone processors, RIM's co-CEO downplaying the recent BlackBerry outage, and the LiMo Foundation possibly giving Google's Android a run for its money with its own effort at an open, Linux-based operating system. Of course, we also took the opportunity to look at phones and carriers off the beaten path.

For starters, Senior Editor Kent German explored the large Vodafone plaza (Vodafone is a UK-based carrier) and took a look at their phones, such as the Nokia 5310 and the Samsung SGH-P110, which we'll never get here. He also lamented the lackluster Alcatel presence, despite their big showing in 2007. NEC is a big phone manufacturer outside of the U.S., and Kent gave us a good look at the NEC FOMA N705i for NTT DoCoMo in Japan, which also happens to be one of the first LiMo Foundation phones.

Nokia's Remade uses recycled and renewable materials to lessen its environmental impact.

(Credit: Nokia)

In an effort to go green, Nokia has unveiled Remade, a phone that is made entirely out of renewable and recycled parts. Senior Editor Bonnie Cha also got a look at the much talked about Garmin Nuvifone, a touch screen phone with a lot of GPS functionality. Andrew Lim from CNET UK gave us a hands-on look at the luscious LG KF600 and KF700 touch screen phones as well.

One of the different devices we saw is the Polymer Vision's Readius, a phone that is also an e-book reader--the display can even be rolled up like paper. Another phone that looks very different from the rest is the Modu, which has different "sleeves" that can add to the functionality of the phone. Even though iRiver is more known for their MP3 players, this year in Barcelona, iRiver Europe announced it's breaking into the cell phone business with its first ever mobile phone, called the iRiver W7.

Readius e-book reader that's also a phone.

(Credit: Crave Asia)

ZTE, which doesn't have much of a presence in the U.S. market, is one of the largest cell phone manufacturers in China, so we had to take a look at the company's phones. Overall, we're pretty impressed--their phones ranged from the keyboard-equipped smartphone to the simple flip phone. A lot of their devices are high-end megapixel phones that support HSDPA. As for companies that the U.S. is familiar with, Palm is unfortunately rather quiet at GSMA 2008, but news is that it might debut a white version of the Palm Centro on February 19th.

We'll have more as the week goes on, but please take a look at our complete coverage of GSMA Mobile World Congress 2008 for plenty of product slide shows, videos, and more.

Chinese cell phone manufacturer ZTE has a sizable presence at the GSMA World Congress. Not only did it supply almost every show attendee with a canvas bag, but also its large booth in one of the main halls faced off with the likes of Samsung and Sony Ericsson. I toured the ZTE area to see the cell phones available in China and found a few that caught my eye.

The ZTE i766 is a candy bar phone with a 2.4-inch, 262,00-color touchscreen. Primed for multimedia, it plays broadcast TV, has an MP3 player, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and an FM radio. It also offers e-mail, a Web browser, Bluetooth, a microSD card slot, and USB capability. To me, the navigation array was a bit cramped and the TV quality was just average.

The ZTE D800 is a keyboard-equipped smartphone that looks a bit like a cross a between a RIM BlackBerry device and a Samsung BlackJack. It offers dualmode GSM/CDMA functionality, a Linux OS, a touchscreen, a 2-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, push e-mail, a Web browser, and an MP3 player.

The ZTE F858 is a HSDPA flip phone, which somewhat resembles a Motorola Razr. Inside you'll find video streaming, Bluetooth, USB support, a 2-megapixel camera, an MP3 player, a Web browser, e-mail, and a microSD card slot.

The last model I checked out was the ZTE F912. It's a flip phone with a rotating display like the Samsung FlipShot SCH-U900. It offers HSDPA, streamig video, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, a microSD card slot, USB support, an MP3 players, a Web browser, and e-mail.

ZTE D90 has a Fastap keypad

(Credit: CNET Networks/Nicole Lee)

Earlier this year at CES, we promised you that Digit Wireless would release a new Fastap phone in the U.S. before the end of the year. As you might recall, Fastap is this unique keypad layout that incorporates raised and lowered keys into a single keypad to facilitate quicker text entry (The first U.S. Fastap phone was the LG AX490 for Alltel). Well it's almost the end of October, and it hasn't happened yet. The ZTE 90 (also known as the ZTE D90) that we showed you in January is only available in Canada (via the Telus network) and the Ukraine (via Peoplenet, sold as the ZTE Evolution).

The ZTE D90 is a 3G phone with a 1.3-megapixel camera, a music player, a microSD card slot, and stereo Bluetooth. Digit tells us they're working on getting a U.S. carrier to carry the device, but makes no promises for now.

Concept phones with Fastap

(Credit: CNET Networks/Nicole Lee)

Digit did show us a few interesting Fastap concept phones with raised access keys instead of a raised alphabet. As you can see, these keys can be customized according to the needs of the manufacturer or the carrier. They can be mapped to the camera, the music player, music-player controls, messaging, or any other function. It's a shame that these were only concept phones; we would've liked to have seen them in action. However, Digit is again saying they're trying to convince U.S. carriers to carry some of these phones. We're not entirely convinced of the usability of these keypad layouts, but it's good to see some innovation in cell phone design that isn't all about making thin phones.