WinMo 7 may turn up in HTC Obsession and LG Apollo

One of the big question marks over next week’s Mobile World Congress is whether Windows Mobile 7 will make its long delayed debut there – and if so, will any of the phone vendors show off handsets with the OS?

It is increasingly likely that Microsoft will avoid making the market wait all the way into 2011, by launching two versions of WinMo 7 – one with more in common with the current 6.5, but at least able to get out of the door this year; the other, geared to consumer and multimedia functionality, offering a radical rework, but maybe not shipping for another year.

The most likely companies to preview WinMo 7 devices in Barcelona are LG and HTC, Microsoft’s most loyal fans. Both will launch several new Windows handsets, and may have one apiece running the more conventional version of release 7. For HTC, this would be the Obsession, the third in its Diamond range of phones, and – WinMo 7 or not – set to match many of the features of the Android Nexus One that it made for Google, or indeed its own Android top end, Bravo.

The Obsession will have the 1GHz Snapdragon processor that also powers Nexus and Bravo, plus the latter’s star feature, 720p HD video recording capability, and a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with full multitouch (unlike Nexus). Other specs will be increasingly standard for smartphones - 5-megapixel camera, 4Gb of memory expandable to 32Gb with microSD cards, Bluetooth and A-GPS.

The other likely WinMo 7 phone is the LG Apollo, which would outdo the Obsession in some respects but may not hit the shelves until the holiday season. Before then, LG apparently wants the upcoming Intel-based GW990 and its Android launches to be its main offerings at the top end, and it will wait to launch Apollo until WinMo 7 is fully stabilized.

When it comes, Apollo will also have a gigahertz processor, HD recording and large capacitive display, but will beat out most open OS phones on multimedia, with the 12mp camera and widescreen display seen on LG’s proprietary Chocolate 2.

HTC is also set to release three new WinMo 6.5 devices, the Photon, Trophy and Tera. These may actually feature the slight upgrade, WinMo 6.6, which promises to improve touch performance.