The 3GSM World Congress is the world's largest mobile industry show and this year it took place in Barcelona, Spain, offering an unrivalled exhibition, an industry-leading speaker line-up and a diverse, multi-faceted congress agenda catering for the requirements of every sector of the extended mobile industry value chain. Almost all the major mobile phone brands had new handsets revealed. NEC Corporation, being one of the leading ones, announced that it will display a series of high-end NEC phones including the world's thinnest 2.5G fold-type camera-phone, a prototype HSDPA 3G mobile phone and other end-to-end mobile solutions and handsets.

            Generating interest is the world's thinnest 2.5G clamshell camera-phone, the NEC N412i and the latest model, the NEC N500iS.  Both handsets are i-mode enabled, but the N500iS NEC cellular is the improved and updated version of its previous model. Besides, being only 11.9 mm thin, it can't even be compared to the other slim phones such as Motorola V3, which is 2 mm thicker!

Roaming with the N500iS NEC cellular is convenient as it can operate in the 900, 1800, and 1900 band. Connectivity is via industry standards Bluetooth and USB, assuring users that they would have no problem in connecting components to it.

The stylish model also features high-usability with a music player boasting high quality sound (MP3+AAC-playing), a wide array of multimedia functions such as MPEG4 video playback and large memory capacity. Images and video are vividly displayed on a 1.9" 65k color high-resolution (176x220 pixel) internal display (TFT LCD). The new NEC cellular also has a smaller external OLED screen, that is placed in landscape way. Its 64 polyphonic melodies enable it to play a variety of NEC ringtones. Memory capacity is at 32MB. It also supports WAP, GPRS, and JAVA. Messaging capabilities include SMS, MMS, and EMS.

NEC has integrated a cellular EDGE function in the N500iS model. This is a digital mobile technology that acts as an enhancement to the 2G and 2.5G GPRS networks. This technology works in TDMA and GSM networks. EDGE, also known as EGPRS, is a superset to GPRS and can function on any network with GPRS deployed on it, provided the carrier implements the necessary upgrades. EDGE can carry data speeds up to 236.8 kbit/s for 4 time slots (theoretical maximum is 473.6 kbit/s for 8 time slots) in packet mode and it therefore enables high-speed video streaming in real time on the ultra-thin structure of the N500iS.

NEC has yet to come up with the unit price on its new clamshell, as well as with its availability and market information. While specifications on this new NEC cellular are rather scarce at the moment, it seems that NEC has mad an already highly attractive handset even prettier, and knowing the features of the N412i, the N500i's previous model, it is obvious that there are a lot worse platforms to start with for an ultra-slim phone.