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Seeing the fancy new phones at last month's 3GSM trade show--one of the biggest mobile phone conferences in the world--was exciting, overwhelming, and exhausting. What's more, the show was held in Barcelona, where I could have spent days admiring Gaudi architecture, feasting on tapas, and sipping Cava. But the trip was all about business, so I quickly went to work checking out the latest wares from HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and many other players in the mobile phone industry.

Each of the six phone makers listed above showed off at least one handset--and in some cases, more than one--that really stood out. Unfortunately, many of the devices are not yet booked for travel across the Atlantic to U.S. shores, though I suppose that's understandable: 3GSM focuses on products and services geared for the GSM cellular network, whose main carriers in the United States are AT&T's Cingular unit and T-Mobile. Whether a specific model is available here or not, the phones unveiled at 3GSM signal what's in the works. Here are as few of my favorites.

Innovative Design: Motorola Rizr Z8

One of my favorites from 3GSM is the Motorola Rizr Z8. Highlighting the Z8's innovative design is a unique slider that curves in the middle when open so as to cradle the user's face more comfortably.

If (like me) you find the user interface on many Motorola handsets frustrating and unintuitive, you'll appreciate the Z8's UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz) platform. On the preproduction Z8 at 3GSM, UIQ (which is based on the Symbian OS) was far more user-friendly than its Motorola predecessors, with menus that are easier to navigate and operations that take fewer clicks to complete.

Because the Z8 is a quad-band GSM/EDGE phone, it can roam internationally. It supports the 3G HSDPA network for data connection as well as stereo Bluetooth. A 2-megapixel camera appears on the back, and a second, VGA-resolution camera is located on the front of the camera, at the top-right corner of the 2.2-inch screen. Motorola says that the front-facing cam is meant to support video calls--a capability not offered by U.S. carriers as yet. The Z8 is among the first phones to be equipped with a microSDHC slot, which will support SanDisk's forthcoming 4GB microSDHC memory card. Let's hope that this phone makes it stateside.

Promising Smart Phone: HTC S710

The HTC S710 (code-named Vox) has a secret: Beneath its simple, candybar-style facade is a handy, slide-out keyboard. For phone calls you hold the phone vertically, with the keyboard tucked in. When you want to use the keyboard, you slide out the bottom half of the phone and hold it horizontally. With the keyboard in use, the 2.4-inch screen automatically shifts to landscape mode.

Despite its data-entry capability, the S710 is pleasantly compact. At 4 inches long, about 2 inches wide, and 0.7 inch thick, it's almost the same size as the T-Mobile SDA, a high-ranking cell phone on our charts that HTC also manufactures.

Another feature of the S710 that I like is Wi-Fi. The S710 is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone, so it's capable of international roaming. It lacks 3G support, however--and that's when the Wi-Fi comes in handy. The S710's new Windows Mobile 6 operating system promises e-mail, messaging, search, and UI improvements and shortcuts. Like many current smart phones, this one comes equipped with a 2-megapixel camera, a microSD slot, and Bluetooth.

Though no U.S. carrier has announced plans to sell the S710, I remain optimistic that it will eventually reach North America. In the meantime it will be available in Europe in the first half of 2007 through Orange, which plans to launch it under the model name of Orange SPV E650. This is a common phenomenon with HTC's products: For example, T-Mobile renamed HTC's S620 as the T-Mobile Dash.