From a handset with just six brightly coloured buttons to one that lets users dictate text messages, the phones of the future were on display at this week’s wireless industry conference in Barecelona.

Dozens of new handsets were unveiled at the 3GSM wireless conference, many sporting radical new designs and new features that may or may not be of use to the general public.

The main theme of this year’s show, attended by more than 60,000 people, was the integration of instant messaging, blogs and mapping to blur the line between the desktop computers, laptops and mobile phones.

Some phones, however, made a virtue of their limitations. Spain’s Imaginarium showed off a small handset with just six buttons in bright green, red, blue and orange. The Mo1 model is aimed at children and has no numerical keypad because its incoming and outgoing calls are restricted to the numbers parents have programmed in.

The phone can receive text messages only from pre-approved contacts, and can’t send them at all, except to parents, telling them where the child and the phone are.

At the other end of the market, Nuance Communications demonstrated its mobile speech software that lets users of some phones use voice commands to get news, sports or weather information downloaded for them.

The voice-recognition system can also be used for dictating text messages, hands-free dialling, giving directions for a navigation program or telling the phone’s MP3 player what song to play.

“With more than 2.5 billion cell phones in use and about 5 per cent using speech recognition, we see an enormous untapped market,” Steve Chambers, the company’s president, said.

For those tired of simple alphanumeric input, an Israeli company, Zlango, has offered up an entirely new language based on icons.

“It’s made up of more than 200 icons that each means a word or concept,” Raz Tsafrir, a company spokesman, explained. The application runs on most mobile phones and the user decides what to say by selecting icons it. Replies can be sent back in Zlango and the software comes with a sort of Rosetta stone to help translate it.

Many of the industry’s top companies showed off ways to integrate familiar programs such as Yahoo! and MSN instant messaging, as well as websites such as MySpace, Flickr and Google Maps.

Following the popularity of in-car satellite navigation, many phone companies have begun to integrate the technology into their handsets. Nokia’s slim new 6110, expected to be available from June in Europe, uses the inherent GPS positioning built into the phone to provide directions for users.

Other manufacturers are responding to the introduction of mobile TV and video services by boosting the visual performance of their phones. The MotoRIZR Z8, made by Motorola, uses HSDPA technology for fast downloads and a 16 million-colour screen that can show video at up to 30 frames per second.

A spokesman, Stephen Moore, said Motorola’s partnership with BSkyB means that users will be able to access Sky’s mobile content services along with an on-demand library of updated news, sports and entertainment.

For the more serious minded, HTC showcased its X7500 model, which packs in many elements of a laptop PC. It uses the Windows Mobile operating system, and comes with TomTom’s Navigator 6, a built-in 3-megapixel camera, an 8-gigabyte hard drive and 128 megabytes of RAM with connections that let users plug it into a computer monitor or television for more data.

Its keyboard is just about manageable for comfortable typing, it has a USB port for a full-size keyboard. Priced at about $1,100 (£575), it’s for those who take their mobility seriously.

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