Samsung, LG, BlackBerry Handsets Take On iPhone at IFA

From smartphones to showerheads, Berlin's IFA conference is a veritable tidal wave of technology. And while it may not garner the media attention that the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas gets every year, there are still plenty of gadgets and gizmos to impress users. This year the crop of new mobile phones (the German word for "mobile" is "Handy," by the way) was dominated by fresh handsets and tablets from Sony, Samsung and beleaguered BlackBerry, which showed off its Q5 handset with its famous keyboard. Samsung drew a lot of media attention thanks to its Galaxy Note 3 smartphone, while handset manufacturers such as Sony, LG and Huawei upped the ante on competitive design features with sleek, slim smartphones of their own. Even BlackBerry, featured more prominently in the headlines these days for its declining fortunes than for its hardware, drew eyeballs with boldly colored Q5 smartphones. Apple may have stolen everyone's thunder earlier this week with the reveal of not one, but two new iPhone models, but IFA is a good reminder that Apple is far from the only player in the smartphone arena, and that the competition is catching up fast—some may say that the iPhone has in many ways been surpassed already.