2007: A year in review, May

Rumours about the iPhone, a new line-up of MacBooks and good news for jet-setting phone users

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NEWS: 28 December 2007 9:00 GMT by Katie Scott

And so it started - the iPhone phenomenon.

First up, rumours started circulating that the iPhone would include 3G in Europe.

Over in the States, Apple crossed the final hurdle before the launch after the Federal Communications Commission approved the iPhone for sale. And an array of iPhone accessories starting popping up.

Apple took advantage of its time in the limelight to launch an updated line-up of MacBook notebooks with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1GB of memory and larger hard drives in all models.

Elsewhere in the phone market, Motorola announced the next-generation RAZR - the RAZR2 - with 2GB of on-board memory.

This was followed by the unveiling of a new smartphone - the MOTO Q and two further handsets - the ROKR Z6 and Z8.

There was more good news for mobile phone users with a European Union decision to slash the costs of using mobile phones abroad.

The EU unveiled a plan to gradually reduce roaming charges over a 3-year period in all 27 member countries, and promised international mobile phone users savings of up to 75%.

For UK Wi-Fi users, there was news of Draft n standard Wi-Fi, had the potential to deliver up to five times the throughput and up to twice the range of previous-generation Wi-Fi gear.

Last but not least was the news of a brand new concept from Palm, the Foleo.

Claimed to be "the perfect companion for your smartphone" - the Foleo was a small laptop-sized device with a 10-inch screen and full-sized keyboard that connects wirelessly with your smartphone to let users view Word, Excel, PDF and PowerPoint attachments, type longer emails, and get a big-screen look at webpages and photos.