A look back: the best of MWC 2012
There's an absolute flood of new phones, tablets, and other gadgets being introduced this week at Mobile World Congress 2012, and we're here to go through the mass and bring you our hands-on impressions with the best devices we see this week. Already we've seen Huawei's quad-core Ascend D, the LG Optimus 4X, and Samsung's Galaxy Beam — and we're just getting started. We'll be updating throughout the week with all the standout products we see right here.
MWC 2012
The Verge Interview: Nvidia GM Mike Rayfield on Tegra 3 and LTE
Tegra 3, Nvidia's new quad-core chip for smartphones and tablets, has been the most talked-about new processor at MWC 2012. Its popularity continues a habit the company established last year when almost every phone maker had a Tegra 2 handset to show off. Today's a little different from yesteryear, however, in one very important aspect: America's top two carriers demand LTE in their high-end phones. That poses a conundrum for Nvidia as Tegra 3 is most evidently a high-end part, but without...
Apple
Windows 8 vs. iPad: feature by feature
Microsoft's Windows 8 Consumer Preview was made available to download yesterday, giving everyone a chance to experience the company's most revolutionary change in user interface since Windows 95. The interaction paradigm has shifted from a mouse-centric desktop to a touch-friendly, highly visual Metro style UI. The old Start orb has been retired and replaced by a Charms bar, which is brought to life with an inward swipe from the right. A swipe from the top down dismisses the app you're in and...
Microsoft
Windows 8 Consumer Preview hands-on
Microsoft is releasing the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 today, a highly anticipated software release from the company that marks the introduction of a full touch interface for Windows. The software giant has attempted to bring touch functionality to Windows over a number of years, but Windows 8 goes a huge step further by introducing a separate environment for new applications, designed with touch and Metro style in mind, to the masses of Windows users.
The Verge Interview: Stephen Elop 'more confident than ever' about Windows Phone
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is on hand at MWC this week to help spread the company's message to business partners, carriers, and the press. Ever gregarious and approachable, Elop gave us a few minutes of his time today to discuss the first year of Nokia's transition, which got started with the announcement of a strategic alliance with Microsoft in February 2011. He was candid about the downsides of this fundamental change in strategy, noting the number of jobs Nokia has had to cut in an effort to...
Apps & Software
Windows Phone Tango: improved MMS, voice notes, app restrictions (hands-on pictures and video)
Microsoft announced today that it will bring a Windows Phone 7.5 update to existing handsets in April. Codenamed Tango, the update lowers Microsoft's minimum specification for Windows Phone and introduces some new features to existing devices. We got an early hands-on look at several builds of Windows Phone today, all of which include new MMS features and several restrictions for devices with 256MB of RAM.
Microsoft is removing background agents with Windows Phone Tango if a device has 256MB...
MWC 2012
Intel lays out its plan for Android, will cut chip size in half by 2014
As Paul Otellini said at the Intel press event at Mobile World Congress, "it wouldn't be an Intel presentation without a roadmap." The company has laid out the long-term plans for its mobile processors, aiming to move from the current 32nm architecture of the Medfield Atom Z2460 to 22nm next year, and to just 14nm by 2014. The rate that these architectures are shrinking at mean that Intel is aiming to move faster than Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors you can fit into...
MWC 2012
Option Xyfi hands-on: a creative new take on the portable hotspot
Belgian firm Option — a longtime player in the USB modem and embedded wireless module market — had yet to follow competitors Novatel and Sierra Wireless down the MiFi-style mobile hotspot path, but it just launched a product here at Mobile World Congress today that rethinks what exactly the term "mobile hotspot" means. The so-called Xyfi looks a lot more like a traditional USB stick than a hotspot (in fact, Option bills it as the world's smallest 3G hotspot), but it's actually both: when...
MWC 2012
Google coyly hints at Jelly Bean Android codename with... jelly beans
We first reported that Google's next version of Android would be called Jelly Bean back in September, but now we're feeling even more confident: not only has a trusted source confirmed the name for us, but it's sort of impossible not to notice the enormous bowl of candy Google's placed in the middle of its private meeting area. That candy? Jelly beans. We asked Andy Rubin what the story was, and he declined to confirm anything — although he did say we could take as many as we wanted.
They...
Android
Google building 'firewall' between Android and Motorola after acquisition
Google's Andy Rubin led the charge to acquire Motorola, but the Android boss won't have anything to do with the company once the deal closes — he told reporters at Mobile World Congress today that he "sponsored" the acquisition but now has "nothing to do with it.... I don't even know who's running it." Questions about Motorola's future are starting to heat up now that the EU and US have approved the deal, which is expected to close soon, and Google's move to replace Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha...
MWC 2012
Mozilla's Boot to Gecko project: the internet is your phone (hands-on video)
We stopped by Mozilla's booth at MWC today, and in addition to all the Firefox promotion the company's doing, it was also showing off something a little different: its Boot to Gecko project. Boot to Gecko is, in essence, a phone operating system that is entirely web- and HTML5-based. From the moment you turn the phone on, everything you see is HTML5. Even the dialer uses Mozilla's "telephony APIs," and is itself web-based. There are no native apps, just a series of the most impressive...
MWC 2012
Google to 'double down' on Android tablets in 2012, says Andy Rubin
It's no secret that Android tablet sales have lagged far behind Apple's iPad, and Google's planning to do something about it. In a meeting with reporters today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Android chief Andy Rubin called the 12 million Android tablets sold thus far "not insignificant, but less than I'd expect it to be if you really want to win," and said that "2012 is going to be the year that we double down and make sure we're winning in that space."
Rubin said that the biggest...
Asus Padfone, Station, and Stylus Headset: hands-on video, pictures and impressions
Here it is: the modular, transformative, Asus Padfone, in what we're fairly confident is in its final form. The 4.3-inch device on its own is actually pretty nice — decently thin with a nice texture on the back cover. The screen is bright and fairly snappy.Other than the 3.5mm headphone jack on top, all ports and connectors hug the left side of the phone. Which is important, of course, for its tablet dock, the Padfone Station. The lip that houses the smartphone sticks out farther than the...
MWC 2012
The Verge Interview: Nokia's Damian Dinning on the 808 PureView's history and future
Nokia rather blew the doors off MWC 2012 this morning by announcing a 41-megapixel camera sensor ensconced within the confines of a smartphone, the 808 PureView. The product of five years of development work, the collection of technologies under the PureView umbrella is only starting off with the Symbian-based 808 and should make its way to other devices and platforms over time. Nokia is promising amazing image quality from this camera thanks to some oversampling wizardry — taking data from...
Nokia launches 808 PureView with 41MP camera: hands-on pictures, video, and preview
It's rare that we have to put news about a smartphone in our photography hub, but that's just what Nokia has merited today with the introduction of the PureView 808. The headline spec is that the brand new camera sensor inside it is composed of 41 million pixels, however as you might have surmised, this handset doesn't take full 41-megapixel stills. Instead, it oversamples — taking the image data from seven neighboring pixels and consolidating it into one pixel's worth — and generates...
Mobile
HTC One S pictures, video and hands-on preview
The HTC One S is the best designed phone of the year so far. It measures just 7.6mm in thickness but feels even thinner thanks to its slanted sides and the way the front glass surface slopes off the edges. For a 4.3-inch phone, the One S feels remarkably light and easy to handle. If you think back to the leap HTC made between the Desire HD and Sensation — making its 4.3-inch Android flagship significantly thinner, lighter and more ergonomic — the same delta is apparent between the...
Mobile
HTC One X for AT&T pictures, video, and hands-on preview
HTC's new flagship is here: the HTC One X is in the vanguard of not just the new "One" lineup, but of HTC's mini-revival for 2012. Based on our brief time with it, we think the phone will manage to pull off both of those heavy tasks, though whether it will be enough to fend off Samsung's rumored Galaxy S III is sadly going to be an open question until later this year. For now, the HTC One X impresses on its own terms and specs, and what great specs they are.
The first and most important...
MWC 2012
Sony Xperia P hands-on pictures, video, and close up with the WhiteMagic display
We just had a quick chance to play with the new Sony Xperia P, and... it's a slightly smaller riff on the Xperia S packed into an aluminum unibody case. The big draw is the "WhiteMagic" LCD display, which adds an additional stripe of white pixels to the traditional RGB layout. Sony says it's a dramatically better display and allows the phone to perform better in daylight — it certainly looks beautiful, with super sharp text, excellent contrast, and solid viewing angles. It's only qHD,...
HzO WaterBlock waterproofs your electronics (hands-on demo)
We've seen waterproof phones in various guises over the past few months, but HzO WaterBlock is demonstrating some impressive technology at Mobile World Congress that might make its way into your next smartphone. HzO has several concept devices, including an iPhone 4S and a Galaxy S II, that are covered in a thin film nano-coating to provide a near invisible layer of protection for your favorite gadgets.
The coating is highly water resistant and HzO seemed happy to dunk various tablets and...
Android
Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD has quad-core K3 processor, 1920 x 1200 display (hands-on pictures)
It was barely an afterthought in Huawei's MWC press conference, but the company is also getting ready to launch a seriously high-end tablet. The MediaPad 10 FHD has a 1920 x 1200 display, an 8-megapixel camera, and Huawei's new and impressive K3 processor — and it all fits in a body that's just 8.8mm thick. The device is still in its early stages (reps told us the model on display was hand-made for today's event), but even now it's already impressive. The pixel-rich 16:10 display looks...
Mobile
Huawei Ascend D quad: hands-on with the fastest smartphone in the world
Huawei's latest flagship device, the Ascend D quad, is supposedly "the world's fastest smartphone." So, naturally, as soon as the company's MWC press conference was over, we had to go take a look for ourselves. The D quad is definitely a sight to behold, particularly the 4.5-inch 720p display — the screen's very bright, and the viewing angles are excellent. It's not the thinnest phone we've seen, but its 8.8mm body definitely cuts a slim figure, and actually feels smaller in the hand than...
Samsung Galaxy Beam hands-on pictures and video
We've just had a chance to check out Samsung's Galaxy Beam here in Barcelona, a phone that's not very interesting at first blush — Android 2.3, 4-inch WVGA display, and a 1GHz dual-core processor — but the hook here is the presence of a built-in TI DLP nHD (640 x 360) projector at 15 lumens of brightness. Samsung says that at 12.5mm, the Beam "isn't any thicker than any other phone in the world" — clearly that's not true, thanks in no small part to Samsung's own devices like the Galaxy...
Android
LG Optimus Vu hands-on photos and video
The LG Optimus Vu is not a shy phone / tablet. Like the Galaxy Note, it has a large 5-inch screen, but its 4 by 3 aspect ratio makes it a very difficult device to hold in one hand. Being only 8.5mm thin certainly helps the phone-tablet hybrid feel like it's something you could carry around, but if you have designs to use this LTE phone with anything fewer than two hands, we have bad news for you. The Galaxy Note feels big, this feels massive.
The Vu has a small button on the top that brings...
Android
LG Optimus 4X HD hands-on photos and video
LG's Optimus 4X HD is here with a 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 chip inside and a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 IPS display on the outside. This flagship device, only the second (official) Tegra 3 phone we've seen after Fujitsu teased one at CES, runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with an LG skin on top.
We played with the 4X for a few minutes here in LG's booth ahead of the official opening of Mobile World Congress tomorrow, and it definitely feels like a departure from every other Optimus model we've...
