The first two parts of this roundup (here and here) focused on the trends, but I know you want to see the latest gadgets too. Six new tablets and 21 new phones debuted at Mobile World Congress, and a host of apps and services. Newer, faster, shinier all round, but I've picked out some of the most interesting debutants.
Most of the new phones at the show were fairly pedestrian smartphones, and most ran Android. You know the drill: big screen, latest processors (most with multiple cores now), 8MP camera, HD graphics, and software customisation on top of the stock OS (usually 4.0). Everyone has access to the same ingredients, so it's not a surprise most of the dishes end up looking a bit samey.
In order to stand out, you have to do something a bit different...
Forty-one megapixels? No, there's no decimal point missing there. It really is a phone with a 41MP camera. And that's not interpolation: it really is a 41MP sensor. It was exciting enough to win Nokia the coveted “Best of Show” award.
It's long been a truism in cellphone photography that beyond a certain size a big sensor is a waste, because it can't take advantage of a tiny lens. Nokia begs to differ, and proves its point by bolting a truly massive sensor onto a good but still very small Carl Zeiss lens. You can output a native 38MP (the edges are trimmed depending on which alignment you're using) image if you really want to, but the key lies in Nokia's image optimisation software, which collapses multiple pixels into single points and gives you a much better image, roughly the size of a regular 5MP image. It also allows for higher digital zoom before image quality suffers.
The camera is also noteworthy because it does not run Microsoft Windows Phone - presumably this was in the labs for a while before the Nokia/Microsoft deal was inked. It's a Symbian device, the only one launched at MWC, but Nokia says we'll see the image technology making its way into other products over time. In other words: don't buy this one, wait for the Windows version.
Asus already gave us the Transformer, a tablet that turns into a netbook [I own one, and it's brilliant - ed], and now we have the Padfone, a phone that turns into a tablet. And a netbook.
The Padfone is an unexceptional Android phone, spec-wise, but comes with a tablet dock - a fully-formed tablet with a hole in the back for the phone. Dock the phone, and the larger display takes over, sharing the phone's data and Internet access. The company also has a keyboard dock for it, turning it into a netbook akin to the Transformer.
The key advantages are additional hardware (like expansion ports for external storage and USB devices), sharing data and networking seamlessly between phone and tablet, and device consolidation. The downside is that unless each device is the best in its class (and they aren't), you could be compromising in every respect, ending up with a good but not excellent phone, an unexciting tablet, and a netbook that just isn't a Transformer Prime.
Every other spec is redundant: all you need to know is that this is a smartphone with a built-in DLP projector capable of projecting a 50-inch HD picture onto a flat surface.
The tiny projector itself is impressive, and handy for projecting video, but it might be more useful as a separate device (of which there are plenty available) where it won't drain the phone battery, leaving the phone free for the handler to navigate a presentation without the picture jumping all over the wall.
If you just want the video projector, you might not care that it's a relatively underpowered Android phone in other respects.
There's always one - the overeager upgrade enthusiast who pimps out his PC or car with every accessory money can buy. HTC is that guy.
The One X is what you get if you take an already good recipe for an Android phone and then just max out everything.
A 4.7-inch screen, quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 32GB storage, 8MP camera with an F2.0 28mm lens, Beats Audio, NFC, and a partridge in a pear tree. It's guaranteed to impress, possibly as much for its price as its features. But if you have to have a better phone than your neighbour, this is it.
Phones which deviate from conventional form factors always polarise opinion, and the Optimus Vu will probably do that the same way the oversized Samsung Galaxy Note did.
The Vu is squarish, with a 5-inch screen in 4:3 ratio. It's bulky to be sure, but early BlackBerrys were criticised in much the same way, and now that format is de facto for keypad phones. The Vu is squarer than the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note (which was itself upgraded at MWC with a 10.1-inch big brother), and also features a stylus for input.
Lava's Xolo X900 is noteworthy for its use of Intel's Medfield Z2460 CPU, a processor whose primary claim to fame is improved power management and battery life.
It's only a single-core chip, but a separate GPU allows for solid graphics performance. Although the X900 is intended for the Indian market, all eyes will be watching to see how the Medfield's performance measures up in the real world - other manufacturers have models in the pipeline.
Windows 8 consumer preview
It wasn't all mobile devices at MWC. Microsoft announced a public, downloadable preview of Windows 8 for consumers, hoping to build awareness and familiarity ahead of the product's launch. Windows 8 is intended to achieve consistency between PCs and mobile devices, with a complete overhaul of the user experience in the new “Metro” interface.
The preview exceeded a million downloads in its first 24 hours, and feedback has been positive so far.
Near field communications is a technology which uses a proximity sensor to initiate interactions between nearby devices, such as financial micropayments similar to the contactless smartcards used by the Gautrain. NFC allows more complex interaction - essentially kicking off interaction which could be almost anything. A lot of devices at MWC sported NFC chips, with networks hoping a new wave of services will tempt users.
The prospect of having to pull a R10 000 phone out of your pocket instead of a R50 wallet, hasn't dampened the industry's enthusiasm for the technology.
Google is pushing NFC too, because the concept ties in well with Google Wallet. Google is pushing operators to enable the facility on their networks, though there's no word on any local progress. Absa was the first to trial NFC payment tools in South Africa, using BlackBerry handsets, last December.
Apple wasn't at MWC, but the iPad 2 won Best Tablet and Adobe's Photoshop Touch dominated a lot of blog coverage.
It's exactly what it sounds like: a scaled-down version of Photoshop, allowing photo-editing, retouching, and artwork on an iPad. It's no Photoshop replacement, but $10 buys you an impressive suite, including layers, curves, blending and a lot more.
Rovio won Best Consumer App for Angry Birds, but possibly for the wrong reasons. Yes, it's a great game that has a big following, and yes, Rovio has done a good job maintaining its momentum.
But most of all, it's a fantastic example of how a developer can monetise a mobile app by starting with a good freemium product and building it into a great franchise with a revenue stream. Rovio claims to have made over $100 million out of the Angry Birds line-up, and deserves every cent of it.
You can see the full list of Global Mobile Awards here.
Best Mobile App for Enterprise was Citrix Receiver, which pushes virtualised apps to mobile devices. You need a Citrix environment to start with - this isn't just another Xvnc clone (and there are plenty of those in the app stores) but a way to extend enterprise apps on to smartphones and tablets with a minimum of fuss.
* Everyone has at least one killer app they just can't live without. What's yours? Use our feedback facility to let us know.
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