Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile trade show, starts next week in Barcelona, Spain. Android Community has a preview of some of the mobile phones. Android 4.0, and dual-core LTE-enabled phones and tablets are likely to be in abundance.
- HTC One X, a Tegra 3 quadcore phone with 1GB of RAM and at least 32GB of storage space with a 4.7-inch screen, a 1.3-megapixel front camera, and an 8-megapixel rear camera, WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, an FM radio and NFC are also baked in.
- Samsung new SII variant will be certified for dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Samsung’s Galaxy S III will be a no show. Samsung is saving it for their own event, likely sometime in April.
- ZTE will announce two new LTE Handsets running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz chipsets. The PF200 smart phone will have a 4.3 inch screen, an 8MP camera and 1080p front facing camera for video calling and work across all the main LTE, UMTS and GSM spectrums, with Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, WiFi, A-GPS, (DLNA) compatibility, mobile high-definition link (MHL), and near field communications (NFC) capability. The N910 handset will work across LTE FDD, CDMA and EVDO spectrums. It has a WVGA (800 x 480) capacitive touch screen, with 5MP autofocus and flash camera with a 1080p front facing camera for video calling. Features will include GPOS, WiFi, Bluetooth and DLNA capability.
- The Optimus Vu packs a 5-inch display and LTE in an 8.5mm-thin package. It features 1024 x 768 IPS resolution, a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, an 8-megapixel camera, and comes with 32GB of storage. The LG Optimus LTE Tag adds forward-looking NFC capability to LG’s flagship device. The Android 2.3 phone with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor uses the LG Tag+ program to communicate with special stickers that can be programmed to change your phones settings in certain locations. The 4.5″ display found on the LG Spectrum (Verizon) and LG Nitro HD (AT&T) will be substituted for a smaller 4.3″ IPS display with an 800 x 480 resolution.
- 7″ tablets from Acer, Motorola, Lenovo and/or Sony will compete in the budget space, most running Android 4.0.
- Tegra 3 smartphones will ship this quarter, with integrated LTE chipset later this year. The nVidia Mimosa X, a new Android smartphone includes both an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and an Nvidia Icera modem chipset with support for 21Mbps HSPA+. Nvidia purchased Icera in mid-2011 and this is the first device to contain an Nvidia modem, CPU, and GPU.
- Motorola says there will be no Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich updates for the Droid Razr, Droid Bionic and Razr Maxx handsets in this quarter. The Atrix 3 and an unnamed phone, will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich. Google is reportedly working to make Atrix-like docking support a standard feature in Android 5.
- Sony’s Xperia S could be getting a little brother. The ST25i. The handset will likely be a lower-end offering in the Xperia lineup, said to feature a 3.5-inch FWVGA (854 x 480) Reality Display, a 1GHz dual-core CPU, Android 2.3.7, an Exmor R sensor with 720p video capture and a tiny user-replaceable 1,290mAh battery.
- Windows 8 Consumer Preview will be released during Mobile World Congress. Windows 8-based tablets and the touch-centric Metro UI, using Windows 8 desktop, will work on ARM-based devices. The desktop for ARM-based devices will allow access to the classic file explorer, Internet Explorer 10 and a built-in version of Office 15, but no third-party apps.
