Microsoft will ship its public beta of Windows 8, otherwise known as Consumer Preview, on February 29 at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. The OS will have a two-hour event devoted to it starting at 3PM, according to invitations sent to ZDnet and others. The date lines up with Microsoft's previous promises of a late February release, if only just.
A fresh rumor backs a Samsung Galaxy Tab running at 2GHz to be unveiled at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Android and Me claim to have unknowingly played with the device at a special media-only closed door Samsung seminar at CES. It is said to sport Samsung’s latest dual-core Exynos 5250 processor that is built on ARM’s latest Cortex-A15 architecture, which incorporates its next-gen Mali-T406 GPU.
After taking a three-year hiatus from Mobile World Congress, Nokia just revealed it will hold a press conference during the opening day of the show and have a booth presence there as well. The largest phone maker by volume didn't get into any other specifics, though it did say it will have an exhibit in the Apps Planet section. In years past, the company focused on its own Nokia World show instead.
The ASUS PadFone will be officially unveiled at the Mobile World Congress show in February, a source told Engadget. At the same time, NetbookNews's Nicole Scott believes the device will be powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU like the Transformer Prime tablet, and not the Snapdragon S4, as previously believed. As its name suggests, the PadFone will be a hybrid device which docks a smartphone into a tablet element.
A new HTC smartphone, the Ville, will be officially unveiled at Mobile World Congress, BGR learned. The phone, which is currently running under its codename only, will reportedly be out in April and likely be the first to sport HTC Sense 4.0 laid overtop Android 4.0. Major specs are believed to include a 4.3-inch, 540x960 Super AMOLED touchscreen and a 1.5GHz, dual-core Snapdragon processor, making it roughly as fast as the Rezound.
Qualcomm has confirmed that it is on target to deliver its next generation S4 series Snapdragon processors to its partners by the end of this year. The news was delivered by Qualcomm’s Senior Vice President of Product Management, Cristiano Amon, at the company's Innovation Qualcomm event, currently being held in Istanbul. The chips, running at speeds up to 2.5GHz, could show up in smartphones early next year, possibly in time for the world’s largest phone trade show, Mobile World Congress, in February.
Following announcements of Netflix support on Android devices and the Boxee Box, shares of Netflix stock surged by seven percent by the end of the trading day. The primary announcement came from Qualcomm at Mobile World Congress, which highlighted the new capabilities for the wide range of Snapdragon-based devices.
A significant portion of the Mobile World Congress unveilings were geared for international releases or European launches, but Samsung also brought one of its forthcoming Galaxy S variants that will be headed to T-Mobile. Electronista had a chance to preview the Galaxy S 4G, which offers several tweaks aside from HSPA+ support.
Although ViewSonic is better known for its monitors and televisions, the company brought several new tablets and smartphones to show off at Mobile World Congress. Electronista stopped by the company's booth to check out the v350 handset and the ViewPad 4, a device that seems closer in size to a smartphone but carries a name suggestive of a tablet.
Electronista finally had a chance to take a closer look at Acer's 4.8-inch smartphone, which has been named the Iconia Smart. The device was first introduced late last year, but the company did not provide full details until this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With a 1024x480 display, the flagship smartphone represents one of the more unique Android offerings to arrive this year.
Samsung organized one of the largest events this week at Mobile World Congress to showcase its latest smartphone, the Galaxy S II. Electronista stayed around the venue after the formal unveiling to take a closer look at the new device, which could prove to be one of the most attractive Android offerings to launch this year.
Samsung is preparing to introduce new products at its 'Mobile Unpacked' meeting, and we're providing live event coverage at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company is expected to unveil the next-generation Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab devices.
Opera, the Norway-based browser that has found much more success as a standard on mobile phones than it has on the desktop, will unveil a version for the iPad at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain next week, the company announced. The developers also plan new versions of Opera Mini for Android, iPhone, J2ME, Blackberry and Symbian. Android and Symbian versions of Opera Mobile will also be making their debut at the conference.
Huawei has offered an early look at two of the mobile devices it will bring to the Mobile World Congress show in Spain next week. This includes the Ideos X3 smartphone and a new Ideos S7 Slim tablet, both of which use the Android operating system. The S7 Slim looks to differ only slightly from the currently available device that shares the same name.
Sony Ericsson is reportedly set to launch the Android-based Neo smartphone in two weeks at Mobile World Congress, sources have told TechRadar. The Neo name is said to be the official label for the same device that has been detailed in separate leaks under several other code-names including Vivaz 2, MT15i and Hallon.
NVIDIA may be set to formally unveil its Tegra 3 platform next month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, according to a Hexus report. Although the company has yet to commit to a launch date, the company's Tegra GM, Mike Rayfield, suggests the company would "come pretty close to my cadence of a launch every year."
The upcoming Sony Playstation phone, the Xperia Play, has been given a run through by Chinese website IT168. The phone was conspicuously missing in action from Sony’s CES keynote, but is expected to be formally unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month. However, this latest Chinese leak now leaves a lot less for Sony to reveal next month as a number of new details have emerged about the Android-powered handset.
Sony Ericsson is set to unveil several new Xperia handsets in February at the Mobile World Congress expo. The company is circulating a press invite that suggests attendees will "meet the new members of the Xperia family," although the document does not provide any hints regarding the identity of the upcoming devices.
Sony Ericsson has hinted at a possibility of producing a PSP phone, according to an interview with president Bert Nordberg in the Monday issue of the Mobile World Congress Show Daily. The company also introduced several new Android-based devices early this week, including the Xperia X10 mini and mini pro variants, along with the Symbian-powered Vivaz pro.
The Korean company Inbrics is set to launch its Android-based M1 MID next week at Mobile World Congress. Despite its MID designation, the device also works as a standard 3G phone. The form-factor is also close to many smartphones, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen. Standard specs include an 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU, 3 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, and 3G or WiMAX components.
Microsoft is allegedly set to unveil the "Zune Phone" later this month at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, according to the Spanish blog MuyComputer. The company has reportedly teamed with Nvidia to develop and launch the device, which is based on the Tegra platform. The handset will pair Windows Mobile 7 with Zune software for media management.
Microsoft is reportedly set to show off the long-awaited Windows Mobile 7 software next month at Mobile World Congress, according to CNET. Unnamed sources claim the company is still in the process of finalizing code for the OS update. The development is expected to be mostly complete by the end of summer, allowing the new OS to ship on devices by the end of the year.
Slovakian company Sygic at the Mobile World Congress demoed an iPhone app that provides turn-by-turn directions, according to The iPhone blog. The native app also provides voice prompts, points of interest, international support and local map storage on the device. Content for Europe weighed in around 2GB, using Tele Atlas data for the map information and points of interest. The interface is very similar to stand-alone navigation systems, with options to enter multiple route points, view text directions, search POIs, choose alternative routes and browse the map.
Garmin and ASUS on Wednesday morning announced a strategic alliance to design and sell co-branded mobile phones, including the launch of a new phone at the upcoming mobile conference in Barcelona, Spain and rebranded nüviphone (as the nüviphone G60), which was announced last week. According to the companies, both Garmin and ASUS have already begun joint development on a mobile phone product line, which will be known as the Garmin-Asus nüvifone series. The companies, which will leverage the companies’ navigation and mobile telephony expertise, expect to bring to market several Garmin-Asus nüvifone models in 2009, including a new model at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, February 16-19, 2009.
No less than eight new handsets from South Korea's Samsung are expected to make their official debut at Mobile World Congress in Spain in less than two weeks after being spotted on a European site on Tuesday. The highest-featured phone is expected to be the S5050, which is a slider with quad-band GSM/EDGE support. Its 2.2-inch OLED display offers 240x320 resolution and lets users interface with the 3.2-megapixel camera that has an LED flash.
A teaser webpage suggests the forthcoming GSM version of the yet unreleased Palm Pre smartphone is expected to be announced at Mobile World Congress in Spain in mid-February. A carrier for the new version of the handset is also expected to be named at the show, and Palm is already preparing for the widespread release of its announcements with a dedicated MWC webpage, which was accidentally opened up to the public before being locked down again.
Chinese network provider and cellphone manufacturer Huawei has recently announced it would show off a rumored handset based on the open-source Android platform from Google at the Mobile World Congress in Spain on February 16th. The company has not revealed any other details on the handset, saying only it will be the first mobile phone based on a single UMTS chipset.
Microsoft is set to introduce Windows Mobile 6.5 at the Mobile World Congress expo in mid-February but won't actually ship the product until the middle of 2009, according to a report that cites unnamed sources at Taiwanese handset makers. Despite announcing early in the year, the first devices using the new software will allegedly be made available only in summer, or roughly half a year after the introduction.
