Mobile World Congress 2014, the world’s mobile showcase

  • Overview of the new products that will be presented next week in Barcelona by leaders in telephony and mobile solutions

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M. Crespo
20.02.2014 - 17:06

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Fira Barcelona is getting ready to welcome, a week from today, the most important trade show out of the seventy that take place during 2014 at the center. In just nine years, the Mobile World Congress has managed to attract world attention as the most important showcase of a key sector of the mobility market. More than 1700 companies will showing off their products from February 24-27, including the biggest names in the telephone and mobile services industry with the notable and typical exception of Apple.

In fact, last year, other giants in the sector, like LG, Samsung and Sony, followed the steps of the Californian company and decided to introduce their most important products—the G2, Xperia Z and Galaxy S4, respectively—far away from the MWC. This year’s fair, nevertheless, things seem to be falling back into place, and Barcelona will once again be the centerpiece of the congress, where most of the big announcements will take place.

That’s what the rumors say, at any rate: Samsung’s Galaxy S5, Sony’s Xperia Z2 and HTC’s One 2 (M8) are some of the projects that might become public next week at the installations of the Fira Barcelona in Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona’s neighbor to the south). There are new products that are tied to mobile devices (telephones, tablets, and ‘phablets’…) but there is also some news related to content (applications, services) and, as was seen in January at the CES in Las Vegas, ‘wearable tech’—technology integrated with the body and clothing, exemplified by products like smartwatches—, the ingenuity of flexible screens…

Let’s take a look at what’s waiting for us at MWC 2014 from each of the big companies in the sector

Google
Google is an important player in many areas of mobility: as a content creator and service provider for mobile devices, as a manufacturer, and perhaps most importantly as a developer of the principal operating system for smart phones and tablets. It’s in this last area, with Android, that the heterogeneous Californian company will once again shine next week in Barcelona. Not to mention the possibility of surprises in mobile phones or tablets—perhaps a new Nexus 10 or will there be an 8″ Nexus 8 with an Intel chip?

HTC
In 2013, HTC was one of the mobile device makers who took advantage of the MWC in order to present its most important news of the year: the One. This year, the upgrade is expected. known throughout its development phase with the name M8. Whether it is introduced in Barcelona next week or presented in New York in March, the new HTC should be colorful, with a 5 inch screen and 1080 pixels, Snapdragon 800 chip, 1.5GB of RAM and Android OS.

Huawei
One of the big Chinese players, with increasing influence each year and a leader in 5G telephony research and experimentation in Europe brings recent news of the Ascend P6S, an 8-core processor model from MediaTek. For the Barcelona show, Huawei could announce that it is betting on the trend in ‘smart watches’.

LG
Given that LG already announced the G2 smartphone in September, it’s unlikely that the Korean company will launch the G3 at MWC. But it could introduce the G Pro 2, which indeed has already been confirmed, and even a G2 Mini, which would compete with the One mini from HTC or the Xperia Z1 Compact from Sony.

Motorola
Motorola lands in Barcelona with the recent news that Google, which had acquired the company in 2012, wants to sell the mobile device division. That means that the US manufacturer will arrive in the city with a new dance partner, the Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, as long as the US government approves its purchase offer.

Nokia
The Finnish company Nokia, famous as much for its rise along with European mobile manufacturers as for its subsequent fall to the Americans and Asians, introduces itself this year with its homework partially done in the area of devices equipped with Microsoft Windows Phone operating system. Even though it recently released the Lumia 1520 mobile device and the Lumia 2520 tablet, there’s possibly room at MWC for the announcement of the successors to the Lumia 1020 phone and the Lumia 2520 tablet: the 1820 (with a 5.2″ screen) and the 2020 (8″ screen). And even the mysterious Normandy (or ‘X’) the long-awaited first smart phone from Nokia with Android.

Oppo
Another Chinese company that may speak next week is Oppo, who may release the new model of its Find 5 mobile device. Actually, it has already released the specifications or the Find 7: 5.5″ screen with 538ppi resolution and a Snapdragon 800 2.3GHz processor, with 3GB of RAM, 13 mega-pixel front facing and 5MP rear-facing cameras, with 16GB.

Samsung
The Korean giant Samsung doesn’t seem to want to repeat the ‘Apple strategy’ that it tried last year at MWC 2013. Next Monday evening it will hold a press conference where it will introduce the Galaxy S5, its trump card of the year with technical specs that may include, they say, a QHD screen 2560 by 1600 pixels and 5.24″, 3GB of RAM, 16 mega-pixel camera and an octacore Exynos 6 and quadcore Snapdragon 805 from Qualcomm.

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