/ 0
The Mobile World Congress wrapped up at the end of this past week in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. More than 60,000 people packed into the Fira de Barcelona to see what the mobile industry has to offer for 2012. This gathering featured some of the most powerful voices in technology. They gathered to speak about new products, the new direction of technology and work to define what the word “mobile” really means. The focus at the Mobile World Congress is gadgets, gizmos and all of the fun that comes with those.
This year featured several exciting announcements regarding new cell phones for 2012. So if you find yourself due for an upgrade on Verizon, AT&T or Sprint, I give you some of the most interesting and intriguing cell phones from the 2012 Mobile World Congress.
Samsung Beam
The South Korean company had a damn near perfect showing at this year’s MWC. The Samsung Galaxy S II, the company’s flagship phone, beat out the iPhone 4S for Best Phone of 2011 during the awards ceremony at MWC. As if that wasn’t enough, Samsung also was selected for Best Manufacturer. So how did they raise the bar beyond that? Two words: projector phone.What it is: A smartphone featuring 2.3 Android, a 4-inch WVGA screen, 1GHz dual-core CPU, 8GB of internal storage, a 2000 mAh battery and a built in projector capable of 15 lumens of brightness.
Why it is special: The specs on this phone look pedestrian compared to some of the phones on the market right now. Until you come to the real reason you would buy this phone, the projector. This built in projector fits sleekly into the form factor of the phone and can be used to project an image up 50 inches wide (4’2”) in high definition. The projection is controlled by a dedicated application on the phone.
Why you should care: Forget the days when you huddled around a measly 4-inch screen to show your friend the latest cat video on YouTube. Now, you can be the life of any social gathering and just project those lovable felines on any blank wall. If cat videos aren’t your bag then consider this scenario: job interview. “Hold on sir, let me just project a slideshow featuring my portfolio on your wall. What’s that? Why yes I would like my own office and private jet.”
HTC One X
HTC, much like Samsung, has entrenched themselves in innovating on the Android side of the cell phone industry. After a relatively recent partnership with Beats Audio, HTC has shown some signs of leveling out after the company’s meteoric run in 2010. This looks to change with HTC putting much of its hope in their new flagship device: the high-end HTC One X.What it is: The new big, bad kid on the block. This absolute beast of a phone is a technophile’s wet dream: 1.5 GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 4.7 inch 720p LCD screen, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on top of the brand new HTC Sense 4.0 UI, a 8-megapixel with a f/2.0 lens and the capability of recording in 1080p.
Why it is special: This phone takes most, if not all, of the highest end specifications available in phones and packs it into a tidy package. The initial impressions of the physical design have been positive, with those who have used it noting it the lightness of the polycarbonate unibody design. The camera application opens and is ready to take a picture in less than one second.
Why you should care: Most people sign a new two-year service agreement every time they get a new cell phone. Although the HTC One X may be marketed as a top of the line phone reserved for technology fanatics such as myself, think of it this way. Two years is a long time and technology moves very quickly. Why not grab the best of the best when you do go for that upgrade and in turn, put yourself ahead of the tech curve. Then, a year from now you won’t be sorely disappointed when your phone begins to pale in comparison to all of your friends’ phones.
Nokia 808 Pureview
One would think that any announcement featuring a Nokia cell phone would certainly have feature Microsoft in some way. This being said after Nokia ditched its Symbian operating system in favor of the Windows Phone operating system. Essentially, two floundering companies teamed up in hopes of even being in the same conversation as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. Yet, one of the more impressive pieces of tech at MWC came from Nokia and featured the now secondary Symbian Belle operating system. This move baffled the tech talking heads, until Nokia presented the Nokia 808 PureView.What it is: This phone features pretty underwhelming specs: the Symbian Belle OS, a 1.3 GHz single-core chip, a 4-inch display (corner to corner), 512MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Then we get to the Carl Zeiss camera on the back.
Why it is special: The camera. This phone was designed for photo enthusiasts in mind and the results show. This phone is capable of continuous focus of 1080p images and has a sensor resolution of over 41 megapixels. This number drops to 34 megapixels when not shooting stills. The processor in the phone then takes the insane amount of pixels and condenses them on top of one another, producing a smaller and easier to manage output file.
The video recorder is capable of 1080p and 4x lossless zoom when recording giving you the ability to capture close up, high definition movie with your phone. In addition, the PureView can record audio in high definition and 5.1 surround sound using Nokia’s Rich Recording.
Why you should care: I’ll be the first to admit this is a niche product. This piece of tech appears as a camera that can make phone calls, not the other way around. That acknowledgement aside, the pure capabilities of this phone when it comes to capturing life’s moments makes me drool. What do we ALWAYS have with us? Our cell phones. Now, all of life’s nuances, beauty and unforgettable moments can be captured using a small, sleek handset rather than that bulky DSLR.
Contact Tyler Singleton at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
