MWC 2012: news, previews, rumors, and more! – The Verge

How long does it take to ‘launch’ a smartphone?

2012-04-27T11:01:04-04:00

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What does the word "launch" mean to you? Angry Birds players might define it as the righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate aviary agent, but phone manufacturers are much more elusive. Some see the launch of a product as the penultimate step before sending it out to retail shelves, while others - perhaps, most - seem to treat it as just an opportunity to drum up fresh consumer interest.

To test where the world's major handset manufacturers sit on that sliding scale, we've decided to check up on the current availability of phones launched at MWC 2012, a show jam-packed with new announcements. Today marks exactly two …

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HTC One S official: 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, Android 4.0, thinnest HTC phone ever

2012-02-26T15:34:08-05:00

htc one s

The long-awaited launch of HTC's next mainstream superstar phone is upon us and its name is the One S. Eschewing the tired motifs that have characterized HTC design over the past year, the 4.3-inch One S looks bold, distinctive, and extremely slim. Its software is right up to date, shipping with Android 4.0 plus added Sense 4.0 skinning, it features a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, and its 8-megapixel camera is the same as on the HTC One X. Combining an f/2.0 lens with a backside-illuminated sensor, it's as close to the cutting edge as the One S' 7.8mm thickness.

Camera performance has been a real priority for HTC with the One series and all thr …

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Huawei unveils K3 quad-core processor

2012-02-26T09:42:33-05:00

Huawei logo

At Huawei's MWC press conference today in Barcelona, the company has just unveiled a new Huawei-made processor, the K3. We'd heard rumblings that Huawei was considering the move, and it's a big one for the company to be sure. It's a quad-core A9 CPU, with 16 GPUs inside as well. Huawei claims it has the lowest chip temperature on the market, and the smallest footprint. Huawei compared the new processor to the chips inside the Eee Pad Transformer and the Galaxy Nexus, with the K3 coming out on top in each benchmark test. It's also remarkably power efficient, with up to 50 percent AP power saving - even at very high or very low temperatures.

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Huawei debuts Ascend D quad, ‘the world’s fastest smartphone’

2012-02-26T09:40:22-05:00

Ascend D quad

MWC is just getting under way, and Huawei's kicking off the show with a new flagship smartphone: the Ascend D quad. Part of the company's new "Diamond" series of handsets, the D quad is powered by a quad-core processor, and Huawei says it's "the world's fastest smartphone." It's running Android 4.0, with three capacitive buttons below the 4.5-inch, 720p display. The handset runs on Huawei's new K3V2 quad-core processor, clocked as high as 1.5GHz, and is just 8.9mm thick and weighs 4.6 ounces - it's not LTE compatible yet, but Huawei said it will be this year. There's an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter - the …

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LG Optimus 3D Max hands-on photos and video

2012-02-26T08:56:58-05:00

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LG's Optimus 3D Max doesn't have the highest-end specs of LG's offerings here at MWC, but it is a marked improvement over its predecessor, the Optimus 3D. That said, you have to really want the 3D in order to accept a phone that's still stuck on Android 2.3. The phone overall feels decent enough, with a small bump on the bottom of the soft-touch rear panel.

Spec-wise, the Optimus 3D Max is not especially notable beyond the fact that it can do 3D on its "brightened" 4.3-inch display. When not viewing 3D, the WVGA screen is passable, but viewing 3D content is as headache-inducing as ever. We think that the 3D Max is slightly better for viewing …

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LG Optimus Vu hands-on photos and video

2012-02-26T08:46:23-05:00

Gallery Photo: LG Optimus Vu hands-on

The LG Optimus Vu is not a shy phone / tablet. Like the Galaxy Note, it has a large 5-inch screen, but its 4 by 3 aspect ratio makes it a very difficult device to hold in one hand. Being only 8.5mm thin certainly helps the phone-tablet hybrid feel like it's something you could carry around, but if you have designs to use this LTE phone with anything fewer than two hands, we have bad news for you. The Galaxy Note feels big, this feels massive.

The Vu has a small button on the top that brings down a custom menu where you can select different pen sizes and colors, and then you can doodle on the screen. We use the word "doodle" intentionally, bec …

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Huawei Ascend D quad pictured, promises to be ‘the world’s fastest smartphone’

2012-02-26T08:07:08-05:00

huawei ascend d quad

It seems to be growing increasingly difficult to keep device announcements under wraps these days, and Huawei has become the latest victim of some premature exultation. An advertising board at Barcelona Airport has started displaying a handset called the Ascend D quad, which the company will most likely make official at its upcoming MWC press conference today. Its name suggests that this will be the quad-core smartphone that was rumored a couple of weeks ago. Huawei is adding in an extra bit of relish by describing as "the world's fastest smartphone," while the capacitive Android keys up front remove any doubt about the operating system.

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Nokia Lumia 610 image and specifications leaked?

2012-02-26T05:08:16-05:00

Nokia Lumia 610 rumor

We are less than 24 hours away from Nokia's Mobile World Congress 2012 press event and it appears one of the company's new Windows Phone devices has made its way online. A single image of an alleged Lumia 610 handset was posted to Twitter this weekend by an unofficial Nokia_N8 account. We are unable to confirm the authenticity of the image, but specifications for the rumored device appear to have leaked too.

BGR India claims the Lumia 610 will feature a 3.2-inch display, 3-megapixel camera, and will run Windows Phone Tango. The site says the handset will be priced at around $233 when it is launched in India. We have heard a number of details …

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Galaxy Tab 2 coming in 10.1-inch version as well

2012-02-25T22:13:30-05:00

Gallery Photo: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) press images

Samsung has just announced a 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Tab 2 Android tablet after revealing the 7.0-inch version earlier this month. The Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) will have a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 LCD and a 1GHz dual-core processor running a Touch Wiz-skinned version of Android 4.0. The 9.7mm-thick tablet has 1GB of RAM and will come in both a 3G + Wi-Fi and a Wi-Fi only version, with the former supporting quad-band HSPA+. Both versions will have a 3-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera, as well as Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, and - interestingly enough - a proximity sensor on just the 3G version. There will be an option between either …

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Samsung introduces Galaxy Beam, an Android smartphone with built-in projector

2012-02-25T22:09:00-05:00

Samsung Galaxy Beam

It's only 4AM in Barcelona, but the Mobile World Congress news is already popping - Samsung just took the wraps off the Galaxy Beam, an Android 2.3 smartphone with a built-in HD projector. Outside of the projector, the phone's other specs are fairly pedestrian. There's a 4-inch display with an 800 x 480 resolution, 1GHz dual-core processor, 5MP back camera with flash plus a 1.3MP front-facing camera, and 8GB of storage onboard (plus a microSD slot). As for connectivity, it'll run on GSM networks thanks to quad-band HSPA+.

While the specs are unexciting, the projector is the real draw here. It's rated at an "ultra-bright" 15 lumens and can p …

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