As Mobile World Congress 2011 draws to a close, it's time to take stock of the plethora of smartphones and tablet PCs we saw for the first time. Tomorrow, we'll bring you the best tablet PCs of MWC 2011, but here, in no particular order, are smartphones that stood out at MWC 2011. Sadly, they didn't include a Facebook phone or an iPhone nano - but when and if such things exist, you'll read it here first.
The last week has brought nothing but good news for Microsoft and Windows Phone 7. Between Nokia's hardware commitment, Angry Birds on the way and Microsoft's own announcement of a roadmap for vital features such as multitasking, Windows Phone 7 seems to be catching a second wind in 2011.
One of the most buzzed about phones here at Mobile World Congress is LG's Optimus 3D, the first phone to use 3D display technology. Like the Optimus Black and the Optimus 2X, which we saw at Mobile World Congress, the Optimus 3D is powered by a dual-core processor and a 4.3-inch display. So how does 3D look on a mobile phone? Well, I'm honestly not all that impressed.
Mobile World Congress hasn't even started, but the next generation of super phones are already being unveiled. Samsung showed off its latest, the Galaxy S II, at its flashy Unpacked event in Barcelona. The Galaxy S II sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, a dual-core processor, and a whole new user interface.
Today I got my first hands-on time with the Motorola Xoom tablet, running Android 3.0.
Kyle Wiens and his team at iFixit, a Web site that provides free repair manuals and advice forums, are some of the smartest Apple geeks around. They've taken apart countless iPhones, Macs and iPads to see what makes them tick-and, of course, to find out how to repair them.
Tablet application developers can rejoice now that Google has released its software development kit for Android 3.0, the new edition of the platform designed specifically for tablets.
Today's announcement that Google co-founder Larry Page would replace Eric Schmidt as the company's CEO was a surprise, but maybe it shouldn't have been. While the company's earnings are still stellar, Schmidt has made a series of embarrassing statements and the company has had some very public failures.
Smartphone users tend to hold strong opinions about the various mobile platforms out there, often displaying feverish loyalty to the one they use and outright disdain for all others.
One can only hope that security software provider Trend Micro saw a nice sales boost after the proclamation of its chairman earlier this week that Android phones are more vulnerable to hacking than iPhones are. If it didn't, those blatantly self-serving statements were made for nothing.
Windows is on the verge of dropping below 90% market share, with smartphones and tablets posing an increasingly serious threat to Microsoft's dominance of the operating system market.
Images and details of the BlackBerry Dakota--the impending flagship smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM)--have emerged. The Dakota is packed with features as RIM struggles desperately to regain lost ground and compete with the Apple iPhone and the rising Android invasion.
My pockets are stuffed full of business cards from people I do not remember meeting, my head is thumping like a flamenco dancer, there's margarita salt on my laptop, and I can't seem to locate my pants. That can mean only one thing: I just returned from my annual pilgrimage to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
With the past week being dominated by CES announcements, it can be pretty hard to keep up with what was happening outside of Vegas. Worry not! GeekTech brings you the condensed guide of what else has been going on in the world of geek.
Prior to CES, there were only a handful of phones with front-facing cameras: the iPhone 4, the EVO 4G and the T-Mobile myTouch 4G to name a few. This year's CES was all about 4G, for sure, but video chat is definitely one of the apps carriers love to use as an example of how great the next generation of data speeds is.