Sabtu, 19 Februari 2011

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MWC 2011 Wrap-Up

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 11:30 AM PST

Another year, another Mobile World Congress, and the unstoppable juggernaut that is the smartphone industry continues apace. SlashGear took its biggest team to MWC 2011 to-date, and still found more than enough to keep us busy in Barcelona. After the cut, the stand-out products, the key mobile themes of 2011, and how tablets are muscling in on smart mobility.

Phones

When you’ve got “Mobile” in your name you’re obviously going to have more than a few cellphones on show, and MWC 2011 didn’t disappoint. Perhaps more so than any year previous, we’d already seen at least some of the key device details in the run up to Barcelona, either via leaks – like the XPERIA Play – or through pre-launch teasers – like the Optimus 3D. Absent as ever is a sense of launch immediacy: specific release dates and pricing are in short supply, and none of the major exhibitors have managed to follow in Apple’s footsteps and push a device out the door only days or weeks after its official unveil.

HTC brought one of the largest smartphone ranges to MWC 2011, with a full five handsets including two with specific Facebook functionality. The HTC Desire S, HTC Wildfire S and HTC Incredible S are all evolutionary rather than revolutionary, building on the successful releases of their predecessors, leaving the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa to win the bulk of our phone attention.

Maybe it’s the power of Facebook and the HTC hype machine, but the ChaCha and Salsa managed to whip up interest with little more than a dedicated (and, for that matter, non-user-assignable) hardware shortcut key and a hook into an updated HTC Sense. Even without explicit Facebook endorsement – though with a glowing if generic pre-recorded recommendation from founder Mark Zuckerberg – these look to be the two social networking devices to beat, as long as HTC can follow through on its promises to hit relatively budget pricing. Don’t underestimate how much of that solid start is the handiwork HTC has already put into Sense, however.

LG, meanwhile, looked to 3D for its cellular salvation, with the LG Optimus 3D packing a pair of 5-megapixel lenses and TI’s OMAP4 processor for Full HD 1080p recording and playback. With a glasses-free 3D display it’s probably stands the best chance of market success among 3D propositions, though most people we spoke to at the show threw in the telling caveat that “you can turn the 3D off and then the screen is great!”

Samsung hadn’t been discrete about the Samsung Galaxy S II, and its Sunday reveal wasn’t helped by a significant leak of specs and live photos after, we’ve been unofficially told, a huge mailing list of vendors, carriers, PR and other contacts were sent the details late on the Friday prior to the show. Still, the promise of a dual-core 4.3-inch smartphone still managed to impress, and with the Galaxy S before it setting sales records not only among Samsung’s range but in the US Android marketplace, we’ve only high hopes for the waifish successor.

The scale of Sony Ericsson‘s launch was undermined somewhat by a seen-it-all-before feeling; over-saturation of the XPERIA Play and leaked previews of the XPERIA Neo (along with its similarities to the earlier Symbian-based Vivaz) left only the XPERIA Pro with any sense of surprise. We can’t help but be cautious over the PlayStation phone, too, with lingering questions about the usability of its touch-sensitive alternatives to regular analog sticks and whether gaming developers will jump on board Sony’s new platform. Hardware-wise, beyond the slide-out control pad there’s little to differentiate the XPERIA Play from rival high-end smartphones – it’s not even a dual-core – and much of Sony’s drive seems to center around regular Android games packing extra content on the gaming phone. Sales, though, will have to convince developers that the extra work is going to be worth it, and the NGP may not arrive soon enough to envelop the XPERIA Play in its halo affect.

Apple weren’t even at MWC, but still managed to be one of the most talked about brands among attendees (and exhibitors); the company even clinched the GSMA “best smartphone” award for the iPhone 4. There’s no doubt that the Cupertino firm is still seen as the benchmark by which rivals are judged, and on the smartphone front at least there’s not a huge amount of lateral thinking going on.

Nokia was another brand getting well discussed, despite not really having anything to bring to MWC beyond CEO Stephen Elop. We sat down with the ex-Microsoftie to discuss his play for the Windows Phone market and reaction to conspiracy theories, product differentiation and the Android menace. Word from the halls was that while the Microsoft/Nokia pairing was probably the most sensible one, there is still plenty of work to be done if either company want to turn their respective brands around.

That ambition isn’t helped by Android and the huge amount of attention the platform garnered at the show. Google had cleverly distributed Android pins around the dozens of exhibitors with Android products, leading to a baseball-card-style swapping frenzy as the rarer examples were hastily negotiated over. Android was at the top end and at the budget end, with low-cost firms like ZTE and Huawei showing exactly why Nokia is terrified of their entry-level appeal. Eric Schmidt turned up for a MWC keynote to demonstrate a new Movie Studio app for tablets, described Android as “the world’s fastest growing mobile platform” and stormed through an at-times challenging Q&A about monetization, Twitter and fragmentation.

Tablets

As at CES 2011 before it, MWC 2011 wasn’t short on slates. Android again was the primary platform of choice, with a number of 3.0 Honeycomb models to choose from. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and LG Optimus Pad (aka the LG G-Slate) made their respective debuts, illustrating perfectly the difficulties OEMs have in differentiating their slates when Android’s prized “Google Experience” branding demands the software itself be left alone. Samsung picked portability and LG opted for 3D, but both managed to look underwhelming when compared to HTC‘s offering.

The HTC Flyer may not have Honeycomb out of the gate – it’ll launch with Gingerbread instead, with HTC promising a subsequent update – but its combination of custom software, OnLive cloud gaming, Evernote integration, beautiful 7-inch hardware and – prompting no small amount of controversy – stylus input option made it the stand-out slate of the show. Recognizing that not all tablet users are content with on-screen keyboards and the iPad content-consumption paradigm, HTC actually delivered on the marketing hyperbole with a unique proposition that we’re genuinely excited to try come Q2.

4G

4G may now be the umbrella term for everything from HSPA+ through WiMAX and LTE, but the confusion is only just beginning. While we don’t generally cover carrier infrastructure on SlashGear, it was tough to avoid the vendors and operators each trying to convince the MWC crowds that their own implementation of 4G was the way forward. We managed to borrow one of Novatel Wireless‘ rare Dual-Cell HSPA+ (DC-HSPA+) modems, promising downlink speeds of up to 42Mbps on Telefonica’s Spanish network; stand by for our full report on just what sort of real-world performance DC-HSPA+ delivered.

Next-Gen Chipsets

As always at MWC, spend any amount of time with the chipset manufacturers and you’ll soon start looking at the imminent device releases with disdain. Texas Instruments‘ OMAP5 promises to be vastly powerful by virtue of its dual ARM Cortex A15 cores – the company reckons the dual-core SoC will be faster and more power-frugal than a quad-core ARM A9 chipset – while NVIDIA threatened to overshadow its own Tegra 2 hype with the announcement of the Project Kal-El quad-core that will, almost unbelievably, be hitting products in the second half of 2011. Qualcomm too had quad-cores to talk about, with an update to its well-known Snapdragon line (that also threw in LTE support). Ben Bajarin took the multi-core message to task in a must-read piece of analysis.

That’s only the top skimming of the news from Barcelona this week, and you can find all of our Mobile World Congress coverage by using the MWC 2011 tag. There’s also plenty more coverage over at our sibling site Android Community. It’s was a strong showing from manufacturers and vendors, certainly, but then again it needs to be: Apple is expected to unveil the iPad 2 within the next month, and the iPhone 5 will be doing its best to reshape the smartphone segment midway through the year.

What was your favorite product of MWC 2011? Let us know which gadgets you’re excited about – and which you think don’t stand a chance – in the comments!

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Oversized iPod touch PMP/tablet hybrid tipped ahead of iPad 3

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 10:28 AM PST

Steve Jobs may have dismissed 7-inch slates as “tweeners“, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t considering an oversized iPod touch according to the latest batch of rumors. Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims Apple is working on a “big iPod touch” with a screen size of around 5-inches, AppleInsider reports, likely with the same resolution as the current model and offering the same PMP UI rather than the iPad UI.

According to the analyst, the new oversized iPod touch is expected to debut in the second half of 2011, more in line with Apple’s PMP refresh than its tablet schedule. The slate would allow Apple to compete in the low-end tablet market, as well as differentiating the iPad from comparisons with cheaper, smaller rivals. It would apparently focus on multimedia and gaming, rather than the more flexible iPad, as per previous rumors.

Meanwhile, Kuo suggests that the iPad 3 will indeed deliver a Retina Display with a 2048 x 1536 IPS-FFS 9.7-inch panel. It’s not clear whether this model will indeed arrive later in 2011, as has previously been suggested, or if those launch rumors in fact related to the oversized iPod touch.

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Windows 8 tablets “closer to competitive” than expected: ARM-based Win-slates in late 2011?

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 03:32 AM PST

Microsoft’s tablet ambitions may reach fruition a lot earlier than previously expected, according to the latest leaks from the company, with Windows 8 based slates running frugal ARM chipsets tipped for as early as the end of this year. Business Insider‘s sources claim Microsoft has set around 1,000 engineers to work on ARM-based Windows performance, while a Morgan Stanley analyst has suggested the company is “closer to competitive than some realize.” However, even as the iPad picks up in enterprise adoption, Microsoft is still raking in cash based on the success of the Apple slate.

That, according to analyst Adam Holt, is because enterprise users demand virtual desktop support on their iPads for existing Microsoft installations. “Where iPads are being deployed, corporates are often leveraging virtual desktops to provision Windows and Windows apps” he suggests, going on to claim that “MSFT generally gets $100/device in this scenario.”

All well and good, but Microsoft will need Windows 8 to be a sales success if it wants a proper foot in the tablet market. The OS is expected to be particularly tablet-centric, and by shifting away from native support of just x86 processors the power limitations of Intel and AMD processors versus ARM-based chipsets – which are already competing on performance and graphics crunching abilities – the new Windows 8 models should be able to rival iOS and Android slates for battery life and multimedia as well.

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Nokia: Cheap Windows Phones will reach market “very quickly”

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 03:15 AM PST

Nokia has promised low-cost Windows Phone 7 smartphones “very quickly”, addressing concerns that the Microsoft OS would drive up prices of the Finnish company’s smartphone range. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop confirmed that “we have become convinced that we can do that very quickly” having revealed that one of Microsoft’s key messages throughout negotiations was that Windows Phones could readily hit “a very low price point.”

Mobile World Congress 2011 this past week proved something of a flop for Windows Phone, with new Android devices dominating the line-ups of most manufacturers. Nokia itself has said that its first smartphones running the platform aren’t expected until later in the year, and SlashGear is hearing that carriers are responding negatively to increasing pressure from Microsoft to promote devices.

One of the current issues is pricing, with Microsoft’s stringent minimum specifications and inflexibility on modifications leading to an expensive range of functionally very similar handsets. Broader support for chipsets other than Qualcomm’s will be one important step in that process; earlier this week, ST-Ericsson confirmed it was focusing strongly on the Windows Phone platform.

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Apple HDTV plans hinted at in new job listing

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 03:02 AM PST

A new Apple job posting has dropped further hints that the company is planning an Apple HDTV. The role, for an AC/DC power supply design engineer, does not specifically mention a new standalone TV product, but the job description does imply that the new power management systems would be applicable to TVs.

“This is an excellent opportunity to work on the forefront of new power management designs and technologies with the exemplary company consistently bringing innovations in the industry. In this position, you will be part of pride developing innovative designs, which are implemented in products used by millions of people. The position primarily involves high-density offline power supply's development for Apple's next generation Macintosh platforms spanning from notebook computers, desktop computers, servers, standalone displays and TV.” Apple job description

Now, the description could be a reference to the Apple TV, but it certainly seems to be differentiated from “standalone displays” and other existing lines, and Apple does specifically talk about “next generation” platforms. On its own, it probably wouldn’t be enough to draw any conclusions, but it certainly slots into ongoing talk of an Apple HDTV launch.

Earlier this month, analyst speculation suggested that Apple had invested around $3.9bn in securing displays for its various product lines, ranging from iPod-scale up through notebooks and the 27-inch iMac. However, it was also suggested that the increasing focus on panels implied the long-anticipated standalone Apple HDTV was also being considered, with pricing higher than a regular HDTV but balanced by integration with the current Apple TV streamer.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

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AT&T Motorola ATRIX 4G already rooted

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 02:49 AM PST

Motorola hasn’t been too keen on Android modders tinkering with its smartphones, throwing in various locked-down bootloaders and other frustrations to prevent the hardware running custom ROMs. Unfortunately for Moto, however, there’s nothing a hacker likes more than a challenge, and so it comes as little surprise to discover that the Motorola ATRIX 4G has been rooted before it’s even on shelves.

According to BriefMobile it’s the handiwork of AT&T developer DesignGears, who has sent out images of his ATRIX 4G with Superuser access and running Titanium Backup to show that the phone has been modded. Right now the instructions on how to actually gain root access aren’t public, but then since the phone itself isn’t either that’s probably no great issue.

AT&T confirmed earlier in the week that the ATRIX 4G would arrive earlier than expected, dropping into stores from February 22 (and reaching pre-order customers on February 21) rather than in early March as originally suggested. More details on the phone in our full unboxing and hands-on.

[via Android Community]

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Google Docs Update Supports New Formats Including Photoshop and AutoCAD Files

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 04:51 PM PST

Google Docs continues to evolve into the ultimate online file managing service that lets you securely view all types of documents without having to download or open them locally. And today, Google announced an update to its Google Docs to support 12 new file formats.

The 12 new file types are:
• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 / 2010 (.PPTX)
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
• TrueType (.TTF)
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

It used to be that if you sent a Photoshop or an AutoCAD file, that the person receiving it would need to have those respective software applications in order to open and view the file. With this update, the majority of file types will be viewable simply using Google Docs Viewer without the hassle of opening another software application. In Gmail, attachments with these files will now have an additional “View” link as opposed to just “Download.”

[via Google]

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BlackBerry Storm 3 First Video Leak

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 04:16 PM PST

RIM’s much anticipated BlackBerry Storm 3 specs and details were leaked last month, but today is the first time a video of the device has surfaced. The video shows what appears to be a Verizon prototype with the company’s logo and theming.

The Storm 3 will feature the highest resolution display on a BlackBerry to-date and has a 3.7 inch 800 x 480 WVGA capacitive touchscreen, 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, and a 5MP camera capable of 720p HD video.

Previously we noted that the Storm 3 is set for a September 2011 release. But more recent news suggests that the device could ship to Verizon as early as summer.

[via Electronista]

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Samsung Epic 4G and Sanyo Zio To Get Android 2.2 Froyo Update on February 21st

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:56 PM PST

If you own a Samsung Epic 4G or a Sanyo Zio, then you’ll be glad to know that both devices will be getting an OS update very soon. Sprint announced today that the Samsung Epic 4G will be receiving Android 2.2 Froyo updates starting on February 21st. The update will be sent in batches as wireless downloads and should be fully accessible by the end of the week–February 25th.

Updating to Android 2.2 Froyo for the Samsung Epic 4G will mean increased speed, improved Bluetooth device support, Bluetooth voice dialing, Flash Player 10.1, GPS enhancements, and the ability to install applications to external storage. Once your device has been queued by Sprint, you will receive a message on your device letting you know the update is available. If you attempt to check manually before your device is queued, you will receive a “no upgrade available” message.

The Sanyo Zio will also receive the Android 2.2 Froyo update on February 21st. Improvements here will include the addition of Swype, Sprint Zone 2.5.5, Sprint ID activation improvements, and better battery life. However, Flash 10.1 may not be supported and the update will come as three separate downloads best received via a Wi-Fi connection.

[via IntoMobile]

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