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Samsung unveils One UI Watch interface, but leaves us hanging for new Wear hardware
Those leaked watches will probably show up in an Unpacked event this summer
At a digital Mobile World Congress event today, Samsung is showing off its designs for a new generation of Galaxy wearables. But it's sticking to the One UI software side of things, declining to debut new wearable hardware, or even talk very much about that new combined Wear OS platform that it will be running on. It's a bit of a downer after those recent leaks of a next-gen Galaxy Watch 4 from last week.
MWC 2021 optimistically postpones event until summer
Let's hope it actually takes place this time around
MWC 2020 was the first big tech event that fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it looks like things aren't going back to normal in 2021, either. The GSMA, the consortium behind the fair, has just announced that next year's MWC will take place from June 28 to July 1, 2021, instead of the planned date in early March.
Mobile World Congress 2020 is officially canceled (Update: Statement)
The news comes just hours after GSMA said the show would go on
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- GSMA has released an official statement, confirming the cancelation and promising that there will still be an MWC next year:
The ongoing coronavirus outbreak has thrown a wrench in plans for Mobile World Congress, the annual mobile technology showcase that takes place in Barcelona, Spain. Hours after the GSMA insisted the show would continue, the show has been canceled entirely.
At MWC 2019, Lenovo announced its new Android product, the Tab V7. The pitch here is that you'll get all of the benefits of a tablet along with normal phone capabilities like calls, texts, and data. It's priced to impress, that is if you're in the market for an over-sized phone with budget-tier specs.
The 2018 Mobile World Congress ended just last week, and over the course of the week-ish of announcements, there was a lot of news to cover. Just in case you happened to miss any, we've put together a quick little list of all the things we wrote about from MWC this year, plus a few things we saw that didn't merit their own post, all mixed in with a big gallery of photos.
This year's MWC just wrapped up a few days ago, but for almost a week, news from the event dominated our feed. Numerous individual product announcements occurred in Barcelona this year, and now that it's over, we've handed out seven awards to different manufacturers. Some of them are things you can buy now, some of them are things you can buy later, and some are for things you'll never be able to purchase. But Mobile World Congress (as the name suggests) is about phones, and here are our favorites from MWC 2018.
MWC 2017 is over, and now we all know what was unveiled. Sony, Motorola, LG, Nokia, BlackBerry Huawei, and others all unveiled new smartphones ranging from the most basic to flagship-level, and this weekend's poll will have you pick among some of the most prominent contenders for a winner.
Motorola's big announcement today was the new Moto G5 and G5 Plus, but it also had some news for Moto Z owners. The company previously committed to at least 12 new Moto Mods every year, with several announced today to be released over the first half of 2017.
Samsung seems to be pretty much the only player in the shrunken market of premium Android tablets – even Google doesn’t appear all that keen on any new Pixel tablet hardware. The Galaxy Tab S line started with a bang as the only tablet option with an AMOLED screen, while the Tab S2 aligned Samsung’s designs more closely with Apple’s iPad Mini and Air. The latest version of the hardware, announced today at Mobile World Congress, seems to be aimed squarely at the 9.7-inch version of the iPad Pro, thanks to a redesigned metal/glass body and a stand-alone “S-Pen” stylus.
Mobile World Congress starts in a few days, and Huawei will be on hand to announce the P10. It's not like we really need it to—the phone has been thoroughly leaked in the run up to MWC, and now there's yet another slip of information. This time our old friend Evan Blass has dropped a high-resolution press image. That's it above.
Phone nerds like us love February (me especially... it's my birthday month) because of the Mobile World Congress. Every year, most of the big players in the industry, and a lot of small ones, make their announcements for their product lineups in Barcelona. Samsung, being no stranger to the event, has scheduled its press conference for February 26.
It feels like we just put CES behind us, yet our sights are set on the next big event. Mobile World Congress is coming, held at the end of February in Barcelona as always. Various companies will be sending out event invites and announcements in the coming days and weeks. Motorola is no exception. We received our graphic and while obviously not detailed as to the specifics of the event, I am sure that most of us can guess what we are going to see there.
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ZTE doesn't want to talk about the Blade V7 phone they have on the slate for Mobile World Congress, at least not yet. A promotional website has a small image and a broken link, but if you put in the URL manually, you can see the newly-announced device in all its golden mid-range glory. The V7 kind of looks like the bastard child of an iPhone and one of HTC's later One devices (sorry, ZTE, but that circle home button and custom icon theme are pretty telling), but it's none the worse for being born out of wedlock. It's hard to go wrong with an all-aluminum body, right?
Two months ago (after no small amount of leaking) HTC announced the One X9, a variant phone with elements of its One line, exclusively for the vast Chinese market. Today in Barcelona the company has announced that it will expand the availability of said phone, bringing it to "North Asia" and the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) zone later this month. Specific countries and prices haven't been released, but in China it launched for 2399 yuan, about $370 USD.
Mobile World Congress has become the premiere stage for new phones and tablet introductions, and since Lenovo saves its Motorola portfolio for the latter half of the year, it's time for the first-party devices to shine. Well, shimmer. Perhaps "gleam" would be a better word. Out of five new phones and tablets introduced on the show floor, none of them are particularly mind-blowing, and the phones are unlikely to make it to stores in the US or Europe. Anyway, let's take it from the top:
Archos has kind of fallen off the radar in terms of tablet sales. Maybe it's different in Europe (Archos is a French company), but these days you won't see any of its products on American shelves. And considering the relative paucity of Android tablets in general as of late, that's a shame. Especially when you hear that Archos is making three new tablets at a variety of sizes and, miracle of miracles, they're all running the latest version of Android at launch.
Phone manufacturers are having a harder and harder time getting our attention when it comes to drumming up interest for new releases. LG decided that cheeky marketing would be best when announcing cases and covers for phones that don't officially exist yet. In contrast, Samsung has decided to be just plain baffling. In the "Seven Days of Unboxing" promotion, Samsung lets someone see the new phone (which is almost certainly a Galaxy S7 and/or S7 Edge) for 30 seconds, after which they get to make an artist's interpretation for the audience.
LG likes to do this thing where it announces devices and accessories before the trade show where they'll actually get announced or shown off, and late last night the company did just that with the new X series smartphones. Basically, this is a new line of mid-range phones from LG that will offer "one exceptional feature." It kind of doesn't make sense until you actually see what each of these phones is all about.
LG is really excited about the G5. So excited, in fact, that they just can't wait until Mobile World Congress later this month. To tide themselves over for the next few weeks, the PR folks have officially announced a cover for the LG G5 with a familiar see-through window and the capability to perform some basic functions with a touch-sensitive material. Most of the "Quick Cover" is translucent, allowing things like the phone answer or decline slider to be seen even when it's closed. This is presumably integrated with the always-on display that was previously teased. The design is similar to HTC's Dot View design, though the dots that make up the translucent cover seem much finer.