The new kids
ALL eyes were on Nokia yesterday morning, as delegates at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona waited with bated breath for its latest release. Some were hoping for a long-rumoured tablet, which never materialised.
What we got was a cheaper handset in Nokia’s Lumia range, the 610. It’s a solid enough device, with enough curves to look nice without stealing the limelight from its premium siblings the 800 and 900. But Nokia had an Apple moment up its sleeve. “Just one more thing…” That thing was the PureView 808, a multimedia oriented phone with a frankly baffling 41 mega pixel camera. The demo was incredible, picking up detail that shouldn’t be possible on a phone. Nokia is now the best player in the AV market by a country mile. The question is: will anyone buy it?
Panasonic marked its return to the mobile industry with the launch of the bizarrely-named Eluga. The handset is slick without being jaw-dropping – elegant but dull sums it up quite nicely. It is let down by a cheap-looking plastic back, although the fact it is waterproof is quite neat.
LG has, as expected, stuck to it 3D guns, with a more powerful version of its Optimus handset, the Max. It looks good and the 3D is impressive but you can’t help but feel LG has backed the wrong horse – there just doesn’t appear to be a market for 3D handsets. LG did, however, show off something more impressive: the Vu.
Similar in appearance and size to the Galaxy Note (O2 chief executive Ronan Dunne’s favourite phone aside from his iPhone, he tells me), LG is marketing it to customers who use reading apps a lot.
The Note has been a good seller for Samsung and this offering from LG could be its way into this growing niche.
Huawei would have won the prize for most ostentatious stall, with a swooping video screen underfoot and an action movie soundtrack blasting from speakers. It was demonstrating the new Ascend D Quad – the fastest phone in the world, if you take its word for it. And it is very fast indeed.
Samsung’s big release was the Galaxy Beam, a phone with a built-in projector that can beam a 50 inch image onto your wall. Gimmick? Definitely. But it’s still very cool.
• Clockwise from top: Huawei Ascend D; Nokia Pureview 808; Samsung Beam.