With only days remaining until the biggest event in the mobile industry begins in Barcelona, product announcements are arriving fast.
This year’s show is shaping up to be dominated by LTE, NFC, mobile billing and app monetisation, and the Telecoms Tech team will be travelling to Barcelona over the weekend to deliver the latest news, product launches, announcements and industry insight.
The latest manufacturer to preview its upcoming lineup is LG, which plans to refresh its smartphone brand with striking new design and marketing. The company’s new L-Style series—the Optimus L3, L5 and L7 (pictured)—represents a design-focused departure from recent LG models and is expected to be showcased prominently at next week’s Mobile World Congress.
“With smartphones, we sometimes took a more functional approach to design, but with L-Style we’re returning to our roots as a company that considers how products fit into customers’ lifestyles,” said LG Mobile CEO Jong-seok Park.
The L-Style philosophy highlights five main design elements: a modern square silhouette, “floating display” technology, a more intuitive key layout, metallic accents and a sensuous slim shape.
The L5 and L7 will launch running Android 4.0 in the first half of the year, while the L3, which ships with Android Gingerbread, is scheduled for release in March.
Samsung has also revealed two new smartphones that run Android Gingerbread: the Ace 2 and the Galaxy Mini 2. Both are positioned as budget-friendly models compared with the company’s higher-end flagship devices.
The Ace 2 is the more capable of the pair, featuring a dual-core 800 MHz processor, a 3.8-inch 480×800 display and 4GB of internal storage. It includes a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 640×480 front-facing videocam. Neither device will ship with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and it remains unclear if or when an upgrade will be offered.
Panasonic, meanwhile, has returned to the smartphone market after a six-year absence with the super-slim, waterproof and dustproof Eluga handset. The company withdrew from the international phone market in 2005 after weak sales, but a saturated domestic market and intense competition from the likes of Apple, Samsung and low-cost Chinese vendors prompted Panasonic in December to re-enter the global smartphone arena.
The Eluga features a 4.3-inch display and a sleek 7.8 mm profile that runs the length of the device. It supports NFC and initially ships with Android Gingerbread, with an update to Ice Cream Sandwich planned. The Eluga also includes an “eco mode” that reduces non-essential processes when battery levels are low to conserve power.
We will be attending Mobile World Congress this year to cover all the major announcements and get hands-on time with the newest devices. If you’re anticipating a specific announcement or you have news to share from this year’s show, let us know in the comments below.