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For phone fanatics, this year's Union Budget was bad news, thanks to the tax increase on mobile phones that cost more than Rs 2,000. It was a double whammy for mobile addicts they were about to experience withdrawal symptoms at the conclusion of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. But lets get our spirits high by looking back on what were the best to happen at this year's event.
If the Sony Xperia Z handset was the showstopper at CES this year, its elder sibling laid claim to the spot in Barcelona, not least because it was dunked in a tub of water at the Sony stall. The 6.9-mm thin and and light tablet features a 10.1-inch HD display, a 8.1 MP rear and 2MP rear snappers and is powered by a 1.5Ghz quad-core Snapdragon processor. The amazingly tough gadget interacts with other Android devices via NFC and is powered by a 6,000mAh battery.
Did you pray a phone which would also double up as an excellent eBook reader, while not compromising on battery life? If your answer is yes, the YotaPhone should be on your wish list. The YotaPhone features an LCD and E-ink 4.3-inch displays at 720p and runs on stock Android Jelly Bean. It is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 2GB of RAM and a 12MP camera. Suffice to say we'll wait for how this concept turns out.
This was surely the event's sexiest device. Be it the machined aluminium shell or the polycarbonate components moulded perfectly or the 1080p, 468-ppi, 4.7-inch Gorilla Glass 2 display with bevelled edges, the One looks and feels like the labour of love of the God of design. Its something which feels at home both in the front row of a Prada show or the glass and steel 113th storey conference room of a multinational. Now lets wait for some word on its pricing and release in India.
LG Optimus G Pro
Big screens seem to be the flavour of the season, with LG showing off its flagship phablet at this years MWC. Featuring a 400-ppi 5.5-inch screen, the G Pro is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor, 2GB RAM and a 3,140mAh battery. One unique feature the phone has is PIP yes picture-in-picture. Before you sound too confused, let me explain. The 13MP rear camera and the 2.1MP front camera record at once, with the front cam's feed appearing as a box within. Now you finally get to know how you look when you're surprised. And you have 32GB of internal storage to record it and watch it on the 1080p Full HD display.
Just when you thought phones couldn't get any bigger, Samsung comes out with the Note 8.0. The device features all the S Pen-driven apps that are so popular among Note users and provides a completely new experience thanks to the oodles of screen space available. And its more portable than the Note 10.1, but its powered by the same quad-core ARM Cortex processor, though its clocked higher at 1.6 GHz and has 2GB of RAM. The device, powered by a 4,600mAh battery, runs on Android 4.1.2 and features a 5MP rear camera and 1.3MP front camera. It will ship with internal memory of 16GB and 32GB.
