mwc

BARCELONA, Spain--Sonim added another rugged handset to its burly lineup today when it revealed the Sonim XP3300 at Mobile World Congress.

Like its earlier XP3 and XP1300 Core, the XP3300 is built to withstand just about anything. You can submerge it in 6.5 feet of water and drop it from 6.5 feet onto a concrete floor without a scratch.

The fiberglass body and rubber sidings also protect it from dust, salt, fog, humidity, transport shock, thermal shock, and temperatures ranging from -4 degrees to 131 degrees Fahrenheit. What's more, Corning Gorilla Glass protects the 2-inch display.

Designed … Read more

BARCELONA--The battle for the mobile consumer is no longer about who has the coolest device, but rather who has the most compelling ecosystem. That's the message from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who took the stage to kick off this year's Mobile World Congress.

A year ago, Ballmer was here to launch the company's revamped mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. This year, devices with the OS have been on the market for four months, and the company has about 8,000 apps in its market. Microsoft also just announced a partnership with the world's largest phone … Read more

BARCELONA--Intel has shown off a developer preview of the tablet user interface for its MeeGo Linux operating system at Mobile World Congress here.

At the same time today, the company also addressed Nokia's withdrawal from the long-term development of MeeGo for mobile phones, with software and services chief Renee James saying the company was "disappointed" with its Finnish partner.

The user interface is based on dynamic panels and does not resemble the Netbook variant of MeeGo--the only version to be shown off so far on a mobile computing device. The tablet UI was demonstrated by Intel … Read more

This post was updated at 12:34 p.m., PT with a clarification on the Microsoft Kinect feature.

BARCELONA, Spain--A year ago, Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 7 at Mobile World Congress and this year the company gave us a glimpse of what lies ahead for the platform.

Outlined by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during his MWC keynote, Microsoft said it will push out two software updates in 2011.

The first will bring the much-awaited cut-and-paste functionality, performance improvements, and support for CDMA networks.

This update will be rolled out in the first two weeks of March, with CDMA Windows Phone … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Huawei Mobile World Congress press conference is still a day away, but the company jumped the gun and announced four new devices on Monday.

Details are slim at the moment, but we can offer what we know.

The trim Huawei Ideos X3 smartphone runs Gingerbread on a 3.2 inch-screen.

The Huawei Ideos S7 Slim tablet has a 7-inch (480x800 pixels) capacitive touch-screen and measures about half an inch thick. Features on the Froyo device include Bluetooth, HD video, a Web browser, messaging and e-mail, a music player, a camera, and Wi-Fi. The S7 Slim can make cellular and … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--LG had already promised that they were coming, but the company waited until today--the first morning of Mobile World Congress here--to officially unveil the Optimus 3D and Optimus Pad. Both Android devices run on Gingerbread and offer 3D video recording.

The Optimus 3D smartphone builds on the Optimus 2x and Optimus Black that LG announced last month at CES. You'll find a similar design candy bar design in basic black. The 4.3-inch display takes up the most real estate, but four touch navigation elements sit just below.

LG was quick to point out the Optimus 3D's &… Read more

BARCELONA--Europeans will soon get a chance to buy two of Motorola Mobility's hottest products this year: the Google Android business smartphone, the Droid Pro, and Motorola's Android tablet, the Xoom.

The company announced today at the Mobile World Congress 2011 here that these devices, which are already announced for the U.S. market, will soon grace the shores of Europe.

The Motorol Droid Pro is powered by Google Android 2.2 and has a 1GHz processor with 2GB of internal memory and expandable external memory with SD card up to another 32GB. The phone also turns into a … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--With the exception of the European versions of the Droid Pro and Xoom, it looks like Motorola will be light on the hardware announcements here at Mobile World Congress 2011, but there's still some news coming out of good ol' Moto.

Today, the company announced several enhancements to its Motoblur software, all designed to increase connectivity with your contacts and services.

The first feature is called Connected Music and it's a sharing and discovery tool for music. With it, you can share content with your friends and follow what they are listening to as well.

Connected Music … Read more

BARCELONA--Research in Motion plans to release two more BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in the second half of 2011, one with LTE and one with HSPA+ networking technology, the company announced at the Mobile World Congress here today.

RIM already had announced a Wi-Fi-only tablet and one using the WiMax wireless networking technology. LTE and HSPA+, though, are much more broadly accepted in the mobile market, if not necessarily widely installed.

In the ever hotter tablet market, the competition presently is largely between incumbent power Apple and a number of Android-based challengers such as the Motorola Xoom and the newly announced Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. … Read more