MWC 2012: Motorola MOTOLUXE Hands-on

Motorola announced all its new products at the International Consumer Electronics Show, last month.  Given the fact that the company's main market is North America, Motorola didn't bring anything new at this year's Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Spain. However, we had the chance to try out some of the low to mid-range smartphones that the company is trying to sell in Europe and South America.  Motorola MOTOLUXE is one of the mid-range handsets that will soon be available in more European countries. The smartphone sports a surprisingly large 4.0-inch capacitive touchscreen display, along with an impressive 8-megapixel rear camera.  Motorola MOTOLUXE is powered by Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread and is only 9.9mm thick.  Check...

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MWC 2012: Acer CloudMobile Hands-on

Acer does not have a booth of its own at Mobile World Congress 2012. Instead the company preferred to rent some meeting rooms. Silently launched a while ago, Acer CloudMobile was pretty elusive at the MWC. Luckily, we've been able to find the phone tucked in a corner within Google's booth. The phone is showcased along with its less-featured brother Acer Liquid Glow. There isn't much to say about the phone's look as the device received the IF Design award last year.  Suffice to say, the phone feels great in hand and features a stunning 4.3-inch HD IPS screen that takes your breath away. Hopefully, Acer will make this one available in as many contries as possible for a competitive price.  Check out the gallery below for more pic...

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MWC 2012: Nokia Asha 302 and 203 Hands-On

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia unveiled new handsets in the Asha series, set to deliver great capabilities and performance to users in more markets than before.  The company also had the new devices on display in its booth at the event, and we had the chance to take a better look at the Nokia Asha 302 and 203. Hands-on images are available at the bottom of the article.  The Asha 302 will hit shelves with a 2.4-inch screen and with a large QWEDRTY keyboard, a common feature on Nokia’s business devices in the E-series.  Of course, this is a Series 40 device and its capabilities are not as high as many might have wanted it to. However, the 240 x 320 pixels screen is complemented by a 1GHz application...

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MWC 2012: LG 3.0 by Prada Hands-on

The third phone manufactured by LG and Prada has been recently launched on the market in the UK. Given the fact that the smartphone was officially announced last month we had to check out the device showcased at LG's booth during Mobile World Congress 2012. Alas, this was one phone hard to find. However, this is not the only smartphone that made headlines in the past 3-4 weeks and has yet to be showcased at MWC. Fortunately, we learned that if you cannot find a certain Android device at the manufacturer's booth you have more chances of finding it in the Google area. This is exactly what happened this year when we were approached by someone from Google's booth who wanted to show us the new LG Optimus 4X HD. After the short demo he pulled...

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Google Confirms Android 5.0, Might Launch It in Fall

The next major Android release might become available in late 2012, Mountain View-based Internet giant Google confirmed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  Nothing was specifically announced on the matter, but things that we were already expecting have been confirmed.  Hiroshi Lockheimer, vice president of engineering for mobile at Google, told Computerworld that the company was indeed planning to make the next flavor of Android available in 2012, but did not offer a specific release date for it.  “After Android 4 comes 5, and we haven't announced the timing yet, which we're still sorting out,” Lockheimer reportedly said. “There's a lot of engineering work behind it still, and there's also just the question of how...

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Sony Launches Four New Cyber-Shot DSC Cameras

There are a bunch of new digital cameras in town, ones that place as much focus on size and toughness as they do on performance and image quality. The new cameras that have made their official entrances are called Cyber-Shot DSC-WX150, DSC-TX66, DSC-TX20 and DSC-W690 and have prices of $180 / 133.77 Euro to $350 / 260 Euro. The first two use 18.2 MP “Exmor R” CMOS sensors, while the other pair relies on the a 16.1 MP sensor (P “Exmor R” CMOS on the DSC-TX20 and 16.1 MP CCD on the DSC-W690). We aren't going to dwell on all their individual specs, since Sony has already listed them in its official announcement. What we will look at is the cameras' ability to take high-resolution pictures, some even while underwater. Sony also wrote that the...

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MWC 2012: Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G and Galaxy S Advance Hands-On

T-Mobile USA users will soon get the chance to grab the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G smartphone on the airwaves of their wireless carrier and to take advantage of its capabilities.  Before that, however, they can have a look at the handset in the live photos that we managed to shoot at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where we found it next to Samsung’s Galaxy S Advance. The handset was launched with a Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon Dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion application processor inside, with Adreno 220 graphics and 1 GB of RAM.  It also includes a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display capable of delivering a 480 x 800 pixels resolution, as well as 16GB of internal memory, and a microSD memory card slot capable of supporting...

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