Greetings From Barcelona
Sometimes we must make sacrifices for our readers. That may mean playing with heavily testing hot new tech weeks before it's released to the general public. Sometimes we have to game for hours to fully evaluate some hardware. In other cases, we must travel to Barcelona, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, for Mobile World Congress (MWC), which we did recently. You're welcome, folks.
MWC is, of course, rife with new handsets, but there's so much more to see there. There's new mobile component technology, new standards being implemented, emerging trends and so on. That's not to mention plenty of startups pushing new ideas, concepts and technologies.
This MWC was a study in contrasts. Some of the major developments, such as OEM strategies in emerging markets, were important but not exactly sexy, while others such as HTC's and Valve's shocking Vive VR announcement left even the most jaded techies in a downright tizzy.
What follows is what we believe to be some of the most noteworthy products and technologies from MWC.