Lenovo is updating laptops across its enterprise, gaming, and productivity lines at Mobile World Congress. The new machines include ThinkPads in a striking blue colorway, and a Legion laptop using one of the new AMD Ryzen "Strix Halo" chips announced at CES earlier this year.The new ThinkPads are headlined by a new T-series, the ThinkPad T14 and T14s Gen 7, the T14s 2-in-1 Gen 2 and T16 Gen 5.

The T14 and T16 clamshells have a renewed focus on repairability, including a battery that can be removed with just your fingers. Intel-based models will use LPCAMM2 memory. These systems will use Intel Core Ultra 3 with vPro or AMD Ryzen AI Pro 400 processors. The T15s will have options with AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Elite processor.

The T14 and T14s are getting a new "cosmic" blue color option, which is rare for a ThinkPad. (Diehards can rest assured, the TrackPoint is still red.) It's subtle enough that it might appear black in dark rooms, but it is a fetching new addition for offices that might like a bit of color.

Lenovo is also updating the ThinkPad X13 Detachable, which only gets a refresh every few years. This version is also being bumped up to Panther Lake, with an improved keyboard with 1.5 mm of key travel and support to dock a pen in the keyboard. That’s similar to what Microsoft has been doing for the past few years on its Surface.

Gaming and Consumer

There's a single gaming laptop: the Lenovo Legion 7a. It's a 15.3-inch portable using an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392 processor, similar to the Asus TUF Gaming A14 we saw at CES, along with an OLED screen.

The system weighs 1.65 kg (3.67 pounds), which is lightweight for a gaming rig. But despite the lack of conventional discrete graphics in a gaming laptop, the Legion 7a won't be cheap; it will start at $2,299 when it launches in July.

Lastly, Lenovo's Yoga line is seeing spec bumps in the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition (starting $1,949 in May), Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition (starting at $1,449 in April), and Yoga Pro 7a (starting at $2,099 in August), which will also use a Strix Halo processor in the AMD Ryzen AI Max + 388.

Lenovo is set to unveil a series of new devices at the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025, with the ThinkBook Flip AI PC emerging as a standout. Renowned leaker Evan Blass has shared renders of this upcoming laptop, showcasing a unique rollable and foldable OLED display that reimagines traditional laptop design.

The ThinkBook Flip features a dual-hinge mechanism, allowing the screen to fold outward and effectively double its vertical size when fully rolled out. This design should provide users with an expanded workspace, ideal for multitasking or viewing extensive content without relying on external monitors. When the additional screen space isn't needed, the top half can be folded back, converting the device into a conventional laptop form factor. This flexibility also enables the upper portion to function as a secondary display, facilitating content sharing during presentations or collaborative sessions.

Unlike previous foldable devices such as the ThinkPad X1 Fold, which was essentially a foldable tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard, the ThinkBook Flip comes with a built-in keyboard. The device's minimalist design includes flat edges which should include essential ports like USB Type-C and USB Type-A, although it is not very clear from the leaked renders. Additionally, there is a webcam positioned within a notch at the top of the screen.

While specific hardware specifications remain undisclosed, it is expected that the ThinkBook Flip will be equipped with Intel's forthcoming Arrow Lake-H or Lunar Lake processor options. There is also speculation about potential AMD variants, possibly integrating Strix Point-based Ryzen AI 7 series chips. Essentially, it could end up being a high-performance device catering to both professional and creative users.

Lenovo has been experimenting with foldable and rollable display technologies for some time. At CES (Consumer Electronic Show) last month, the company unveiled the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, featuring a rollable display that could expand vertically with just the wave of a hand.

Notably, the leaked ThinkBook Flip AI PC aligns with previous reports, which highlighted Lenovo's plans to introduce a range of new devices at MWC 2025. Among the anticipated releases are nine new laptops and a hybrid 2D/3D 34-inch curved monitor.

The monitor, bearing Lenovo's Legion gaming brand, is expected to target professionals and gamers alike, offering a larger alternative to the existing ThinkVision 27 3D. The leaked laptops include models such as the IdeaPad Slim 3x, featuring a 15-inch screen and likely powered by a Snapdragon X chip, and the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1, marking the first 2-in-1 form factor in Lenovo's flagship ThinkPad T-series.

Other models, like the ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 5, ThinkBook 16p Gen 5, ThinkPad T14 Gen 6, ThinkPad T16 Gen 4, ThinkPad X13 Gen 6, and the Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition, are expected to offer incremental upgrades with newer chips and components. Notably, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, a 14-inch laptop powered by a Snapdragon X chip.

Hardware leaker Evan Blass just shared alleged photos of Lenovo’s lineup for the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 show, which will run from March 3 to 6. The X (formerly Twitter) post shows off nine new laptops and a 3D curved monitor. We’re unsure if this will be the complete roster of products the company will bring to Barcelona, but it does show off some attractive laptop models and a monitor that we haven’t seen before.

The biggest thing that caught our eye is the supposedly hybrid 2D/3D 34-inch curved monitor. This is similar to Lenovo’s already existing ThinkVision 27 3D, which is a glasses-free 2D/3D compatible display, but offers a larger curved screen. It’s likely focused on professionals who are also into gaming, especially as this display sports the company’s Legion gaming brand. However, we don’t have further information about this display, so we’ll have to wait until March to get its specifications.

Aside from that, we also get two new laptop models and a slew of next-generation iterations of existing options. For the former, we see the IdeaPad Slim 3x, which features a 15-inch screen and will likely run on a Snapdragon X chip, and the ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1, which will be the first time that Lenovo’s flagship ThinkPad T-series will have a 2-in-1 form factor laptop.

As for the latter, we see the ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 5, ThinkBook 16p Gen 5, ThinkPad T14 Gen 6, ThinkPad T16 Gen 4, ThinkPad X13 Gen 6, and the Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition, which are mostly incremental upgrades featuring newer chips and components versus predecessors. Lenovo will also apparently showcase the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 at MWC — a 14-inch laptop powered by a Snapdragon X chip — that’s already available on its website.

Lenovo has an extensive laptop lineup, and it is also at the forefront of innovation. For example, it offers a ton of 2-in-1 laptop models, giving users the best of both worlds. It also introduced a laptop with a 14-inch display that expands to 16.7 inches with its rollable OLED screen. Aside from these laptops, the company launched two new mini-PCs at CES 2025 powered by Snapdragon X chips, sounding out the market for equipping this relatively powerful laptop processor in a small desktop PC.

For Huawei, it is close to impossible to procure chips for its server and communications products that are widely used in China and other countries. But that doesn't mean that the company cannot get chips at all; it just does not want anyone to know who sells them. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company demonstrated its new server motherboards with all chips covered with disguising tape and coolers to hide the names of its suppliers. 

Huawei still sells boatloads of servers and communication equipment in China and a number of other countries, but to build those devices, it needs chips. Virtually all chips today — whether they are logic or memory ICs — are designed using electronic design automation (EDA) tools developed in the U.S. and produced on equipment containing technologies created in America, so their suppliers need to get appropriate licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce to sell them to Huawei or its subsidiaries.  

But getting those licenses is tricky, which is why Huawei likely has to buy chips on the gray market or use complicated means to get hardware from its developers. In both cases, the company prefers not to demonstrate what it uses openly and hides its suppliers, as we can see from images published on Twitter by Jay Goldberg, a 5G, IoT, and networking analyst focused on China. Of course, another reason to hide chips that it uses from prying is could be a way to conceal trade secrets from competitors (and we know that there are Chinese companies copying Huawei's products).

You need to expand the above tweet to see the images. One of the boards (marked at GFMPUB Ver. A) not only conceals logic chips using a radiator or tape, but even hides the supplier of the memory ICs. Another board, which looks like a prototype (or even a mockup) of a 4-way server motherboard, not only conceals the markings on some of the chips, but even does not carry processors, perhaps to guarantee that no one could guess their producer even if the board gets stolen.  

After Huawei became a victim of the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China on the grounds that it has ties with the People's Republic army, the company can no longer procure hardware and software from U.S.-based companies or containing technologies developed in America without getting an appropriate license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Huawei's HiSilicon subsidiary lost access to advanced semiconductor production outside of China, which to a large degree blocked its advanced chip development. 

As it turns out, there are still ways for Huawei to obtain the chips it needs. Furthermore, the company is reportedly working with China-based SMIC — another company that lost its ability to develop at a rapid pace because of the U.S.-imposed sanctions — to build a fab capable of producing chips and system-in-packages it needs to build its products.

Lenovo today gave a first look at a whole bunch of new ThinkPads as part of its announcements for Mobile World congress. For the most part, these are spec refreshes, though some bring slight changes to their designs as well, including some new materials.

The changes are across Lenovo's AMD focused Z series, its ThinkPad X13 and 13 Yoga, new T and L-series refreshes and the ThinkPad E-series aimed at small businesses. 

The ThinkPad Z13 and Z16 Gen 2 are refreshes from last-year's AMD-powered machine. This year, they're coming with AMD Ryzen 7000-series processors (Lenovo hasn't said which specific ones as of this writing). The Z13 will use integrated Radeon graphics, while the Z16 will have the option for a discrete AMD Radeon 6550M. Both will go up to 64GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage. Both laptops will have an option for a 1920 x 1200, 16:10 screen; the 13-inch will go up to a 2880 x 1800 OLED panel, while the 16-inch tops out at a 3840 x 2400 OLED touchscreen.

With the Z-series, Lenovo is debuting a new "woven flax" material bonded to the recycled aluminum top cover. It will maintain a lot of the features that made it differ from traditional ThinkPads, such as a haptic touchpad and TrackPoint Quick Menu, and continue with a 1080p webcam and Wi-Fi 6E.

This generation's haptic touchpads are from a company called Sensel, which developed the touchpads in the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga and ThinkPad X1 Fold. Sensel's tech wasn't in the previous-gen Z series, so we'll have to get some hands-on time to see if there's a noticeable difference.

The Z13 will start at $1,249 and ship in July, with the Z16 following in August, starting at $1,749.

On the X series — the ThinkPad X13 Gen 5 and ThinkPad X13 Yoga Gen 5, Lenovo claims that it is shrinking down bezels for a higher-screen-to-body ratio. The speakers are now top-firing, which should make for better audio (though that could mean they face away in some uses on the 2-in-1 Yoga) and there's an optional 5-megapixel camera with infrared. The clamshell version is also getting a 13.3-inch 2880 x 1800 OLED screen with Dolby Vision support.

The ThinkPad X13 Gen 4, a standard laptop, will have both 13th Gen Intel Core processors and AMD Ryzen 7000 series mobile processors. It will bring up to 32GB of LPDDR5 and up to 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage. The 13.3-inch display will range from a 1920 x 1200 non-touch display (with a configurable touch option) all the way up to a high-res OLED panel. The Yoga version will only use Intel CPUs, but have the same memory and storage options. The 13.3-inch options will top out at a 1920 x 1200 touchscreen. Both will start with an FHD webcam with privacy shutter; the 5MP with IR is an upgrade.

The X13 and X13 Yoga will both ship in May 2023, with prices for the clamshell beginning at $1,099 and the 2-in-1 starting at $1,379.

Lenovo's steadfast T series is getting what Lenovo is calling "incremental enhancements," including sustainable materials and the optional 5 MP camera. The ThinkPad T14 Gen 5, T16 Gen 2 and T14s Gen 4 will all have the option for a 2880 x 1880 OLED panel. All three of these devices will come with either 13th Gen Intel Core processors with vPro, or Ryzen 7000 chips. These laptops will launch in May 2023, with the T14s starting at $1,479, the T14 at $1,239 and the T16 at $1,269.

The lower-cost L-series will add a new blue-light display configuration option for the L13 Gen 5 and L13 Yoga Gen 5, while the L14 Gen 4 and L15 Gen 4 will have higher capacity storage options than before at 2TB. These will launch in April, with the L13 and L13 Yoga starting at $869 and $1,099, respectively, while both the L14 and L15 are expected to start at $869.

Lenovo is positioning its E-series towards small and medium-sized businesses, alongside the ThinkBook series. The ThinkPad E15 Gen 5 is getting a refresh alongside a new, larger ThinkPad E16. The E series is moving to 16:10 for the first time with both Intel and AMD processors. The E14 Gen 5 is planned to launch for $739 in May, while the E16 Gen 1 will start at $759.

Nvidia revealed this week in a blog post that it won't be attending the Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year, which is set to kick off on February 24th. The company noted that its reason was the Coronavirus, as the company wants to protect its employees.

Mobile World Congress is a trade show that takes place in Barcelona each year and is primarily aimed at covering mobile affairs, which include the latest developments from mobile phone makers and chipmakers for mobile devices such as Qualcomm. 

Nevertheless, Nvidia sponsored the show and was also scheduled to host a total of ten sessions. Though not strictly about mobile topics, these sessions were focused around AI coverage, and there were plans for an "AI Edge Innovation Center". 

This isn't the first hit the tech industry is taking due to the Coronavirus. Local businesses in China are suffering, factories are closed and travel is restricted to protect employees, fear of the Coronavirus is being used to spread malware, and hardware prices are expected to rise after the infection is contained.

Given that Nvidia is not attending MWC due to health concerns, we're curious what will happen with Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose, which is set to kick off six weeks from today. 

Remember when the USB 3.0 standard was eventually rebranded to USB 3.1 Gen 1? Well, history is about to repeat itself once again. The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) announced at MWC 2019 that the new USB 3.2 standard will absorb the prior USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 specifications.

Both USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 are to be considered generations of the USB 3.2 specification. USB 3.1 Gen 1 (formerly known as USB 3.0), which offers speeds up to 5 Gbps, will be rebranded into USB 3.2 Gen 1 while USB 3.1 Gen 2, which supports communication rates up to 10 Gbps, will be called USB 3.2 Gen 2 moving forward. Since USB 3.2 has double the throughput (20 Gbps) of USB 3.1 Gen 2, the updated standard has been designated as USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.

In order to achieve a data transfer rate of 20 Gbps, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 employs up to two high-speed 10 Gbps channels. Last year, Synopsys gave us a small taste of the level of performance that we can expect from the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 standard. As noted by the USB-IF, conventional USB hosts and devices were designed as single-lane solutions. USB Type-C cables, on the other hand, support multi-lane operations that open the doors for scalable performance. As a result, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is only possible over the USB Type-C connection.

It's of utter importance that manufacturers and vendors communicate each USB 3.2 standard to the consumer in a clear way. To avoid overwhelming the consumer with technicalities, USB-IF suggested a separate marketing nomenclature for each standard. USB 3.2 Gen 1 should be identified as SuperSpeed USB while USB 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 are labeled as SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps and SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps, respectively.

There is no concrete date for when USB 3.2 devices will arrive. Some think they might come out later this year, but it could be much longer. Either way, it'll probably be a bit before the standard catches on in the motherboard space since manufacturers would have to incorporate third-party USB 3.2 controllers into their products.

At the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona today, the SD Association announced the new microSD Express standard based on the PCIe and NVMe interfaces.

New SD 7.1 Specification

The SD Association announced the microSD Express interface as part of the new SD 7.1 specification and some manufacturers have already announced microSD cards that support it.

The need for higher-speed microSD has increased primarily due to more smartphones gaining support for 4K resolution video recording at 60 frames per second (fps), as well as for 960 fps slow-motion videos, which can turn into very large files very quickly. Higher-speed microSDs are also increasingly needed for the ever-evolving gaming systems, multi-channel IoT devices, numerous automotive uses, action cameras, 360-degree videos and VR use cases.

Hiroyuki Sakamoto, SDA president, in a statement said: “microSD Express gives the mobile industry a compelling new choice to equip mobile devices with removable SSDs. SD 7.1 prepares consumers and mobile device manufacturers to meet ever increasing storage demands for years to come.”

SSD Speeds for microSD Cards

The microSD Express interface uses the PCIe 3.1 and NVMe v1.3 specifications defined by PCI-SIG and NVM Express, respectively. PCIe 3.1 comes with support for low-power states, which enable the low-power implementation of SD Express for mobile devices. The power utilized by microSD Express cards for data transfers is expected to be less than what traditional microSD cards consumed.

The SD Association and NVM Express Inc believe that microSD Express cards could be rapidly embraced in future products as consumers start to treat microSDs more like removable SSDs for their mobile devices.

Amber Huffman, NVM Express Inc. president, said: “NVMe is the industry-recognized performance SSD interface from the client to the data center to mobile, shipping in millions of units. By SDA adopting NVMe technology into the new microSD Express cards, users can experience lower latency and increasingly fast transfer speeds across various applications.” 

Qualcomm announced at MWC Barcelona 2019 the Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform to allow PC manufacturers to connect their devices to 5G wireless networks. The hope is that releasing products that support next-gen wireless tech "will modernize how people connect, compute, and communicate with their PCs."

The company has banged this drum before. It revealed the Always Connected PCs category alongside Microsoft in 2018, and despite repeated efforts, the initial run of Snapdragon-powered laptops was a disappointment. (Although some of the blame for that lies with the delayed launch of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.)

But that hasn't stopped Qualcomm and its partners, such as Lenovo, from embracing the Snapdragon 8cx 5G. Lenovo said it plans to release the first laptops built on top of the platform in 2020. Other partners are likely to follow--the Always Connected PC debuted with devices from HP, Asus, Samsung, and other companies.

The promise is pretty much the same as before: Qualcomm wants to blend "smartphone-like capabilities with the power and performance of a premium thin and light PC." That means it's shooting for "multi-gigabit connectivity, multi-day battery life, and performance computing on a mobile device" with the new platform.

Qualcomm claimed the Snapdragon 8cx 5G platform would result in the popularization of private 5G small-cell networks among business users to "allow for a more security-rich, high-performance data link for the next generation of connected applications and experiences for the modern connected worker."

That depends on a lot of factors: the deployment of large-scale 5G networks, businesses seeing the value in using small-cell networks instead of Wi-Fi, and shifting perceptions of Snapdragon-powered PCs. Even then, it's telling that Qualcomm's announcement focused so much on enterprise users. Consumers seem to be an afterthought.

Qualcomm said the Snapdragon 8cx 5G is currently sampling to its customers and that the first commercial devices featuring the platform are expected to debut in "late 2019." Maybe by then people will have finally come around to Qualcomm's vision for a Snapdragon-powered, always connected future of personal computers.

The era of 1TB microSD cards is here. Micron and Western Digital both announced 1TB microSDXC UHS-I cards at MWC Barcelona 2019. Micron's is called the Micron c200 1TB microSDXC UHS-I, which is as descriptive as it is easy to remember, while Western Digital's offering will be sold as the SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I.

Our need for more storage rises in step with the capabilities of the computers in our pockets, so it's no longer enough to store a few gigabytes worth of data. Now we're playing graphically intense games, shooting 4K video, and storing other content on our phones. As such, both cards are primarily meant for use in smartphones.

As Micron said in its press release about the new 1TB card:

“Micron’s technology leadership in 3D NAND with CMOS under the array and 96-layer QLC has been instrumental in developing and launching the world’s first 1TB microSD card,” said Aravind Ramamoorthy, senior director of NAND solutions for Micron's Embedded Business Unit. “The new c200 1TB microSD card gives consumers the freedom to capture, share, store and enjoy more content while supporting their mobile-centric lifestyles.”

It also isn't enough to offer high capacity storage--otherwise, people would be content to connect external hard drives to their phones. Storage has to be small enough to fit into the phone itself, have a high enough capacity to handle everything we want to store and be fast enough that we don't grow impatient.

These cards are supposed to meet all those criteria. They fit everywhere a microSDXC card does boast up to 1TB of storage, and offer up to 100MB/s read and 95MB/s write (Micron), or 160MB/s read and 90MB/s write (Western Digital) speeds. That's said to be fast enough to handle 4K UHD video recording and playback easily.

Both cards also meet the A2 Application Performance Class specification, which means they're fine to use for mobile apps. As we said, they should be good-to-go for data-hungry smartphones.

Micron said it plans to release the Micron c200 1TB microSDXC UHS-I card in 2Q19; it didn't reveal pricing information. Western Digital plans to release the SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I in April 2019 in two capacities, 512GB and 1TB, for a respective $200 and $450. The card's available to reserve on SanDisk's website.

That price discrepancy highlights the fact that the era of 1TB microSD cards is really only beginning. Most people aren't going to spend $450 on 1TB of storage--especially as prices for desktop storage continue to fall--instead of buying the $200 offering. Enthusiasts will, of course, but the average consumer won't.

Still, it won't be too long until the price of the 1TB card falls in line with the 512GB offering. People are getting too data-hungry (and too used to paying a pittance for storage) for prices to remain that high for too long. This is a glimpse at the future, not a sign that everyone will have 1TB microSD cards in a month.

Huawei isn’t having a great year so far. Governments around the world are considering banning the company’s equipment from next-gen wireless networks, and Politico reported today that the U.S. is poised to do the same this month.

The report indicates the ban wouldn’t only affect Huawei; other Chinese telecommunications companies, like ZTE, would also be affected. But Huawei in particular has become something of a focal point for the U.S. after it asked Canada to arrest Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou for allegedly violating sanctions against Iran.

Politico said U.S. President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order banning Chinese equipment from U.S. networks before this month's MWC Barcelona 2019, the wireless industry’s biggest event. It’s clear what Trump wants attendees to be thinking about.

This wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. banned these companies: Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in August 2018 to prevent government agencies from using products made by Chinese tech firms. The difference now would be that the products can’t be used by private companies either.

Australia and New Zealand  have also banned Huawei and ZTE. Germany is said to be considering it, as is the European Union as a whole, over concerns that using the equipment would enable spying by the Chinese government.

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei warned employees in late January that “mediocre employees” might lose their jobs in the coming months. Zhengfei (who is also Wanzhou’s father) said the company had to prepare for “times of hardship” as it faced increasing scrutiny from countries around the globe.

Samsung announced that it will show off four new virtual reality (VR) projects at Mobile World Congress 2017. The projects include a desktop and smartphone virtualization tool called Monitorless, a travel-focused 360-degree video platform called traVRer, a home interior app called VuildUs, and "a visual aid application" called Relúmĭno that promises to help visually impaired Samsung Gear VR owners watch television or read books more easily.

All of the projects were developed by Samsung's Creative Lab, an "internal venture incubation program that encourages a creative corporate culture and nurtures innovative ideas from Samsung employees" and will be shown off at MWC 2017's 4 Years From Now (4YFN) platform from February 27-March 2 in Barcelona. Aside from the 2021 window implied by the platform's name, there's no word on when these projects might debut.

Monitorless

VR enthusiasts are no strangers to virtual desktops. A number of apps let people use their Windows devices through a virtual interface, and the recently released VR Desktop does the same with macOS. Monitorless differs in that--as its name implies--it won't require a monitor to function. Samsung envisions a pair of glasses that feature "electro chromic glass" and can be used to view smartphone or PC content in VR and AR:

The demo video also shows Monitorless working with a smartphone to control a PC. This way, you can use a photo editor, for example, or play a game. Samsung envisions these high-tech glasses connecting to a smartphone via Wi-Fi direct; the phone itself then connects to a PC via your cellular network. Combine the two and you've got easy access to all of your favorite PC software without having to lug around any particularly heavy gadgets.

traVRer

Let's hope this one's as interesting as its name is cringeworthy. Samsung said traVRer users "are able to visit landmarks and famous places around the world but with the mood, noises and events captured" via 360-degree videos. It basically looks like a glorified Street View of famous places with some extra info--weather, address, when the video was taken--thrown into the mix. There's no demo video for this one, although Samsung did post a screenshot:

VuildUs

VuildUs is a little more involved. The app requires people to scan their homes with a 360-degree depth camera that's used to virtually recreate the domicile. People can then enter the virtual home with a VR headset (naturally) and experiment with different furniture options. Samsung's hope is that people will find this easier than just measuring the rooms and looking up the furniture's dimensions, as shown in the VuildUs demo video:

If someone finds a piece of furniture they like, they can purchase it right through VuildUs. The app seems like a more interactive Pinterest--it offers a bunch of inspiration (though VuildUs will probably have fewer mason jars and healthy snacks) and then makes it easy for people to make impulse buys.

Relúmĭno

We have no idea how this one's pronounced, but it might be the most important project on the list. Where the others are focused on entertainment or productivity, Relúmĭno is all about using VR to help people go about their lives. Here's what Samsung said about its goal for the app:

It works as a mobile app that when inserted into the Samsung Gear VR can enhance visuals and text so that they can be enjoyed in better quality. The technology even has the ability to remap blind spots by displacing images and uses an Amlser grid chart to correct distorted images caused by metamorphopsia. Relúmĭno enables visually challenged people to watch TV without using the expensive visual aids currently available in the market.

Relúmĭno is envisioned as a mobile app that works its magic when a phone's inserted into the Gear VR headset.

We saw three surprising things at Canonical’s booth at Mobile World Congress 2016, and each has to do with conversion. By "conversion," I mean a mobile device equipped with Ubuntu Core – a shared code base that enables apps to run on mobile and desktop, whether designed for touch or mouse and keyboard input – that can connect to an external monitor and see the apps optimized for the larger display.

If that sounds a lot like Microsoft’s Universal Apps and Continuum, that is because it’s the same concept. But as Microsoft is struggling to finish and polish its software, Canonical went ahead and did it better.

A Midrange Tablet Impresses

Even after an impressive web demo ahead of the show wherein Canonical demonstrated a tablet running a PC-like experience with a mouse and keyboard, I had little optimism that the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet would be able to multitask as Canonical proclaimed it could. The specs just seemed too middling: a MediaTek quad-core MT8163A (up to 1.5 GHz) and 2 GB of RAM?

I was wrong.

Richard Collins, Ubuntu Mobile Product Manager for Canonical, walked me through a demo of the tablet in action. It had a mouse and keyboard connected via Bluetooth, and he swiftly opened up a number of applications. In the video, you can see that he has a web browser running in addition to a music player, contacts, email and more.

Touch Mode

He started off showing me touch mode, wherein you can swipe in from the left to show a list of app icons. When you tap to open an app, you can then do a three-finger drag to stick it on the left side of the screen, so you have one larger window and one smaller window -- what’s called the “Side Stage.” (This, versus the larger “Main Stage” window of the tablet.) You can interact with both open apps at once.

If you want a Side Stage app to appear on the Main Stage, you can just three-finger drag it to the larger area.

When you slide in from the right, you can see all your open apps in tiles, and you can tap any to bring them to the forefront. Within the Side Stage, you can actually swipe from the right to toggle through your open apps, too.

Desktop Mode

Then he brought the mouse and keyboard into the conversation. You can, by the way, use the touch gestures even while the mouse and keyboard are connected. To engage the mouse-and-keyboard-friendly mode, you bring up a panel and toggle on "Desktop Mode." In Desktop Mode, you can see all your open apps in windows, just like on any PC desktop. All the same apps you had running in Touch Mode are still open; they just automatically optimize themselves for the Desktop Mode. This change happens instantly -- so quickly that if you blink, you’ll miss it.

Just like on a regular PC, you can click and drag the windows around as you see fit. And you still get the app icon list on the left side of the display -- you just mouse over, and it will pop out.

Collins opened LibreOffice as well as a spreadsheet. It took maybe a beat longer to open than such an application would on a regular PC. At this point, he had LibreOffice, Scopes, System Settings, Music, the web browser, Contacts and xChat GNOME all running.

After I shut the camera off, by the way, I dug in there to see if I could choke the system. I hit “play” on the music app, opened up the camera so the “live view” was up, loaded a couple of web pages, and pulled up a spreadsheet and started typing. There was simply no lag. In terms of responsiveness, it felt as if I was on my regular laptop. The web pages even loaded more quickly on the tablet than they sometimes do on my laptop. I clicked back and forth between open applications. Smooth as mantequilla.

The only limitation I saw at this point is that there’s no support for a dual-display mode. Therefore, you can use the tablet like a PC, or connect the tablet to an external display and use it as a PC, but you can’t do both. Canonical told me that this is a limitation of the chipset, but that “in theory, with the right hardware, [dual display] will be possible in future.”  

Just Some Old Smartphone Acting Like A PC

I was sufficiently impressed by the Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet demo’s multitasking performance, but Collins had another surprise in store when we switched to the smartphone-as-PC demo.

Thanks to Ubuntu Core, you can connect a smartphone to an external monitor, and the phone’s open applications will show up as windowed, desktop-looking apps.

As with the tablet, you can’t get a dual-screen experience. However, Canonical cleverly found a way to use the smartphone’s touch display as an input device. The phone’s display is off, but in the video (above), you can see that you can use it to move the mouse cursor around just as you would on any laptop touchpad, and you can perform taps and a two-finger scroll. (When connected to an external display, the tablet offers the same.) Connect yourself a keyboard, and you’re all set with a hybrid laptop/desktop input experience and a PC-like environment on your monitor.

However, it’s not as fluid as the tablet experience. There’s a small amount of mouse input lag, for example, and the apps didn’t seem to respond quite as readily as one would like. That would be more disappointing if the attached smartphone powering the experience was a high-end device, but effectively, they were using just some old smartphone. It was, in fact, a Nexus 4--a phone so old that you can’t even buy it anymore.

I pressed Collins on the minimum required specs for this experience, and I seemed to have stumped him, as he didn’t have a ready answer. But then he made this point: Canonical hasn’t bothered to define minimum requirements because there are so few phones available that can’t run it.

All a handset really needs, Collins said, is 2 GB of RAM. The rest is gravy. The Nexus 4 was used just as a prototype, and Collins told me that another handset was coming this year that should fully support this experience. Around that time, a dual-display feature should become available, as well.

“Odd,” might be your next thought, “Why not just use that recently-announced, high-end Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition smartphone?”

A High-End But Hamstrung Handset

That thought would make sense--the Meizu Pro 5 is a fairly powerful device, and it has a USB Type-C port that should make it ideal for pumping its contents to an external display. But there’s one great big problem: Inexplicably, the phone doesn’t support video out through the Type-C port.

Regarding this oversight, Collins said, “This is a chipset dependency and requires the chipset supplier to enable video support for the USB Type-C component on the Board Support Package. We expect chipset manufacturers to fully enable USB-C type functionality for future boards.”

He continued, “There are alternative technologies we are evaluating and expect products in the near future.” One of these potential solutions, he said, is Wi-Fi Direct, which could potentially turn any Ubuntu phone into a “convergence” phone. For now, though, the Pro 5 is “just” an Ubuntu phone.

Basically an iPhone 6 clone in terms of design, the Pro 5 has a Samsung Exynos 7420 SoC with a Mali T760 GPU, 3 GB or 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 32 GB or 64 GB of UFS 2.0 storage, and a rear 21.16MP camera (with a Sony IMX230 sensor).

Being an Ubuntu phone, it uses Scopes; the UI design is intended to keep people in the experience as opposed to bumping them off to web-based “apps,” and to that end, many apps have a unified Ubuntu look, like the SoundCloud app in the video.

Enabling Convergence

Collins said that devs can enable this Ubuntu-on-any-screen capability fairly easily, using Canonical’s SDK. “Our SDK has UI components, which when used to create applications to run on Ubuntu devices will allow the app to dynamically change so that it can be used for touch as well as mouse control and input,” he stated. “This is a both a design and a technical solution we have introduced to allow any app to be relevant for convergence.”

So, yes, devs have to go into their app’s code and add a few lines, and that means currently not all apps can switch from touch mode to desktop mode as smoothly as the ones I saw demoed. Surely, that will lead to a certain amount of consternation for users, but as demand increases, the number of enabled apps should follow quickly.

What Canonical is doing here is all the more impressive because of the issues Microsoft appears to be having in implementing its own convergence experience for mobile devices using Windows 10 and Continuum. Windows 10 for phones is still not finished, and as Collins noted, “The mobile version [of Windows 10] has the ability to display certain apps to a desktop, but still remains a mobile OS at its core.”

He added, “Continuum is therefore a solution for the Win 10 mobile OS variant which only works for certain apps. It is a feature of their mobile OS and is not therefore based on true OS convergence in the same way as Ubuntu.”

Canonical itself still has some work to do. More apps need to get the convergence treatment, and we need to see more available devices, Further, getting video-out capabilities on these higher-end Ubuntu phones is crucial--there's no two ways about that--and adding dual-display support for both phones and tablets will take the experience to a more compelling level.

Even so, Canonical has proven that its work with Ubuntu Core and the “convergence” paradigm is impressive and promising.

Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

As frequent Tom’s Hardware readers know, even though we’ve enjoyed copious VR demos of late and are free to describe them in loving detail, we’re rarely allowed to show any footage or images of the experiences. That changed at Mobile World Congress, where we were allowed to shoot the IEEE’s Mars Rover demo.

IEEE?

Yes, that IEEE. Why is the IEEE doing VR? There are two reasons: Primarily, the group believes that shared VR experiences will be a key element of widespread VR adoption. It’s hard to disagree with that assessment — and really, if you think about the concept of virtualized spaces, engaging with others within them is a fundamental use case. In addition to the fact that it enables more powerful interactions for people working on projects together remotely, it sounds thoroughly enjoyable, doesn’t it? There are other companies working in this space, including AltspaceVR.

As to why the IEEE chose to show what it can do in multiplayer VR with a Mars rover demo, it’s simply because many of the engineers engaged with it formerly worked on projects for real space missions. Therefore, the Mars Rover experience is a love letter, if you will.

Mission On Mars

Two of us got the chance to navigate through the Mars Rover demo. In the video, you’ll see our Editor-In-Chief, Fritz Nelson, but I had a go at it as well.

There are three participants at a time. Each of you is seated and dons an Oculus Rift DK2 headset and some headphones. You each get a right-hand joystick and left-hand thruster. That sounds terribly exciting, but you’re limited to moving in one of four directions on the joystick and forward and backward with the thruster. (In other words, there’s no Martian sniping to be had.)

A captain (a fourth party who is not in the virtual environment with you) doles out instructions. Each player has four tasks to perform, so there are 12 total. When the demo begins, you’ll get a notification on your HUD that a given task must be performed, and only you can see it. Usually that task is one that you aren’t able to perform yourself, so you have to tell a teammate to do it. That requires you to shout the task out so that a teammate will hear you and perform it; meanwhile, your teammates will be shouting out instructions that you (and your other teammates) need to perform. If the tasks are not performed in a timely manner, the mission will fail and everyone dies.

In my run, none of us actually spoke the same native language. Correctly assessing my monolingual gringo-ness, the captain asked, “Alejandro, do you speak English?” He did. I apologized for my terrible Spanish, in terrible Spanish. “Mi español no es bueno,” I admitted sheepishly. Our other compadre spoke enough English for all of us to get by.

And get by we did. The Mars Rover experience is an on-rails experience, so it rolls along no matter what you do. It was surprisingly difficult to read each task that popped up, process if it was one of mine or one of my teammates, and either fix it or shout it out to the crew, all while listening for instructions from my teammates on my objectives. And, of course, I had to perform my tasks, too.

Our stellar crew was able to solve all of the little problems as they arose, and we made it out alive and with our vessel intact. Our captain congratulated us on a job well done.

Portending

The Mars Rover demo was simple, and although it was fun, it’s not the kind of thing I wanted to do again and again. But for the IEEE, it seems that this is really just an engaging proof of concept. Is multiplayer VR feasible? Yes. Can it be fun? Sure. Could it work locally as well as remotely? Indeed.

As I mentioned earlier, the IEEE isn’t the only group working on multiplayer VR — that is, fluid, active, unpredictable experiences, not just games where you shoot things together — but it does see a (near) future where people can collaborate on projects, communicate with each other, and otherwise engage within virtual environments. 

Update, 3/8/16, 1:24pm CT: Globalcore worked on developing this experience.

Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Best Of Show: MWC 2016

Mobile mania has now died down, at least for the moment. More than 90,000 people stormed Barcelona for this year's show, and sometimes—due to the annual metro workers strike that takes place conveniently during the conference—we were all stuck together like one big blob. Luckily, we all had our mobile phones so we didn't have to actually interact with one another.

I kid.

There weren't any monumental announcements this year, although HTC chose this show to announce the price of Vive ($799), and Huawei didn't announce a phone (it launched a few at CES), but instead showed off a Microsoft Surface competitor in the MateBook. LG revealed a VR HMD that tethers to a smartphone, rather than requiring the phone reside in the headset next to your face. The only problem was that it still seemed a little prototype-y.

This is a show that brings together companies that make gigantic carrier switches and little teeny app makers. We even saw the NBA there making friends in the back of one of the last halls. But it's also a show where companies showcase new ideas and incremental innovation that end up being something like a fingerprint reader or a battery saving success that becomes the must-have next feature for every smartphone or tablet. Or just something in the background that makes our mobile communication a little better.

Those are the things that we tried to look for in our meetings, and in between meetings, and even under the surface of some of the big-ticket press conferences and announcements. We couldn't see it all, naturally, but we saw quite a bit. Here are a few of the things that stood out to us.

MORE: Best Smartphones
MORE: Smartphones In The News
MORE: All Smartphone Content

Best Smartphone

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge do not have a radical new design or new materials like last year's Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. They do not even include as many new technologies. Instead Samsung's new flagships simply address the S6's shortcomings.

It would be easy to criticize Samsung for taking an iterative approach, but the S6 and its kin are already very good smartphones, using cutting-edge hardware. However, by rounding the edges on the back of the phones to improve ergonomics (especially for the S7 edge), increasing the size of the batteries to (presumably) extend battery life, adding more memory to improve multitasking performance, and bringing back microSD card support and IP68 dust and water protection, Samsung created a well-rounded phone that's a solid improvement over the S6, and the best smartphone announced at MWC 2016.

MORE: Samsung Galaxy S7 And S7 Edge Preview

Best Smartphone Innovation

LG G5 Removable Battery

A removable battery is a nice feature to have: You can swap in a fully charged spare if you run out of juice while on the go or easily replace an aging battery that just does not last as long as it used to. Many people also like the look and feel of a smartphone with an all-metal body. Up until now, these features were mutually exclusive.

The LG G5 manages to combine both features using an innovative solution. The lower portion of the body detaches below the screen at the push of a button, extracting the battery and allowing for easy replacement.

This design even allows other modules to snap into the G5. For starters, there's the LG CAM Plus that turns the G5 into a pseudo point-and-shoot camera. There's also the LG Hi-Fi Plus with B&O PLAY, a module that adds high-end audio hardware to the G5. Support for third-party modules makes for interesting possibilities too.

It's always exciting to see a novel design for a tricky problem. LG gets bonus points for turning its design into a modular platform for extending the G5's capabilities. Time will tell if this modularity catches on, but at least LG was not afraid to try something different.

MORE: LG G5 Hands-On

Best Augmented Reality

Epson Moverio BT-300

Arguably there wasn't much AR at Mobile World Congress. There was still more buzz, as there always is, around VR. But Epson brought its newest AR glasses, the Moverio BT-300, and they are a marked improvement on the frustrating Moverio BT-200.

The company switched from an LCD-based display to a custom-crafted silicon OLED panel, which improved everything from brightness to contrast to resolution. The difference is pretty amazing, and Epson's version of Augmented Reality just got pretty compelling.

The technology still operates in niche markets with very specific applications—Drone remote monitoring, remote support, and so forth. But these commercial applications are integral to the success of AR, which is also starting to see some momentum as an add-on technology to VR and in other areas (see: HTC's Vive front facing camera and Intel's RealSense camera).

MORE: Epson's Moverio BT-300 Augmented Reality Glasses

Best Security

Synaptics Natural ID FS4304 and SentryPoint

Synaptics is one of the leaders in fingerprint sensor technology, and this year for Mobile World Congress the company introduced its Natural ID FS4304, an ultra slim capacitive sensor, flying against the logic of some of its competitors that bigger is always better.

Synaptics also announced software called SentryPoint, which the company claims will detect against any spoof attempts by examining the sample for various human factors that are practically impossible to spoof, such as the presence of pores. Company representatives showed us a demonstration, albeit of one spoofed finger, but Synaptics boasts labs and experts dedicated to mastering anti-spoofing.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly for the moment (and why we're giving it this award), Synaptics SentryPoint now stores the enrollment match in the sensor, making your biometric information even more secure.

MORE:  Synaptics' SentryPoint Security Suite Isolates Fingerprint Sensors From Host Processors

Best Mobile Content Optimization

Giraffic Adaptive Video Acceleration

Giraffic's adaptive video acceleration is not unlike many of the technologies that are able to detect network bandwidth conditions and make adjustments to content streams in order to accommodate those conditions. Many video content hosting platforms provide adaptive content models, many networks include quality of service mechanisms and protocols, and in fact Giraffic has been mastering adaptive video acceleration for a while. Now, however, they are doing so on 3G and 4G mobile networks.

A quick look at what Giraffic does: First, it analyzes the network conditions in real time, in an ongoing fashion, building statistical models to predict the network conditions for the next few seconds, and so on. Second, it shapes the content playback based on those conditions. And finally, its software assigns client side HTTP acceleration, basically fighting for network priority by opening up a number of quick connections for short bursts of content, and then releasing them. This obviously speeds up a download, or adjusts the quality of a live stream, but it also saves mobile power, consumes less bandwidth (and thus, data charges).

You may have never heard of Giraffic, but its technology is in one of three SmartTVs sold, according to company representatives, who also claim to be working with some of the bigger mobile device manufacturers. Since two of the SmartTV players are LG and Samsung, it would be a good bet to see Giraffic's technology in handsets from those companies as well.

Worst Of Show

The No Show

I was reminiscing back to some of the earlier days of Mobile World Congress (but not as far back as when it was held in France), and I remembered the massive and infinitely fun Google booth, with slushie makers and gigantic slides. It was like a candy store, and there were technology demonstrations everywhere. You could hardly move. Google was just getting Android some recognition back then, and then CEO Eric Schmidt gave a keynote that everyone flocked to see. Since Apple never comes to Mobile World Congress, it became a great place for Google to enter puberty as a mobile company. This year, I was leaving a meeting in the last hall in the very back of the Fira conference center and I stumbled on Google's tiny booth. It was filled with a few small meeting rooms, some Android tablets for people to play with, and a few folks playing with robotics. It made me a little sad.

Likewise, back in 2010 I remember crowding into an absolutely bezerk ballroom, standing room only, to see then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announce Windows Phone 7. There were doubters then, as there are now, but it was a little shocking because it was a complete new product, and Microsoft was tossing away Windows Mobile, a product that was leaking market share, but still had a foothold with customers. Microsoft, too, needed Mobile World Congress then. This year, Microsoft is in one of the major halls, but stuck to letting several partners, including Huawei with its surprise Surface competitor, the MateBook, take the spotlight.

Sure, you can call me nostalgic, but Mobile World Congress is a gathering of the entire mobile ecosystem—carriers, carrier infrastructure providers, handset makers, content companies, and so much more. Having cornerstone players like Google and Microsoft actually helped, but somehow both companies have faded into the background of this event for various reasons (Google doesn't need the show as much, I suspect). It feels like they've turned their backs on this ecosystem in some way. Still, Mobile World Congress has almost twice as many attendees this year as it did back then, so what do I know.

Best Surprise

BQ Aquaris M10 (Ubuntu Edition)

When Canonical announced its "convergence" concept of using a mobile device running Ubuntu Core to power a full desktop productivity experience (like Microsoft's Continuum play), everything sounded great except for one big problem: The tablet's specs were middling, and we doubted how such a device could successfully run multiple apps in a multi-window format.

Our fears turned out to be unfounded. We visited the Ubuntu booth at MWC and watched a demo of the device performing flawlessly. Even with at least seven applications running, including a music player, web browser and spreadsheet app, the tablet hung in there, delivering a smooth experience with full keyboard and mouse support.

This is not about the tablet, though; it's about what Canonical has been able to accomplish with Ubuntu Core and lower-powered devices. While Microsoft and its partners continue to struggle to deliver on the promise of Windows 10 and Continuum, Canonical built its own, rather impressive, version.

Best Apple Feature That Everyone Will Have Soon

Force Touch

Apple did not invent all of the technologies included in the iPhone, nor is it always the first to adopt them, but it does have a history popularizing—even legitimizing—them. So-called retina displays and fingerprint sensors, which can be found in nearly every new mid-range and high-end phone, are just two examples.

The next example will be 3D Touch, Apple's force-sensitive display. During a tour of Synaptics' booth at MWC 2016, we saw a variety of touch and fingerprint sensors, display driver ICs, and even thin sheet OLED panels. We also saw a working sample of Synaptics' ClearForce technology, which is functionally equivalent to Apple's solution, and a significant sign suggesting that we'll be seeing this feature pushed into more smartphones soon.

Best Design

HP Mobile Extender, Aka The 'Dumb Clamshell'

HP is making an aggressive move in the business market with its high-end Elite X3 Windows 10 phone, HP Workspaces, and the various "accessories" that go along with the kit. One of those "accessories" is a laptop with no guts. That is to say, the laptop (known as the Mobile Extender) is an empty vessel; when you connect the Elite X3, it comes to life. The Mobile Extender itself is little more than a display and a keyboard. It is, predictably, light weight and thin, just as a super-mobile laptop should be.

We first encountered the modern version of this concept last year at MWC, actually, when MHL was showing off a "dumb" clamshell mockup in its own booth. It's a great idea, enabled in part by everything that USB Type-C brings to the fore, and HP took the idea and ran with it.

However, one seemingly small feature makes the Mobile Extender even better: You connect the Elite X3 to it wirelessly. That means you can display the phone's contents on the Mobile Extender and enjoy mouse and touchpad input while the handset is tucked away in your pocket.

MORE: HP's Elite X3 Windows 10 Smartphone And 'Dumb' Laptop

Best VR Add-On

SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) Eye Tracking / Foveated Rendering

We've seen a few different eye-tracking solutions for VR, and we're eager to see HMD makers implement them, because eye tracking is important in a virtual or augmented environment. So is foveated rendering (wherein only the part of the VR environment that you're looking directly at gets rendered in full, to save GPU resources).

SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) offers both, and although it's not unique in that regard, its positioning is ideal: It's simple, inexpensive hardware that you can easily integrate with almost any HMD, and it's ready to go right now.

Also, most importantly, I found the performance to be strong—I couldn't "defeat" the foveated rendering, and the eye tracking worked as fast as (well, faster than) my brain could process it.

MORE: Eye Tracking, Foveated Rendering, And SMI's Quest For VR Domination

Imagination Technology announced a new GPU family at MWC 2016 that’s focused on low-cost smartphones, wearables, televisions, IoT devices, and other embedded applications where low-power usage is critical. The new PowerVR Series8XE is an iterative update to Series7XE that includes architectural enhancements to improve fillrate. It also adds support for the latest graphics APIs, including OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan 1.0. Compared to the Series7XE, Imagination Technology said the Series8XE delivers either the same performance on a 25% smaller die, with a corresponding decrease in price, or higher performance on a chip of the same size.

Unlike high-end GPUs that focus on pixel shader performance for rich gaming, the Series8XE family focuses on pixel fillrate (texturing), which is more important for user interface rendering, smooth Web browsing, and light gaming. The new GPU family offers twice the fillrate at the same area as Series7XE, a significant but necessary gain as screen resolution increases in low-end devices.

High-end applications such as 3D gaming make extensive use of layering effects and multiple render targets. Because these operations may require multiple shader passes, 32-bit floating-point (FP32) values are necessary to retain precision. Low-end applications like those targeted by Series8XE, however, use more direct rendering methods that do not require high precision. Therefore, it makes sense to take advantage of the Rogue architecture’s dedicated FP16 ALUs to save power.

At a high level, a Series8XE USC looks just like a Series7XE or high-end Series7XT USC, with the same number of FP32 and FP16 ALU cores. However, there are architectural improvements within the ALUs to improve energy efficiency and throughput. Another feature that carries over from the Series7XT is the ability to co-issue SFU and ALU operations. Series8XE also includes a tessellation co-processor (no longer an optional component), making it surprisingly well-featured for a GPU targeting the low-end market.

Series8XE GPUs have a single USC with up to 16 pipelines. The texture unit scales with the number of pipelines in order to achieve the desired balance between shading performance and fillrate, without exceeding the area budget.

The PowerVR GE8200 and GE8300 are the first two GPUs announced in the Series8XE family and are capable of processing two and four pixels per clock, respectively. For comparison, the PowerVR GX6450 in the iPhone 6 processes eight pixels per clock, while the PowerVR GT7600 in the iPhone 6s processes 12 pixels per clock.

Series8XE also includes Imagination’s OmniShield GPU hardware virtualization, an especially important feature in the automotive space, where the same chip might be driving both the dashboard display and the infotainment system. Not only might these systems be running different operating systems (RTOS for the dashboard and Android for infotainment, for example), but the infotainment system is likely networked and needs to be isolated from the dashboard display for the sake of security.

While Series8XE is an iterative design with improved fillrate, power efficiency, and updated graphics API support, the high-performance Series8XT, which should be announced later this year, will bring more significant architectural changes.

Matt Humrick is the Mobile Editor at Tom's Hardware. Contact him at mhumrick@tomshardware.com and follow him on Twitter @digitalOut_net. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Acer announced two new phones at the Mobile World Congress, the Liquid Zest and the Liquid Jade 2.

Acer Liquid Zest (4G)

The Liquid Zest, which also has an LTE variant called the Liquid Zest 4G, comes with a 5” IPS screen with an 1280x720 resolution, an 8MP rear camera with f/2.0 lens and auto-focus, and a 5MP camera with a wide-angle lens for better capturing selfies. The Liquid Zest is powered by an older quad-core 1.3 GHz, whereas the Liquid Zest 4G is powered by a newer quad-core 1.0 GHz processor with integrated LTE.

DTS Sound Studio is supported on the Liquid Zest, while DTS HD Premium Sound is available on the Liquid Zest 4G for an even bigger sound field and higher vocal clarity. The Liquid Zest will be available in April for 109 euro, and the Liquid Zest 4G will start shipping in May for 149 euro. Both will arrive in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) countries first.

Acer Liquid Jade 2

The Liquid Jade 2 has a larger 5.5” AMOLED display with Full HD (1920x1080) resolution that supports 100% of the NTSC color gamut, which covers an even bigger spectrum of colors than sRGB. What that means is the display should show quite life-like colors. The phone also has support for high-resolution audio with virtual surround sound powered by DTS Headphone:X.

The Liquid Jade 2 has a much higher-resolution 21MP rear camera compared to the Liquid Zest, and a much faster autofocus system, as well. It also supports 4k video recording. On the front, there’s an 8MP camera, which has an 84-degree wide angle lens and “Pause N Shoot” selfie mode.

The device comes with a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor (four Cortex-A53 cores and two Cortex-A57 cores), 3 GB RAM and 32 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded with up to 1 TB cloud storage.

Acer didn’t unveil when the higher-end Liquid Jade 2 will be available for sale, nor its price.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Lenovo announced three new Android-based tablets at MWC. The new Tab3 Series includes the Tab3 10, Tab3 7 and Tab3 8.

The Tab3 10 is designed for the enterprise with business-critical hardware and software and support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It comes preloaded with Google Play for Work and Android for Work apps. These apps offer solutions for point-of-sale, classroom and eHeath management in addition to Kiosk Mode, which allows users to configure their Tab3 10 as an interactive kiosk.

The Tab3 10 features a 1.3 Ghz quad-core processor, a 10-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3, an 8 megapixel auto-focusing rear camera and a 5 megapixel fixed-focus front camera. The device is also weather-proofed with a liquid-repellant coating. Connectivity features include NFC, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and full GPS in addition to optional 4G LTE.

The Tab3 10 Business tablets have additional enterprise-level security features including hardware encryption software, policy control and remote capabilities. Lenovo also integrated the Tab3 10 Business with persistent endpoint protection and geo-fencing technology, allowing businesses to securely track a device and shield its internal networks. The device can even be remotely locked down.

The Tab3 10 Business comes in three flavors: a Wi-Fi only model sporting 2 GB of memory and 32 GB of storage starting at $199; an LTE-enabled version with 2 GB of memory and 32 GB of storage coming in at $249; and a Tab3 10 with LTE connectivity, 3 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage for $299.

The Tab3 7 and 8 are designed for home users, with family-centric features including multi-user modes and parental controls, such as a dedicated "kids mode" with safe web-browsing options and usage scheduling.  

Both the Tab3 7 and Tab3 8 feature a MediaTek quad-core processor clocked at 1.0 GHz, 1 GB of memory and 16 GB of internal storage in addition to the same Gorilla Glass 3, weatherproofing and Android 6.0 Marshmallow as the Tab3 10 Business.

For consumers concerned about potentially damaging blue light from the display, the Tab3 7 and 8 also come with Adaptive Display technology that can filter out harmful blue light, offering a safer viewing experience for younger users.

The Tab3 7 stands alone with its lack of optional features; the device comes as is at a price of $129 without Wi-Fi only variants like the Tab3 8 and 10 offer. The Tab3 8's Wi-Fi only model rings up for $99 and its LTE-enabled counterpart costs $149.

Lenovo plans to make the Tab3 10 Business available in July, with the Tab3 7 and 8 appearing in June.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

It’s no secret that Sony’s smartphone division has been struggling for some time despite the fact over the years it has made some very good handsets. One of its biggest problems is that it can’t seem to crack the nut that is the U.S. market and get carriers to sell its phones (it's had more success in Canada in that department). The latest phones to come out in the U.S., the Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact, arrived without much fanfare, although it didn’t help that they were released six months after other regions got them!

At MWC 2016 Sony announced that it has gone back to the drawing board and “re-imagined” the Xperia brand and the first fruits of this endeavor are the new “X” series smartphones. The Xperia X Performance, Xperia X, and Xperia XA are ostensibly mid-range devices that at first glance don’t look a whole lot different than Sony’s previous phones. So we’re not exactly sure what’s been re-imagined here. Still, these phones might be the nutcracker that breaks open the U.S. market for Sony.

All three phones share a common design language that looks to continue Sony’s trademark squared-off design with rounded sides, but now you can add a curved glass display into the mix. That is to say, the front glass is curved at the edge, not curved like you’d find on the phone like the Galaxy S7 edge. Being mid-range phones, all three have 5-inch displays, so it's their internal specifications that define their place in the X series hierarchy.

They are all available in four different colors -- Graphite Black, White, Lime Gold, and Rose Gold, and it’s nice to see that Sony is still offering two bolder color options. Fitting the mid-range designation, you will not find as many premium materials here, so their sides are plastic instead of metal.

The Xperia X Performance is the premium device in the series, with a top-end Snapdragon 820 SoC, 1080p display, 23MP and 13MP cameras, a fingerprint reader, a brushed metal back and IP68 element protection. The step-down X has the same specs, but loses the waterproofing, has a smooth metal back and slightly smaller battery and is powered by a Snapdragon 650 SoC. The low-end model is the Xperia XA. It has an attractive (side) borderless display, allowing it to be little narrower, but its only 720p. The XA also only has 13MP and 8MP cameras, drops the fingerprint reader and is powered by a low-end MediaTek MT6755 SoC. All three phones run Android Marshmallow, and Sony’s UI hasn’t historically been too heavy handed.

The Xperia X and X Performance benefit from Sony’s next-generation Xperia camera tech that includes new Predictive Hybrid Autofocus developed in collaboration with its Alpha camera engineers. The camera performance of Sony’s Xperia phones has long been a weakness, despite the fact that its camera sensors are some of the best (and used by many other smartphones with excellent cameras). Let’s hope that by working with its camera division Sony can fix this glaring deficiency.

All three models use Sony’s Smart Battery Management for “up to two days” of battery life, which from our experience with previous Xperias is likely an accurate statement. Battery life has always been a strong point of Sony’s phones. They also have long battery lifespan by using Qnovo’s Adaptive Charging technology; that could potentially help minimize the cell damage fast charging can have on a battery.

These new phones look to be pretty decent offerings from Sony, at least on paper, but what’s interesting is where they fit into Sony’s line-up. With the Z series being the top-of-the-range devices, the Xs clearly have to slot in below them, but the specs of the X Performance really pushes the definition of what can be considered mid-range, and, in fact, surpasses those of the Z5 Compact, widely considered the best small Android phone you can buy.

Where does that leave the next-gen Z series then? Well if the Xperia X Performance fulfills the need for a premium small device, we assume then that the Z6 will end up being a high-end showcase, with a large 4K display, the next-generation Snapdragon and Sony image sensor, and made from ultra-premium materials. I guess we’ll have to see when it is announced, likely this fall at IFA.

Pricing for the Xperia X series phones has not been announced, nor has their availability other than the vague “Summer 2016,” which makes their announcement at MWC 2016 surprising early. While we cannot say for sure if they will be making it to the U.S. (though Sony now has plenty of time to negotiate with carriers), we do know that they are coming to Canada because they are already listed on Sony’s Canadian site.

Alex Davies is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro, covering Smartphones, Tablets, and Virtual Reality. You can follow him on Twitter. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

In late 2014, Samsung announced its first 360-degree camera, dubbed Project Beyond. This is a professional-level "3d omniview" stereoscopic camera with 17 cameras and UHD 3D capture, designed to film the highest quality 360-videos possible. After fading from public view for a while, Project Beyond resurfaced at CES this year, and at around the same time Samsung filed a patent for a "Gear 360" product, leading people to speculate that it would be the go-to-market name for the project.

This week at MWC 2016, Samsung cleared up all the confusion and announced the Gear 360, a monoscopic 360-degree consumer video camera designed to be used with the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge phones. This means that pricing and availability for Project Beyond is still to be announced, but likely to be in the five-figure price range, whereas the Gear 360 will be sold at a much more consumer-friendly three-figure price (though pricing was not disclosed yet).

To be honest, comparing the two cameras is pointless because the Gear 360 is designed to make shooting 360-video accessible to the masses, whereas the Beyond is for professional filmmakers. The Gear 360 has a light (153g) and compact spherical design, and looks like a high-tech eyeball (or a Portal Sentry Turret when it's on its stand). It is also splash proof and dust resistant and comes with a small tripod. It also uses an industry-standard thread size, so it can be mounted using a wide variety of camera mounts for more versatility.

The Gear 360 is targeting the same market as the LG 360 CAM also announced at MWC, but its specs are a bit more on the higher-end. It has two 15MP cameras that produce a 30MP spherical image when stitched and it can capture 3840 x 1920, 360-degree video (the LG has two 13MP cameras and can capture up to 2K 360-degree video). The Gear 360 also has a wide aperture f/2.0 lens for better low-light performance. You can see a sample video shot with the Gear 360 above (remember to pan around with your mouse or by tilting your phone if not viewing in VR).

Specifications

The Gear 360 connects to "select Samsung smartphones," including the S7 and S7 edge. Let's hope it can be used with Samsung's 2015 flagship devices too. When connected to a phone, you can preview what the camera is shooting in real time and control the camera with it. You can save the footage the Gear 360 captures to its microSD card, or to your smartphone to share it directly with social media, though Samsung didn't specify which channels it will support.

You can also livestream 360-video from the camera, with the footage from the two cameras stitched together by the Samsung Gear 360 App on your phone. Footage captured with the Gear 360 can either be viewed in 2D using the Gear 360 app, or in VR using the Gear VR.

Like so many MWC announcements, pricing and availability (beyond a vague "Q2 2016 in select countries") was not disclosed by Samsung.

While not as big as its showing at CES earlier this year, Lenovo unveiled more products at Mobile World Congress. For its laptop and two-in-one lineup, the company showed off three models.

Yoga 710

The new Yoga 710 comes in 11- and 14-inch variants starting at $499 and $799, respectively. In addition to the traditional laptop stance, both devices can also flex to a stand, tent and tablet format. The 11-inch laptop seems to be built more for portability, whereas the 14-inch device is meant for those who need more connectivity, as evidenced by its multiple ports.

Yoga 510 (aka "Flex 4")

Just like the Yoga 710, the Yoga 510 laptops can also flex to stand, tent and tablet postures. Its main feature is the so-called Yoga Rapid Recharge, which apparently charges the battery to 100 percent in two-and-a-half hours. The battery life for the Yoga 510 is eight-and-a-half hours (with HD video playback).

The Yoga 510 is available as a 14- or 15-inch model, starting at $599 and $699, respectively. In the United States, the Yoga 510 will be under a different name — the Flex 4.

One More Lenovo Ideapad

Rounding out the list is the Ideapad Miix 310. The two-in-one device features a 10.1-inch IPS screen and a battery life of 10 hours (based on video playback). The Miix 310 also includes a detachable keyboard, and an adjustable hinge that should provide various viewing angles while you watch movies or shows. The Ideapad Miix 310 will cost you $229.

Coming Very Soon

If you want to get any of these five devices, you won’t have to wait long. Lenovo plans to release the Yoga 510 in April and the Yoga 710 in May. The Ideapad Miix 310 comes out one month later in June. However, another Lenovo document mentioned a different release date for all three devices: The Ideapad will come out in June, while the Yoga 510 and 710 will be available in July. We'll provide an update on the final release date once Lenovo clarifies the discrepancy.

Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Today at MWC 2016 announced its latest flagship smartphone, the LG G5. With its metal unibody and innovative modular components, the G5 is clearly designed to take on the best that LG’s competition has to offer, and shows it wants to lead, not follow.

Along with the phone, LG announced a number of “LG Friends” companion devices and among them were two virtual reality devices, the LG 360 VR HMD and the LG 360 CAM 360-video connected camera. Although LG is perhaps getting into the VR game a little late (well, not as late as Apple), what it brings to the table is very interesting indeed, especially the HMD. LG is certainly taking a different approach than its major competitor Samsung, whose well-received Gear VR HMD was made in partnership with Oculus.

LG 360 VR Specifications

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

When we first saw the LG 360 VR at a preview event, it was a non-functioning prototype but thankfully our team at MWC 2016 has been able to go eyes-on with it today. It's one of the smallest and lightest VR HMDs we’ve ever worn, and when LG claimed today that it’s a third of the weight of other headsets we believe them. In fact, LG compared them more to a pair of sunglasses, since they fold up, and the 360 VR looks to be a lot more portable than most other VR solutions.

The reason they can be so light is that unlike other mobile VR solutions that use your phone as the display (by slotting it into the HMD), the LG 360 VR has its own display, a pair of fairly low-resolution (especially for VR) 1.88-inch 960 x 720 screens. LG claimed that it has a “20-percent sharper image” than other VR HMDs, but with screens with those specs, we’re not sure where LG came up with that statistic. When we tried them, the resolution was noticeably lower that other VR offerings.

The Power of Type-C And Snapdragon

It then plugs into your G5 via USB Type-C and leverages the power of its Snapdragon 820 SoC, which Qualcomm has said is specifically optimized for better VR experiences. In fact, the LG 360 VR is the first VR hardware that uses this powerful new chip. There are other advantages in addition to the fact that a heavy, heat generating phone isn’t strapped to your face. One is that the tethered phone’s screen can be used as a control for the VR experiences. The phone's display, for example, serves as a touchpad.

Although it has been announced as a G5 accessory and requires both Snapdragon 820 and USB Type-C to work, there’s no technical reason it shouldn’t work on other devices with comparable specs. As for the kind of content you can view on it, LG isn’t creating its own application ecosystem (unlike Samsung’s Gear VR). It is instead aiming this VR HMD to be a viewer for user created 360-stills and video, YouTube 360-video and other Google Cardboard content.

Our Experience

Unfortunately, our experience with the LG 360 VR wasn’t that positive. Yes, they are super light, but they also feel cheap, and they aren’t particularly comfortable when on your face. We watched a VR roller coaster 360-video and the resolution was poor, and the FoV wasn’t that great, especially vertically (you can see from the pictures how narrow the 360 VR is).

What's more, its design isn’t very immersive. Although there is a removable “light blocker” shroud its fit to your face isn’t tight, and a lot of ambient light gets let in, which distracts from the VR experience. Focusing the individual eyepieces is also awkward (you focus the lenses inside the HMD), and there doesn’t seem to be any way to adjust the IPD.

LG 360 CAM Specifications

Unlike the 360 VR, we weren’t able to get any hands-on time with the LG 360 CAM. It does look a little like a stubbier Ricoh Theta -- it has two 13MP wide angle cameras, one on each side, to capture full 360-degree video. It has a 1200 mAh battery, 4 GB of storage, a microSD slot, and connects to the LG G5 for control. It can capture 360-video at up to 2K and has three microphones for 5.1 surround audio recording, and its footage can be uploaded to Google Street View or YouTube, and likely any other 360-video hosting service.

Because we haven’t tried the LG 360 CAM, we can’t pass any judgement on it yet, but its specs do seem reasonable for a consumer-grade 360-camera. The right price will be key to its success, of course along with its image quality and ease of use.

Not Great But Not A Bad First Attempt

As for the LG 360 VR, despite our reservations about it, the 360 VR isn’t that bad for a first VR attempt from LG and keep in mind what is being shown today are likely pre-production units. In fact, one demo unit completely fumbled head tracking, and the image turned diagonal, and kept getting worse. There’s always time for LG to go back and make some adjustments to make it more comfortable and immersive while keeps its small and light form factor.

We do hope they do this instead of just waiting for the next model because the one aspect of the 360 VR that intrigues us is the concept of a USB Type-C tethered device powering a mobile HMD. Despite the wire probably being a bit of an annoyance, this configuration simply makes more sense for mobile VR.

The headsets can be lighter and more portable; the displays won’t be constrained to a phone’s screen size and resolution, and there is the potential to add advanced sensors for either eye-tracking or positional tracking that can talk back to the connected phone. Also, along with using the phone as a controller, its screen could also potentially be a secondary display for someone to see what you’re experiencing in VR.

LG hasn’t announced any pricing or availability information yet, but we expect to see the LG 360 VR ring in for more than the Gear VR because of its built-in displays, but still come quite a bit under than the cheapest full-blown HMD. With the LG 360 CAM’s specs being quite close to the Ricoh Theta S, we expect it to be in the same price range, so around $300.

Introduction

LG just announced the G5, its latest Android smartphone, at MWC 2016, and we were able to go hands-on with it and check out its metal design, innovative modular components and dual camera setup. This phone bears the fruits of LG's efforts to changes people’s perceptions of its phones, and it certainly symbolizes LG’s bold intentions to be a leader rather than a follower in the smartphone industry.

LG became a significant player in the Android smartphone space with 2013’s LG G2, but it has always played third fiddle to the two giants of mobile, Samsung and Apple. Last year, though, we started to see signs that it isn’t content to play that role anymore. LG’s Snapdragon 808-powered mainstream flagship, the LG G4, was an example of this new direction. Although it wasn’t particularly adventurous from a design and materials perspective, its camera broke new ground, and it was one of the best smartphone cameras we’ve ever tested. LG’s next high-end device, the LG V10, included some premium materials, namely stainless steel, and it also had full manual controls in its video mode.

Not only is the G5 a culmination of all of LG’s previous endeavors (it still has a removable battery and microSD slot, is made from metal, and has full manual camera controls), it also has a wild, perhaps daring, unique new feature -- it’s modular. Yes, modular. LG has taken a page from Google’s Project Ara and added the ability add modules to the phone to enhance its capabilities. In addition, another shot across its competition’s bow is a collection of companion devices designed to work with the G5, include a virtual reality headset and robotic camera.

We were fortunate enough to get an early look at the G5, its modular components and some of the “LG Friends” companion devices. Read on to see why we think that the G5 is one of the most exciting mobile devices to come out in a long time.

Design

Metal Unibody Design With A Removable Battery

LG has long been known for making all-plastic phones, and although you can certainly craft a premium device from this material, in most peoples' minds, a plastic phone just doesn’t carry as much value as a metal one. When Samsung went premium with the Galaxy S6 last spring, we were sure LG would do the same with the G4, but it disappointed us with another plastic device, with its one concession to high-end design being its optional leather backs. It wasn’t until last fall’s V10 that we finally saw LG up its game in the design department, but that phone used its stainless steel for more than just looks. Its steel construction and impact-absorbing plastic back allowed it to be more durable than most smartphones.

With the G5, LG has decided to use metal in a more conventional way, creating a metal unibody device in a similar fashion to Apple and HTC. The back of the G5 has sides that curve down to what LG calls a “shiny cut edge” -- a lip with a polished finish that contrasts with the matte metal of the back. The curved sides add comfort, and the lip helps with grip when holding the phone.

The G5 is available in four colors (silver, pink, titanium and gold) through what LG is calling “advanced micro anodizing,” which likely refers to micro arc oxidation, a process that produces a more durable finish that regular anodizing. The G5 doesn’t use stainless steel though -- just aluminum -- so LG doesn’t make any additional durability claims like it does for the V10, and it unsurprisingly doesn’t have any element protection, either.

No Antenna Lines And Buttons On The Side

Impressively, LG has managed to integrate the G5’s antenna into the body without the unsightly plastic seams found on the iPhone and HTC One handsets. The smooth back is only broken by the camera module hump, the combination fingerprint reader/power button below that, and the seam for the removable bottom (more on that in a moment).

You are probably wondering where LG’s characteristic rear buttons have gone, and the ones for volume have been moved back to the side where many of you feel they should be. I for one liked their placement and am a little disappointed to see this move. At least the power button is still on the back. The SIM card and microSD card are inserted into the phone using a pop-out tray on the right side.

Around front, the G5 has a 5.3-inch display covered in what LG is calling “3D Arc Glass,” with what looks to be a very gentle curve in the glass towards the top of the phone. The G5 is a lot less squared-off than its predecessors, the G4 and G3, and its shape is closer to that of LG’s Nexus 5X. However, despite its smaller screen (when compared to the G4), it’s a tad taller that all three of those phones, but at 7.7 mm thick and 73.9 mm wide, the G5 is a slimmer and narrower device.

A removable battery is something LG has long touted in its marketing as a core feature on all its phones, unlike most of its competitors. To allow for this on the G5 with its metal unibody, LG had to get creative. What it came up with is ingenious: There is a button on the lower left-side of the phone, and when pressed, it releases the entire lower part of the G5 below the screen. The battery then simply slides out from inside the phone, which you can see demonstrated in our hands-on video above.

What does concern us, though, at least from our experience with the phone we tried, is how good the fit will be of the removable bottom (and, therefore, the modules mentioned below). The seam where it meets the G5’s main body was very noticeable on all the phones on display. Because these were likely pre-production models, we hope LG tightens up the tolerances on the shipping units.

A Mainstream Modular Phone

We’re not sure what came first, the chicken or the egg. Did the need to have a removable battery on a metal unibody device open the door for LG to make modules that could also be connected, or was it the other way round? We can’t answer that question, of course, but we can definitely say that when it was revealed to us that the G5 would have this feature, we were shocked, in a good way.

The idea of a modular smartphone has been a concept that has been kicking around for the past few years, with Google’s Project Ara and Circular Devices’ PuzzlePhone. However, we never expected to see this concept applied to a mainstream device from a big manufacturer any time soon. Although the modularity of the G5 is a far cry from what’s proposed in the aforementioned projects, it’s a start and is probably the most interesting aspect of LG’s newest phone, even though there are only two modules so far.

The first is the LG CAM Plus (shown in the slideshow above) that adds a camera grip and buttons to the G5 to turn it into almost a proper point-and-shoot. The buttons are a shutter, video record, and power, and there is also a zoom wheel that is used with the G5’s dual camera setup that we’ll cover later. The CAM Plus module also incorporates a 1,200 mAh battery for additional shooting time.

The other module is the LG Hi-Fi Plus with B&O PLAY, and we, unfortunately, weren’t able to see a working version of it – the images shown above are of what clearly is a mockup. This module adds high-end audio hardware to the G5, with the same 32-bit Hi-Fi DAC found in the LG V10. The B&O PLAY also supports 32-bit 384KHz HD audio playback, and surprisingly it can also be used as a standalone DAC with other phones or even your PC.

Another morsel of info that LG shared with us is that it is open to third-party modules for the G5, and we’re very interested to see what some of them come up with. Well, that is if the G5 becomes popular enough to warrant investing in its module ecosystem. Whether or not third parties get on board, we’re sure there will be more modules coming from LG, and it will be interesting to see if this feature inspires other phone OEMs to try something similar.

Hardware Specifications

A Brief SoC History Lesson

In 2015, Qualcomm’s flagship SoC, the 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810, was plagued with problems, especially when it first launched. To catch up with the competition (Apple), Qualcomm wasn’t able to design its own custom CPU cores fast enough and ended up using ARM’s reference Cortex CPUs in its 2015 chips. The problem with the 810 was it used four power-hungry Cortex-A57 cores built with TSMC's 20nm HKMG process. The 810 ran hot because of this, and thermal throttling had to be used to keep its heat in check, which resulted performance that was not much better than its predecessors.

LG had used the 810 in its first 2015 phone, the G Flex 2, so when it came time to pick the SoC for the G4, it was well aware of the 810’s issues. Instead, LG opted to use the step-down chip, the hexa-core Snapdragon 808, and although it was built on the same process as the 810, it only had two A57 cores, which minimized the thermal issues. In practice, that meant from a CPU performance perspective that the 808 performed just as well as its bigger brother, as our testing of the LG G4 showed.  

What the 808 didn’t have was as good as a GPU as the 810, nor did it support higher bandwidth DDR4 RAM. So while its CPU was able to keep up with the competitor’s flagships, the G4 was underpowered graphically, with the Adreno 418 GPU sometimes not being adequate for its QHD display.

Powered by Qualcomm’s Latest And Greatest

For 2016, LG has gone back to using Qualcomm’s most powerful SoC in its flagship phone -- the new Snapdragon 820. The 820 uses Qualcomm’s “first custom-designed 64-bit CPU,” the Kryo, designed for heterogeneous computing, which combines the abilities of all the SoC’s processors (CPU, GPU, DSP, and ISP) to maximize performance while minimizing power use. One example of how the 820 uses heterogeneous computing is combining the power of the CPU and GPU to speed up video post-processing, and both Qualcomm and LG claim that this allows for double the performance with 40 percent less power consumption. The thermal issues of the 810 are a thing of the past, with the 820 using Samsung’s more efficient 14nm FinFET LPP manufacturing process.

Also, the Snapdragon 820 is equipped with Qualcomm’s latest and most powerful GPU yet, the Adreno 530. Unfortunately, we don’t know too much about its architecture, other than it runs at up to 624 MHz. It should be faster than the already fast Adreno 430 found in the 810, and LG claims 40 percent improvement in both performance and power efficiency. The 530 also supports the new next-generation Vulkan graphics API. There is also the new lower-power Hexagon 680 DSP and the new Spectra 14-bit dual ISPs. Cellular connectivity is enhanced by the X12 LTE modem that supports Category 12 LTE download speeds of up to 600 Mbps.

Each of the 820’s chips is significantly faster than the previous generation, but when working together through heterogeneous computing, they can power through tasks even faster while still saving power. Qualcomm has designed the 820 to be able to apply its performance to optimizing demanding applications like virtual reality, computer vision, 4K capture and playback, and advanced image processing, all of which will significantly benefit the G5. As you’ll read later on, the G5’s dual cameras and add-on VR headset will all be able to utilize the 820’s enhancements.

If you want to learn more about the Snapdragon 820, you can read our detailed performance preview. We were certainly impressed by it, but our testing was done on Qualcomm's Mobile Development Platform (MDP), so isn’t totally representative of how a shipping device like the G5 will perform.

Part Of LG’s DNA: MicroSD And A Removable Battery

The G5 has 32 GB of faster UFS (Universal Flash Storage) internal storage, which is step up from the G4’s slower eMMC storage. With the G5 also having a microSD slot, you should be able to use Marshmallow’s new adoptable storage option (if LG has enabled this feature) that allows you to combine both storage amounts into one pool. This will significantly simplify storage management if you use a microSD card, but once it's adopted, the card isn’t supposed to be removed.

Also, keep in mind that even the fastest U3 microSD card isn’t going to be as fast as the built-in UFS storage, so you may see a slight storage performance drop if you do this. Of course, you don’t have to adopt the SD card, and it can still be used for normal removable storage.

We’ve already covered the fact that the G5’s battery is still removable, but what we haven’t said is that it's only 2,800 mAh, which is quite a bit smaller than the 3,000 mAh batteries of the G4 and G3. This concerns us a bit because the G4’s battery life was only average. However, the G5 does have a much more power-efficient SoC and has Low Power Location Estimation (LPLE) technology, which is supposed to reduce the power consumption of location-based apps. In addition, its display is physically smaller and has smarter backlight control, so perhaps all these enhancements will allow for better battery life despite the smaller cell. The only way to be sure, of course, will be to put the G5 to the test, which we look forward to doing.

With its metal body, the G5 isn’t going to be able to support wireless charging, but what is does support is Qualcomm’s new Quick Charge 3.0 standard through its USB Type-C port (USB 2.0). LG claimed that this new standard is “27 percent faster and 45 percent more efficient than the previous generation.” Let’s hope this time round LG sees fit include a quick charger in the box with the G5 – although the G4 supported Quick Charge 2.0, the charger to utilize it was optional.

Display And Camera

Always On Display

One of the LG V10’s unique feature was a small ticker-style secondary display that resided above the main screen and was designed to be always-on. This was so when you glanced at your phone, you could see important information like the time, date, and battery level without any interaction. On the G5, LG has dropped the idea of a secondary display but has brought its always-on functionality to the main display.

When we first learned about this feature, we assumed this meant that LG had switched to an OLED panel, which would allow for only the pixels of the date, time and battery life to be continuously illuminated, therefore saving power. We were surprised, then, to learn that the G5’s display is still an IPS Quantum display like the G4’s, and to achieve the always-on feature, the screen's backlight is divided into at least two zones, with the ability to adjust their brightness independently. That way, only the area of the display with the notification stays lit, and LG claimed that because of this, the impact battery life is minimal -- an additional 0.8 percent per hour of extra drain.

In addition to the always-on feature, when we asked about power-efficiency, we were told that part of the G5’s efficiency improvements come from smarter backlight control and brightness adjustments. It sounds like LG is still playing the same games it did with the G4’s screen brightness when we tested it to improve battery life. LG is also likely using content-adaptive backlight control (CABC), which also helps saves power, but often leads to image quality problems.

Learning that the G5’s display is another IPS Quantum screen also has us a little worried. Although LG claimed that this display technology allows it to achieve a better, wider color gamut on an IPS panel, we found when we tested the G4 that this led to a display with over-saturated, unnatural looking colors. This is what we had to say in our G4 review:

"This sounds great from a marketing perspective—yay, more colors!—but wide gamut displays (those that extend beyond the sRGB color space) are not necessarily a good thing. The problem is that iOS and Android do not support system-wide color management, and neither do any of the default apps. Without color management, the extra color potential of the G4’s display is wasted, and it’s reduced to rendering over saturated, unnatural looking colors by stretching points in the sRGB color space into the display’s larger gamut."

Of course, it's possible that LG has addressed these issues on the G5, and it's something we’ll look into closely when we get to test the phone properly.

Dual Cameras, But Not For Depth-Sensing

When we first snuck a peak at some of the leaked images of the LG G5 a few weeks ago, we were excited to see that it supposedly had two cameras on the back, aligned horizontally. Our minds immediately went to thinking that LG was incorporating a depth-sensing camera system, perhaps even an Intel RealSense camera. That would mean that the G5 could potentially be another Project Tango phone, like the Lenovo device announced at CES, and it could be used as part of an AR/VR system.

Unfortunately, the truth is a lot less exciting, at least to us. There are two cameras on the back of the G5, each with a lens of a different focal length. One is a 16MP camera with a "standard" 78-degree lens (likely to be around 28mm like the G4), and the other is an 8MP camera with a super-wide 135-degree lens. When shooting with the G5, you can switch between the cameras on the fly, so you can use the wider one “to capture more landscape, taller buildings or larger groups.”

You can also continuously zoom throughout the focal length of both lenses, and this is likely done using software interpolation. The Snapdragon 820’s Spectra dual-ISP (Image Signal Processor) is supposed to help create superior photos with features like “computational camera innovations,” so it's likely LG is leveraging the power of the ISP for this zoom feature. This new ISP is also supposed to speed up focus, have superior noise reduction, and improve low-light performance, so we do expect to see a marked improvement from the G4, which already takes excellent pictures.

What LG was not able to tell us yet is anything about the actual camera sensors or the aperture of the lenses. Considering it has been using Sony’s sensors on its flagship for the past number of years, it's pretty safe to assume that the G5 uses the same. Considering that the G4’s 16MP Sony IMX234 Exmor RS sensor was so good, perhaps LG has used it again. What they did confirm is that there is still Laser Autofocus and a Color Spectrum Sensor (CSS) to improve while balance. There is no word if there is optical image stabilization (OIS).

As you can see from the image above, the G5 camera UI hasn’t changed much from the G4’s. The only addition we can see is the icons at the top to change cameras. The full range of manual shooting controls are still present, but one big disappointment for us is that apparently the manual video controls of the V10 are not making an appearance on the G5. We can’t see why not, because it's just software, so perhaps this was a miscommunication.

Software And Accessories

What, No App Drawer?

Unfortunately, this section of the preview is going to be the lightest on info, because LG hasn’t shared very much with us about what they’ve done to the G5’s software. All the press release said is that it runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. However, from the brief time we spent with a demo unit at our briefing, it’s clear that there’s more happening than LG has let on.

To start, the LG’s software has had a substantial visual makeover and looks significantly different than the G4. The G4’s icons and menus, while certainly not stock Android, still seemed to adhere to Google’s Material Design aesthetic. It looks like on the G5 that LG has struck out on its own with a look that is disappointingly more Samsung than Google.

Perhaps the biggest change, and likely to be the most controversial, is that the G5’s Android UI does not have an application drawer. This means all your applications live on your homescreen, just like iOS, or a number of Asian flavors of Android like Huawei’s EMUI. We’re not sure why LG chose to make this change, and we can’t say we’d be happy without an app drawer. (Because it's Android, though, there’s a simple fix – you just need to download a third-party launcher from the Play Store.)

The G5 Has Friends, Including Virtual Ones

The G5 has Friends. Quite a few of them, and although we don’t cover accessories too much here on Tom’s Hardware, some of the “companion devices” LG has announced for the G5 are quite significant. Unfortunately, as it was with the software and camera, LG hasn’t shared with us the complete details of all of them.

The first and probably most exciting LG Friend is the LG 360 VR headset, which you can see in the slideshow above. The model we saw was non-functioning, but we were immediately struck as to how much smaller it was than other mobile VR HMDs. That's because unlike its peers, the LG 360 VR doesn't use a phone as its display. Instead, it has what were we told are two 1080p screens in the headset, and it connects to the G5 via USB Type-C so the Snapdragon 820 in the phone can power the headset. Because there is no phone, the LG 360 VR is considerably lighter (118g) and more compact than something like Samsung’s Gear VR. We were also told that the tethered phone’s screen can be used as a control for the VR experiences.

In our minds, the two other important LG Friends are the LG 360 CAM and the LG Rolling Bot, both shown in the images above. The camera wasn’t at the preview event we attended, so like the VR headset, we don’t have too much to share and obviously couldn’t test it out. It looks a little like a stubbier Ricoh Theta -- it has two 13MP 200-degree wide angle cameras, one on each side, to capture full 360-degree video. It has a 1,200 mAh battery, 4 GB of image storage, a microSD slot, and connects to the G5 for control. It can capture 360-video at up to 2K and has three microphones for 5.1 surround audio recording. LG said the resulting footage can be uploaded to Google Street View or YouTube.

We did get to see the Rolling Bot (see the end of our video above), possibly the most off-the-wall phone accessory we’ve seen, and at first glance it looks like a bigger version of the popular Sphero robot. You control the Bot with the LG Friends Manager app (that is also used to manage the other Friends), and while driving it around, you can take pictures and shoot video with its built-in 8MP camera. LG is touting it as a home monitoring system more than just a toy, because its camera can livestream remotely to the G5, and there is also two-way audio. It even has a “pet mode” and a laser pointer so it can play with your cats!

There are also a number of other LG Friends coming that we didn’t get to see, including a new Harmon Kardon-tuned LG Tone Platinum Bluetooth stereo headset, the H3 by B&O PLAY (which is a set of high-end noise canceling earphones and the LG Smart Controller), and a drone control attachment for the G5.

Conclusion

When we reviewed the G4, we liked it enough to give it an award. However, it wasn’t quite good enough to be in consideration to be one of the best phones of 2015, simply because LG was still playing it safe. Yes, it had an awesome camera and great performance, but it didn’t have enough to make it stand out from the crowd of excellent smartphones released last year. What we wanted from it successor was a phone that took more risks, and a phone that could go toe-to-toe with the very best LG’s competition has to offer. After spending some time with the G5, it looks like LG may have delivered.

Not only is it made from premium materials this time around, but there aren’t any specification compromises. It uses Qualcomm’s newest and most powerful SoC, the Snapdragon 820, and it also has fast UFS flash storage, 4 GB of RAM, and still retains the removable battery despite its metal construction. If that were all there is to the G5, we’d probably be satisfied, but, wait, there’s more! The G5 is the first modular smartphone from a mainstream manufacturer, and this feature certainly caught us by surprise. Although it's not nearly as modular as something like Google’s Project Ara, the very existence of this feature impresses us, and we look forawrd to seeing where LG takes it.

There’s also the inanely-named series of LG Friends accessories. It's great to see LG getting into VR in a big way, with an innovative USB Type-C tethered VR HMD and 360-camera. And what about the Rolling Bot? Surely it's the oddest accessory we’ve ever seen from a big OEM, but even so, it looks really cool. Let’s just hope it isn’t too expensive.

We don’t have any pricing or availability information as of now, but we’re sure LG will be sharing that soon, and like the LG G4, we expect to see the G5 available on nearly every North America carrier.

Update, 3/01/2016, 1:15 a.m. PST: LG did confirm to us that the G5’s ‘standard’ 16MP camera is the same as the G4’s, so it uses a Sony IMX234 Exmor RS sensor, has an f/1.8 aperture, Laser AF and OIS 2.0. LG also confirmed that the G5 will not include the V10’s manual video features, lest it make the V10 obsolete. The camera details in our specification table have been updated.

Alex Davies is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro, covering Smartphones, Tablets, and Virtual Reality. You can follow him on Twitter. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Tech journalism is a challenging and time-consuming profession, but there are certainly perks -- not the least of which is being sent to incredible locales for days at a stretch to see all the hot new products and technologies coming down the pike. Next week is one of those times, as Tom's Hardware will be on the ground in beautiful Barcelona, Spain, covering Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016.

For all the latest news and insights from the show, check back in with the news feed or head straight to our MWC tag page, where you can see just the news from the show.

At the risk of sounding like an insincere talk show host, this year's MWC looks to be a good one indeed. Some of the announcements leading up to the event are intriguing enough, but we can't wait to tell you about some of the biggest stories from the most important companies in the mobile space. And of course -- one of my favorite things about these massive tradeshows -- by wandering the show floor, we're sure to discover exciting companies, products and technologies we've never heard of before.

Plus, you never know when there's a surprise in the works, like last year's mind-blowing announcement of the HTC Vive. (HTC! Who would've thought?)

And so, dear readers, we'll be departing shortly for the Spanish coast. In between the jetlag and extraordinary cuisine, we'll be writing and writing and writing. Stay with us: www.tomshardware.com/t/mwc/.

Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

At Mobile World Congress (MWC), which begins next week, biometrics is a big deal. Synaptics just announced its latest fingerprint scanner, and Vkansee has a new one to show off at the show, as well.

We encountered Vkansee at MWC last year and witnessed an impressive demo of its unique multi-layered UTFIS optical sensor that can read a print even if the finger is wet or dirty. The company is back at it this year, bringing out a new iteration of the sensor.

It appears that this new sensor employs all the same technology as the one we saw a year ago, but Vkansee said that it’s smaller, with an active area of 6 x 3.5 mm. Like its predecessor, the (pre-production) VK2108 sensor is just 1.5 mm thick, and it captures “third-level” data such as sweat pores and fingerprint ridges and offers the same 2000 PPI resolution. It can be bonded under 0.4-0.8 mm cover glass.

Typically, both component makers and device OEMs play coy about who they’re working with. Thus, we aren’t sure where or if Vkansee has landed any deals with manufacturers. In a press release, Jason Chaikin, President of Vkansee, stated, “When we first set out to disrupt the biometric authentication space a year ago, we didn’t expect to receive interest from the major players so quickly. With the sensors now in theirhands, we’re looking forward to finalizing our design and seeing them hit the market soon.”

Reading between the lines there, it would seem that Vkansee is still working towards getting its sensor onto shipping devices.  A year ago, Vkansee told us the same thing -- that several OEMs were evaluating its sensor. In any case, Vkansee now has an even smaller version of its sensor to show off, and the pre-production version of it is in the hands of “leading PC and smartphone manufacturers,” according to the company.

Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

LG unveiled the LG Stylus 2 smartphone, which is a direct successor to the LG G4 Stylus, ahead of Mobile World Congress (MWC). The device brings a stylus with a nano-coated tip that should improve accuracy over the previous rubber-tipped pen.

Although it has a large 5.7” screen and a stylus just like the Galaxy Note, the LG Stylus 2 seems to be pitched as a midrange device in terms of overall features and specifications.

“LG Stylus 2 provides both the big screen and premium note-taking functions of a premium large phone at a price of a mid-tier phone,” said Juno Cho, president and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “This device is another example of our commitment to the mass-tier segment where there is so much opportunity for growth and creativity,” he added.

The LG Stylus 2 weighs 145g and is 7.4mm thick. It comes with a lower 1280x720 resolution, a quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, 1.5 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, a 13MP rear camera, an 8MP front-camera, and a microSD slot.

It will have a 3,000 mAh battery, which given the low resolution should give the device strong battery life. The Stylus 2 also supports LTE, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.

The phone will arrive with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the gate. Among its software features, some new additions will include a new pop-up menu called Pen Pop, which should resemble Samsung’s similar feature introduced in the Galaxy Note 4. The menu offers shortcuts to applications such as Pop Memo and Pop Scanner. There’s also a Calligraphy Pen font now, which allows users to write their notes more beautifully.  

There isn’t any pricing information yet, other than the fact it’s a “mid-tier” device, but we do know it will be available in three colors: Titan, White, and Brown.

Adding a premium feature to an otherwise midrange smartphone appears to be LG's big strategy; just yesterday, the company announced the X cam and X screen smartphones, which offer premium camera and "second screen" experiences, respectively.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Archos will unveil a higher-end smartphone than we're used to seeing from the company. Scheduled to be revealed in full at MWC later this month, the new Archos 50d Oxygen will offer higher-end spec but the same kind of affordable price tag we've come to expect from Archos.

The Archos 50d Oxygen doesn’t change too much from the previous Archos smartphones in terms of looks, nor the branding, which could become confusing to some customers. However, it strives to remain a budget device with higher hardware specifications and quality.

The phone comes with a 1.3 GHz Mediatek processor with eight Cortex-A53 cores and a Mali-T720 GPU, an integrated LTE modem, a 5” IPS display with 1920x1080 resolution, 2 GB of RAM, support for microSD, dual-SIM (dual standby), Bluetooth 4.0 Smart, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct.  

The device also brings a 2,100 mAh battery, which is slightly below average for what you’d typically see in 5” 1080p smartphones. The Archos 50d Oxygen also has a 13MP rear camera with auto-focus on the back and a 5MP camera in the front. The phone will run Android 5.1 when it launches, even though the latest version of Android, released last November, was Android 6.0.

The Archos 50d Oxygen will only cost $150 when it launches in May, and will be showcased at the MWC this month.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

For as exciting as VR (virtual reality) promises to be (Oculus, HTC/Valve, OSVR, and so on), AR (augmented reality) is perhaps the more practical technology that has more applications for daily work and life. If VR is the golden child, AR is its more practical, less flashy younger brother.

Microsoft's Hololens augmented reality technology has promised the moon, but there are less grandiose uses for AR, as well, as demonstrated by companies such as Metaio.

Metaio's mission is to promote the development of AR. It offers the Metaio SDK for pros, as well as its Metaio Creator software for novices, to enable the creation of AR applications. The company also offers publishing and management tools, so you can deploy and license your AR apps and even track their performance.

Metaio has cast a wide net, targeting marketing, retail applications and publishing; industrial applications; and, most important for many of us, computer vision solutions for semiconductor makers and device OEMs.

Metaio showed us a handful of demos at Mobile World Congress. In one scenario, a Metaio rep pointed a phone at a model car, and we could see a robot inserted into the scene on the phone display. As he moved the phone around, our view of the 3D robot changed commensurately. Basically, the software estimates the pose using the orientation of the camera relative to the scene, establishing X, Y and Z axes.

There was certainly a bit of stuttering, but to be fair, we were watching real-time movements being computed on the iPhone's CPU; there was no special hardware involved. Metaio's software used the company's SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) tracking capabilities; according to Metaio, auto maker Audi is already experimenting with SLAM in its auto manuals.

Note, for example, in the image above (still using a stock iPhone), that the Metaio software superimposes headlight beams and a door-and-window design on top of a model Audi car. It's a bit rudimentary, but you can see the beginnings of useful and enticing use cases.

The technology uses 3D tracking algorithms to extract either points or edges from an object (points are easier on objects with flat surfaces, but edges work better for 3D or reflective surfaces). In the phone demo, it's capable of extracting 50 points per frame; running on dedicated hardware, the technology is capable of 500 points per frame.

The software is quite hardware-agnostic and can even use a single camera (like the iPhone used in the demo), although that use case requires a "known" object for scale. For example, one application was an Ikea catalog that allowed you to scan a piece of furniture from the catalog using a custom app and "place" it in your home, at scale, to see if and how and it might fit.

However, the software can also use an IR camera to determine depth. This ostensibly eliminates the need for a given object to be "known," as the camera and software can extract scale automatically.

Another demo Metaio had running in its booth used Intel's RealSense cameras to enhance a shopping experience. An attendant sat at her laptop to shop online for earrings. She was able to select different earrings and see them virtually dangling on her ears, being properly occluded by her head, allowing her to "try them on" before buying anything.

To create this experience, the cameras and software imaged her face and constructed a 3D model for the virtual earrings to interact with. The video image runs on top of this, and the whole multilayered image comes together on a monitor.

This sort of application could work either in-store at a kiosk or at home, for online shoppers who have the appropriate hardware and software on hand. Enhancing the online shopping experience like this offers tremendous promise and could foment competition among e-tailers. (Imagine if Amazon offered such a service but eBay did not.)

This is all computationally intensive, and Metaio said that it's currently working on bringing a chip to market to accelerate this computer vision. We were told that the timetable is 18-24 months.

A final demo, which Metaio was particularly excited about, involved something called Thermal Touch. Simply put, it enables any surface to be a touchable-and-readable surface by using thermal imaging. Wearing an HMD (head mounted display), or simply using your phone's camera and display, you can touch any surface and see that you've left a temporary thermal "fingerprint" that a camera can read.

For example, Metaio showed us a poster on a wall that had covers of several '90s rock albums. Looking through an iPhone display, the rep touched an album and left a thermal fingerprint, which the software recognized and downloaded the album he touched to his phone.

Metaio noted that the demo was rather buggy (and it most certainly was), but it was a proof of concept that made a point. Imagine strolling around a city, seeing a band's concert flyer, and being able to touch that simple piece of paper and download that group's music, check out their website and social media, and more.

What's exciting about this technology is that it allows for rich interaction with AR. In a video, for example, Metaio showed how you could play chess with a pal; each player wore an HMD and saw the same AR chessboard projected onto a table. The players touched the virtual objects to move them, and using Thermal Touch, the actions registered as commands.

The big takeaway here is that it's the software, more than the hardware, that makes for powerful AR experiences. It is true that weak hardware is a limiting factor, but the demos we saw from Metaio used off-the-shelf, commonly-available hardware.

Better, more optimized hardware (such as the aforementioned IR camera or dedicated processor) will help, though, which is why Metaio is helping to develop a better chip. Ideally, that chip could go into phones, HMDs, and other devices to provide better AR experiences.

Keep an eye out for Metaio to become a major player in the AR space. At Mobile World Congress this year, the company's small booth was off in the proverbial woods in Hall 8 (a surprisingly long hike from the press room in Hall 3), but we wouldn't be surprised to see the company in a hotter location with one of those incredible two-story booths at MWC 2016.

Follow Seth Colaner @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

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.

Best To Watch: Yezz Project Ara Module Development

Although some would debate the need for or excitement over Google's Project Ara modular smartphone, the prospect of a true enthusiast-type smartphone — that is, one with discrete parts that users can upgrade piece by piece, just as they do a PC — is tantalizing for many.

So much of Project Ara is promises and plastic prototypes, but there is a pilot launch happening this year (in Puerto Rico), and at least one company, Yezz, is actually producing modules for Project Ara. The company stated that it will have at least 10 modules for the Spiral 3 pilot (exactly enough to flesh out a full Endo, or Ara phone skeleton).

It does not appear as though many companies are diving into module-making, likely because they're nervous about the eventual success of Project Ara. That's unfortunate, because if indeed Project Ara works out, forward-thinking and brave companies like Yezz will be the ones to hit the ground running on a new and exciting (and potentially quite lucrative) cottage industry.

It's still possible that Project Ara amounts to nothing more than vaporware, but keep your eyes peeled for developments. Yezz deserves recognition for being gutsy enough to plan a full spate of modules for Project Ara.

Best Security: Qualcomm Sense ID & Vkansee Fingerprint Scanner

Security was an important topic again this year at MWC. With apps for encrypting messages, to virtual machines for sandboxing apps, to encrypted phones claiming to be unhackable, it was difficult to put our finger on just a single solution. So instead, we chose two different fingerprint scanners that overcome the limitations of current capacitive sensors.

Qualcomm's Sense ID is a FIDO-compliant ultrasonic fingerprint scanner that uses sound waves to penetrate the outer layer of skin, imaging not just the ridges and valleys but the sweat pores of your fingertip. Because sound travels well through water, this sensor still works even if your finger is wet or covered in hand lotion, something existing capacitive sensors like Apple's Touch ID have trouble with.

If improved security and accuracy aren't enough, Sense ID's ability to work through glass, metal and plastic means OEMs don't need to cut holes in the cover glass or housing for the sensor, leading to sleeker looking designs.

Qualcomm wasn't the only company to show off cool fingerprint scanning technology, though. Vkansee, a company with a background in forensic fingerprint scanning, revealed its new UTFIS optical scanner.

Replacing the bulky prism-and-lens system used by traditional optical scanners with a thin film Matrix Pinhole Imaging Sensor (MAPIS), this new technology can be easily integrated below the cover glass of smartphones and tablets. With a 2000ppi imaging resolution, Vkansee's scanner can also detect details such as sweat pores. Based on the demo we saw, this optical scanner also works with wet fingers.

Both of these technologies offer big improvements in security and accuracy over existing capacitive sensors and should find their way into products later this year.

Best IoT Innovation: Rambus Lensless Smart Sensor (LSS)

Even though the Internet of Things (IoT) may be the most overused tech buzzword in recent memory, what it actually refers to is a huge change in how technology will impact our daily lives. In the near future, our interactions with technology won't just be limited to when we use our computers, phones, wearables and now increasingly, our cars. Soon almost all our everyday objects, from kitchen appliances to street lights to the next generation of medical devices will all be interconnected and sending data about their surroundings to each other. By the year 2020, there could be up to 50 billion connected devices, and many of them will require sensors to interact with the world.

Rambus, who many of you probably only know from the days of RDRAM, was at MWC to show off the final version of its revolutionary Lensless Smart Sensor (LSS). What Rambus has come up with is a tiny (as in smaller than a human hair) image sensor that doesn't use a lens like a traditional optical sensor but collects data through an inexpensive diffraction grating.

Although this initially produces an unintelligible image, by using algorithmic computations built right into the sensor, a recognizable, yet still low-resolution image can be reconstructed. This data can then be used for gesture recognition, object recognition, and even depth and range tracking. Another benefit of the LSS's simplicity is that it has extremely low power requirements. We were told it can run for 10 years on a single watch battery.

At the same time, the information capture is not detailed enough to infringe on your privacy. Although it can recognize that it is looking at a face, it can't tell whose face it is. With the growing number of IoT devices sensing and potentially recording our every action, designing technology that respects your privacy is paramount, and Rambus understands this.

Best Value: Sony Xperia M4 Aqua

There were many new phones released at MWC, and two of them were flagship devices from two of the leading smartphone vendors. We definitely thought both the HTC One M9 and Samsung Galaxy S6 were great devices and could have given either them an award for best phone of the show (in fact we did give the S6 another kind of honor).

However, this year we wanted to recognize that not everybody needs (or can even afford) a $600 - $700 (and up) flagship phone. There were quite a few good mid-range phones announced at the show, and while many of them won't be finding their way to North America, one of them, the Sony Xperia M4 Aqua, will be, and it's our pick for the best value in a handset.

At first glance, the Xperia M4 Aqua looks very similar to Sony's current flagship, the Xperia Z3 — which is great, because the Z3 is one of the best-looking of the current Android flagships. The M4 trades much of the Z3's metal for plastic, but it retains the attractive glass front and back. Like the Z3, the M4 is also waterproof, but it one-ups its older brother by having an uncovered USB charging port while maintaining the IP68 rating.

Inside, it is powered by Qualcomm's mid-range Snapdragon 615 SoC, which sports a 64-bit octa-core CPU (made up of two quad-core A53s, one running at 1.7GHz and one at 1.0GHz) and an Adreno 405 GPU. This should be more than powerful enough to keep things running buttery-smooth on the M4's 5-inch IPS HD display.

The M4 Aqua has a good camera for a mid-range phone, with a 13MP Exmor RS sensor on the back and a 5MP on the front. For software, the M4 Aqua will be the first Sony handset to ship with Android 5 Lollipop, and the build of the OS we tried at MWC was an attractive combination of Google's Material Design language and Sony's own look and feel.

The Xperia M4 Aqua will start at €300, which is about $350 USD, and will be coming this spring to the U.S. initially as an unlocked device directly from Sony. It will also be coming to Canada, both as an unlocked device and from yet-unnamed carriers.

Biggest Surprise: HTC Vive VR

On the first day of this year's MWC, we expected to see two important things: the latest phones from HTC and Samsung. However, in the run-up to Sunday's HTC event, hints had been dropped by HTC on social media that we should expect a surprise. However, when HTC's CEO Peter Chou announced the HTC Re Vive we were shocked!

Everyone expected that the rumored surprise would either be a bigger phablet-sized phone or some kind of wearable, not a virtual reality headset. What's more, the Vive has been developed in partnership with Valve. We all knew that headsets were coming for Valve's SteamVR platform, but we never guessed that its initial partner would be HTC. We also didn't expect to see a VR headset announced at MWC when the Game Developers Conference (GDC) was taking place the same week. (It turned out, though, that the Vive was demoed at both events).

Still, while the HTC Vive was the biggest surprise of the show, the question remained how good it would actually be. Could HTC, a company one usually doesn't associate with gaming products, create a VR headset that could compete with the efforts of Oculus and Sony, even with the backing of gaming giant Valve? Well, after trying it out at both MWC and GDC, we can report that HTC and Valve have knocked it out of the park. The Vive is currently the best VR experience you can get (that is, if you can get your hands on a developer kit). This year's MWC "best surprise" was also one of the best surprises of any tech show in recent memory.

Most Controversial: Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge

Although we didn't give it an official award, Samsung's Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge couldn't escape our scrutiny. Perhaps placing form over function, the sleek, all-metal and -glass construction of its latest flagship phones are like no other Galaxys Samsung has ever produced.

Inside the shimmering exterior, Samsung packed in some serious technology, including an Exynos 7420 SoC built on the latest 14nm FinFET process with four of the fastest 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57 CPUs we've seen (along with four lower power A53 cores). The speedy SoC is paired with 3GB of high-bandwidth LPDDR4 RAM and up to 128GB of internal UFS 2.0 NAND.

All of the latest wireless capabilities are also onboard, including 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi with speeds up to 620Mbps, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, NFC, IrLED, and a LTE Cat 6 modem. There's even built-in wireless charging, covering both the WPC (Qi) and PMA standards.

The fingerprint scanner has been upgraded from a swipe-style to a more user-friendly touch capacitive sensor, which pairs nicely with Samsung Pay, a wireless payment solution supporting both NFC and Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST). Both cameras are vastly improved, and the Android Lollipop-based OS is more refined and easier to use.

With such a long list of enhancements, you might be wondering why it didn't win a Best of Show award. Although the technology inside the new S6 models is certainly impressive (and might not be matched by any other phone this year), Samsung sacrificed the very features that attracted people to the Galaxy brand — namely, a removable battery and microSD card support (IP67 dust and water resistance is another casualty of the new design).

Will the radical new look of the S6 and S6 Edge attract new buyers to the Galaxy brand as Samsung hopes, or will its betrayal of the Galaxy faithful backfire? It's going to take a while for this controversy to be resolved.

Marvell is heavily involved in developing mobile and IoT technologies. Although its products primarily impact Asia, the company has been slowly expanding its reach. At Mobile World Congress 2015, we had the opportunity to speak with Marvell to see what new products it has been working on.

Last November, Marvell announced two new SoCs—the Armada PXA1908 and Armada PXA1936—both of which feature 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores running at up to 1.5 GHz. The PXA1908, using a quad-core CPU configuration and supporting up to a 13 MP camera with a 720p display, is geared towards low-end smartphones, while the PXA1936, using an octa-core configuration and supporting up to a 16 MP camera with a 1080p display, is destined for mid-range devices.

At MWC 2015, Marvell announced that the PXA1908, along with its Avastar 88W8777 wireless connectivity chip, have found a new home in the Samsung Galaxy J1 smartphone. There are actually two different versions of this phone. The global LTE version with Marvell inside is SM-J100F.

In addition to the Marvell silicon, this version of the J1 also includes a 4.3-inch WVGA screen (800 x 480), 768 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD slot), 4G LTE modem and a 5 MP rear camera, and it will be running Android 4.4. This version should be available starting in March.

Project Ara

Marvell announced its support for Project Ara at Google's second Developer Conference back in January. The 2x2 module contains an Armada PXA1928 SoC, which integrates four A53 cores running at 1.5 GHz and a GC5000 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0. The module also includes an audio codec, along with full wireless capability including 802.11ac (1x1), BT 4.1, NFC, and FM radio courtesy of an Avastar 88W8887; GPS, Glonass, and Compass satellite navigation provided by the 88L2000 chip; and a 2G/3G/4G/LTE Cat 4 modem with VoLTE support.

Wireless

During MWC 2015, Marvell also announced that its PXA1802, PXA1920, PXA1928, PXA1908 and PXA1936 SoCs now offer LTE Broadcast capability thanks to software support for eMBMS (evolved Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service), and 3GPP standard governing broadcast/multicast services. Marvell demonstrated this new feature using a Verizon exclusive Ellipsis 8 tablet.

A more interesting announcement is the new Armada PXA1826 modem with Category 7 LTE and VoLTE support. The modem includes an integrated ARM Cortex-A7 processor running at up to 1.2 GHz and is paired with Marvell's R10 LTE RF transceiver. It works with TD-LTE, FDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and GSM carriers, but specific frequency bands were not specified.

Marvell also showed a demonstration of its TAPIR project. The animal-shaped keyfobs have an embedded NFC chip and swipe-style fingerprint sensor, enabling several different use cases. For example, holding the fob up to an intelligent sign could show additional info or a web link in the companion app on your smartphone. It can also be used for NFC payments, authenticated with the fingerprint sensor.

The most compelling application shown during the demo involves hotel room access. After checking into your hotel using an app on your phone, the room number and relevant information is downloaded and shared with the fob. After arriving at the hotel, you can skip the check-in line and head straight to your room, using the fob to unlock the door.

Finally, Marvell's Wi-Fi combo chips, the Avastar 88W8887 and 88W8897, both received support for the Wi-Fi Alliance Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) specification. NAN uses peer-to-peer Wi-Fi in a low-power background mode to discover nearby information and devices without requiring a connection to a Wi-Fi access point. It has some overlapping functionality with Bluetooth beacons, as it can be used for location aware advertisements for example, and it sounds similar to Wi-Fi Direct, although that's a separate technology. However, NAN can also be used for social gaming and sharing media with nearby users.

NAN functionality complements indoor navigation technologies such as Bluetooth beacons and Wi-Fi received signal strength indication (RSSI). Marvell's Avastar 88W8964 4x4 802.11ac Wi-Fi chipset improves indoor location and navigation further by adding support for 802.11mc. Later this year, Marvell will release chipsets that also add Bluetooth Low Energy Angle of Arrival/Angle of Departure to further aid indoor navigation.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Remember Rambus? The company that developed RDRAM (Rambus DRAM). No? That's not surprising; we haven't heard much from them in the past decade since RDRAM stopped being Intel's standard for memory. Well, apparently the company has been quite busy over the years, with RDRAM and its successor XDR DRAM, currently being used in PlayStation 2 and 3.

We were surprised to see Rambus at Mobile World Congress promoting its new solid state Lensless Smart Sensor (LSS), a tiny, no bigger than a human hair, image sensor. It is designed for use in Internet of Things (IoT) devices like SmartCity sensors, automotive sensors and even wearables to capture image data, such as gestures, and also to accurately measure distances. The images above and below show how LSS captures and images data differently that traditional sensors.

When we met with Rambus reps, we were told that they had presented the concept of this technology at last year's CES with a prototype unit. At MWC 2015 they had a demo of the final LSS in action, which they were able to show us.

The video below from Rambus goes into more detail about the high-level idea behind this technology and its potential applications.

And this video, which we shot at MWC, is a detailed demonstration of the LSS that shows how it can be used to read gestures and measure distances. We also discuss some real-world use cases for the sensor.

Above is a shot of a development board with the LSS in the middle. While this setup, which is being used to show off the sensor's capabilities, is quite large, as mentioned before, the sensor itself is tiny. The picture below shows it in comparison to the tip of a ballpoint pen.

It is also incredibly power-efficient due to its small size and simplicity, so it can be used in devices that wouldn't normally have the resources available to them to power an image sensor for something like gesture recognition. I think that LSS will have applications in a lot of wearable technology too, from smartwatches to smartglasses, since power consumption and size are key for those products.

The other important announcement Rambus made at MWC was their Partners-in-Open-Development (POD) program. The initial partners are product strategy and design firm, Frog, and product design and prototype firm, IXDS.

Partners in the POD program will be able to acquire a development kit (shown above) that includes either an Arduino, Raspberry PI or Intel Galileo board along with the LSS test chip, apps, firmware and SDK.

While on the surface the Rambus Lensless Smart Sensor isn't exactly a sexy product -- it's not the latest mobile SoC that is going to find its way into your latest smartphone -- it is an important product. Tiny sensors such as these are going to be used in always-on, always-connected smart devices that are going to improve every part of our daily lives in the near future. And Rambus' Lensless Smart Sensor will help create that future.

Follow Alex Davies @alexbdavies. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

After months of rumors, speculations and leaks, HTC finally showed off its latest flagship handset, the One M9, at Mobile World Congress 2015. The M9 doesn't stray very far from the design of last year's M8, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. While some may argue that it is an iterative and unimaginative update, the M8 was widely considered to be one of the best Android smartphones ever made, so why mess with a good thing? Thankfully, HTC did address one of the M8's major failings by upgrading the camera on the M9 to something substantially better (at least on paper, as we haven't had a chance to test it out yet).

We were able to go hands-on with the One M9 at MWC, and you can read our impressions and watch a video of it below.

Hardware Specifications:

Looking at the hardware specifications above, you can see that other than the SoC and camera, there is not much difference between the M9 and the M8. We did decide also to include the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S 6 just to give an idea of how the two top Android phones of Q2 2015 compare. Unlike last year, where the materials used by Samsung clearly differentiated the Galaxy S5 from the One M8, this time around both phones are made from premium materials. This makes the decision as to which to go with even harder, because as you can see, there is not much to differentiate them when it comes to the hardware specifications. One thing we will say is that the M9 does have one big advantage over the GS 6 – HTC wisely decided to still include a microSD slot on its latest device.

HTC announced that the M9 will come in four different colors, two of which incorporate HTC's unique "Dual-tone" finish. This combines two different shades of metal into the same unibody chassis construction. The four colors are dual-tone silver and rose gold, single-tone gunmetal grey, single-tone gold, and dual-tone gold and pink. Unfortunately, HTC only had the silver and rose gold and the gunmetal grey models on display at the show, which you can see above.

In the hands-on video below we go over the hardware of the M9 and also compare it to the M8. We also go over in detail what new software features have been added to HTC's new Sense 7 UI that runs on top of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.

HTC One M9 Hardware Tour

The above image shows the Dual-tone finish on the side of the silver and rose gold model. The slot for the nano-SIM can be found on the left of the phone.

The power button on the M9 has been moved from the top of the phone to the middle of the right side, a similar position to where Sony's Xperia devices have theirs. The volume rockers and microSD card slot are also on the right side of the phone.

The above shows the new 20.7 MP camera. Unlike the M8's flush camera module, the camera on the M9 is raised slightly from the back, something we have recently seen on a few phones. HTC used sapphire glass for the lens cover, which should prevent it from being scratched. The M9 also has a dual-LED dual-tone flash like the M8.

Around front is the 4 MP UltraPixel camera. Its wide f/2.0 aperture and large pixel size due to its resolution will help when taking selfies in low light, and its wide-angle lens will help with those group selfies.

HTC One M9 vs. One M8

When placed side by side, from the front there is little to distinguish the M9 from the M8. However, on closer inspection you can see that the M9 is slightly shorter and narrower than the M8, making it a little easier to hold.

The screen is the same size and resolution, and the bezels are sadly still a little on the chunky side. If there is one thing we wish HTC had incorporated into the M9, it's a slightly larger display while keeping the same chassis size.

From the side, the change in button layout is clear, and also that the volume controls are now two separate buttons on the M9.

From the back, the One M9 clearly differentiates itself from its older brother with a completely different camera module. The brushed metal effect on the finish is also more apparent on the newer model.

HTC also showed off a number of accessories, including a selection of cases with clear backs to show off the M9's metallic finish and updated version of its innovative Dot View case.

In the tech industry, the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has long been applied to Apple, which updates the designs of its handsets every two years. By contrast, most other smartphone manufacturers, including HTC, have historically made substantial design changes to its phones each time a new model comes out.

So when we and the world first saw the M9, it did come as a bit of a shock that it looks so much like the M8. In fact, I would say I was even perhaps a little disappointed at first. But after spending some time with it (albeit briefly), I now understand where HTC is coming from, and why the phrase above is applicable.

The One M8, while not perfect, was already one of the best Android phones I've ever had the pleasure of using. By addressing some of the M8's shortcomings and keeping all its strengths the same, then equipping it with the latest and most powerful mobile silicon from Qualcomm, it looks like HTC has created another winner. Once we get a chance to look at it for a longer period of time, we'll be able to confirm (or deny) if that statement is true.

The HTC One M9 will be available globally very soon, starting in mid-March. In the U.S., the One M9 will be available from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and also unlocked directly from HTC. In Canada, the M9 will be available from Bell, Rogers, SaskTel, TELUS, and Videotron in "early spring." No pricing has been announced.

Follow Alex Davies @alexbdavies. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

At the Mobile World Congress 2015, happening this week in Barcelona, Spain, Acer announced four new smartphones, including three Androids and the company's first Windows Phone device since the Windows Phone 7 running Acer W4 from 2011. At this time, none of these phones are slated for a North America release, but that could change in the future.

The top-end device Acer demonstrated was the Liquid Jade Z, which is a similar phone to the Liquid Jade S shown at CES 2015. Both are five-inch screen devices that visually look identical, other than the Z's new smoother "silk" finish on its back. It is in the internal specifications that the differences are found; Acer defines the Z phones as entry-level devices, so the Jade Z is a budget version of the Jade S.

The Jade S is a €299 mid-range flagship phone with a MediaTek MT6752M 64-bit octa-core SoC, which sports eight ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs and a Mali T760 GPU. The Jade S also has 16 GB of storage and 2 GB of RAM. The new Liquid Jade Z is €199 and is powered by the slower MediaTek MT6732 64-bit quad-core SoC, which has four ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs and a Mali T760 GPU. Acer says customers can expect approximately 30 percent lower performance from this chip. Other than the SoC differences, the new Jade Z also only has 8 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM.

However, other than those internal differences the S and Z are identical. Both have 5-inch HD Zero Air Gap IPS screens that use Gorilla Glass 3, and both have 13MP f/1.8 cameras on the back and 5MP cameras upfront. They both support LTE; both have Acer's unique dual-SIM and microSD combination slot, and both have 2,300 mAh non-removable batteries.

Like the Jade S, the Jade Z will also come with Android 4.4 Kit Kat, with a promised upgrade to Lollipop later in Q2 2015. Acer explained that the reason the Jade Z won't ship with Lollipop is that MediaTek SoCs don't currently support Android 5.0 but will very soon. Apparently, not soon enough for the Jade Z's release.

We got a chance to look at the Jade Z and found it to be a well-made reasonably attractive but ultimately unexciting mid-range phone. The €100 price delta between the Z and S, even though they look almost identical, is in line with the Z's SoC performance difference and lower storage and RAM specs. The Acer Liquid Jade Z will be released in Europe in March in white and black.

The other two phones being announced continue the trend of being lower-end devices, with one of them having a slightly confusing higher model number than a product announced at CES. At CES, Acer announced the €129 Liquid Z410 that was a 4.5-inch qHD-screen, MediaTek MT6732-powered LTE phone. Now at MWC 2015, Acer is targeting an even lower class of phones and has announced the Liquid Z220 and Liquid Z520.

The Z220 is a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200 powered Android smartphone with a four-inch TN WVGA display. It has a 5MP (with flash) rear and 2MP front-facing cameras. It also has 8 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM, a microSD slot and a removable 1,300 mAh battery.

However, despite being one of Acer's lowest-end phones, it has the distinction of being the first Acer phone to come with Android 5.0 Lollipop, since it has a Qualcomm SoC that can run Android 5.0.

At €89, it undercuts the new Moto E as one of the cheapest Android Lollipop phones, but with the Z220 you are getting a smaller lower-resolution screen, and it is only 3G. It is coming out in March.

The Z520 is a step-up from the Z220 with a bigger five-inch IPS FWVGA display. However, despite being an IPS panel, it does not have a Zero Air Gap display, which does impact viewing angles considerably. It has a better 8MP rear camera that can be voice-activated, a removable 2,000 mAh battery and a microSD slot, which are important features to many of our readers.

Like the Z220, it has 8 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM. However, it does not use a Qualcomm SoC; instead, it runs a 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 quad-core 32-bit MediaTek MT6582 SoC. This means it can't run Lollipop (yet), so it comes with KitKat. The Z520 is €109 and will be released in Europe in April.

The last device is the Liquid M220, which is a Windows Phone 8.1 version of the same hardware as the Z220 mentioned above. It has the same four- inch WVGA TN display, 5MP camera (with flash) at the back and 2MP at the front, removable 1,300 mAh battery and uses a Snapdragon 200 SoC. It does, unfortunately, only have 4 GB of storage and 512 MB of RAM.

Acer also announced that M220 will have "future upgradeability to Windows Phone 10." There is a catch, though. While nothing is official since Microsoft still needs to release more information, Acer told us the Windows Phone 10 running on a device with such a small amount of RAM may be missing some features. The M220 will be available in April in white and black for €79.

Follow Alex Davies @alexbdavies. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

At MWC today, Google's Sundar Pichai said that the company intends to offer wireless connectivity to customers in the United States. For now, Google remains conservative about its plans, but the new wireless service could actually be a Trojan horse meant to get carriers to become more competitive in the same way the company forced Google Fiber competitors to raise the Internet speeds or lower prices in areas where Google Fiber was installed.

"The core of Android and everything we do is to take an ecosystem approach and [a network would have] the same attributes. We have always tried to push the boundary with the innovations in hardware and software," Pichai said. "We want to experiment along those lines. We don't intend to be a network operator at scale. We are actually working with carrier partners. Will announce something in the coming months."

Earlier reports said that Google struck a deal with T-Mobile and Sprint to resell wireless services on their networks, essentially making Google an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator). Verizon and AT&T are unlikely to agree on a similar deal with Google, unless there's a concern that Google would have enough clout in the market to steal a significant portion of their customers.

Although the mobile carriers would still end up making money from having Google buy the service from them, they could make less; or once Google's service becomes popular, Google could decide to develop its own network and keep all of the customers it gained from the carriers.

Google may very well intend to do that, but the company isn't hinting at this, partly because Android phones being sold in the U.S. still rely heavily on the good will of the mobile operators that carry them. Therefore, Google isn't likely to make too many waves at this time.

"They know what we are doing," Pichai said. "In the end, partners like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint in the U.S. are what powers most of our Android phones. And the model works extremely well for us. And so there's no reason for us to course correct."

The company will initially focus on innovating on the technical side by actually running a wireless service itself. If Google discovers new innovations that could drastically lower the costs for carriers, that could also end up lowering prices for the carriers' customers.

While the U.S. wireless market is much more difficult to navigate for Google right now, the company has found some success as a wireless provider in other places, such as Africa. Google has been working on Project Loon for the past two years, and last year it also acquired a drone company, called Titan Aerospace, to make flying drones that deliver Internet in remote areas.

When Google launched the Loon balloons two years ago, the company could only keep them in the air for about three days before they would fall. Keeping them in the air is a difficult task because of the way the currents move. Google needs massive data sets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create advanced algorithms in order to predict how the balloons will react to changing atmospheric conditions in order to stay in the air for as long as possible.

Google reported that it is now able to keep the balloons in the air for more than six months. The company is now working with carriers in Africa and other places to provide Internet to those in remote areas where it is too cost prohibitive for mobile operators to install cables. Google's balloons are a much cheaper way to provide wireless service.

Plus, Google has switched from using Wi-Fi to using LTE, which makes it easier for carriers to integrate Google's wireless service into theirs, without cellphone subscribers noticing any difference. Baseband modem makers, such as Qualcomm, have also made this sort of integration easier recently, with new technologies that can seamlessly switch carriers even during a call to boost signal strength, or technologies such as LTE-U, which can be used in the unlicensed 5 GHz band instead of Wi-Fi. 

Google's Project Titan is also making strides. Google acquired the drone-making company last year when it learned that Facebook was bidding for it. The Titan drones are supposed to stay in the air for up to five years, although this hasn't been put into practice yet.

According to Google, the Loon balloons and Titan drones could work together as a mesh network in the air. The drones would mainly be used during peak bandwidth hours to move where they are needed most. It's harder to do the same with the Loon balloons, which can only be moved up and down. Project Titan is still in the early days, though, and Google will begin testing the actual drones in a few months.

From Google Fiber to becoming an MVNO in the U.S., to trying to cover the whole of Africa (and perhaps later the world) with flying balloons and drones, it's clear that Google is very serious about becoming a global Internet provider.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

On Monday during Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Archos introduced a new proprietary technology called "Fusion Storage." Essentially, what this tech does is combine the storage of an added microSD card with the tablet's built-in internal storage. In this case, the technology is being used on the company's fresh-off-the-press Magnus tablets as well as upcoming smartphones and tablets. Select models will also become Fusion Storage capable by way of over-the-air software updates.

"Once activated, Archos Fusion Storage automatically migrates data from the microSD card and optimizes memory balance, resulting in an increase in install space for apps and games, as well as more storage for media and large files," the press release states.

In addition to the Fusion Storage tech, Archos revealed the Magnus tablet lineup, which features the first tablet to sport 256 GB of internal storage. This new series includes the Archos 101 Magnus, the Archos 94 Magnus and the Archos 101 Magnus Plus. All three are based on Android 4.4 KitKat and cost $179, $349 and $349, respectively.

As for the specifications, the 101 Magnus includes a Mediatek MT8127 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz, a Mali 450 MP4 GPU, a 10.1-inch screen with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 1 GB of RAM, 64 GB of internal storage, a 2MP camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. The device also includes a 4000 mAh battery, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and a microSD card slot supporting up to 128 GB of storage.

Of the three tablets, the Archos 94 Magnus has the largest internal capacity of 256 GB, and that's not including the microSD card slot supporting up to 128 GB of storage. The specifications show that this model has a Rockchip RK3288 processor clocked at 1.8 GHz, a Mali T764 GPU, a 9.4-inch IPS screen with a 1280 x 800 resolution and 1.5 GB of memory. Other hardware details include a 5MP camera on the front and a VGA camera on the back, a 6400 mAh battery, and more.

Finally, we have the Archos 101 Magnus Plus. This model has a Rockchip RK3288 processor clocked at 1.8 GHz, a Mali T764 GPU, and a 10.1-inch IPS screen with a spiffy 1920 x 1200 resolution. Other hardware specifications include 2 GB of RAM, 128 GB of internal storage, a 5MP camera on the back and a 2MP camera on the front, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, a microSD card slot supporting 128 GB of storage and a 7000 mAh battery.

The specifications also show that the Archos 101 Magnus Plus tablet measures just 0.39 inches, whereas the Archos 94 Magnus measures 0.39 inches and the Archos 101 Magnus measures 0.47 inches.

According to Archos, the 101 Magnus Plus and Archos 101 Magnus are expected to hit the market in April 2015. The Archos 94 Magnus will be available next month as well, but the tablet will only be sold on the Archos website.

UPDATE March 2, 5:57pm: Fixed the battery details.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Today, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sony announced the new Xperia M4 Aqua and the Xperia Z4 Tablet. The Xperia M Aqua is Sony's first octa-core 64-bit smartphone, while the Xperia Z4 Tablet is the world's lightest and slimmest tablet, according to Sony.

“Xperia M4 Aqua represents our renewed mid-range focus - with no compromises," said Dennis van Schie, Senior Vice President, Head of Sales and Marketing at Sony Mobile Communications. "Offering the most popular standout features made famous by our Xperia Z Series; camera capability, two-day battery life and waterproofing - Xperia M4 Aqua brings a proposition and price, products in this section of the market simply cannot match."

The Xperia M4 Aqua is powered by a Cortex-A53-based Snapdragon 615, one of Qualcomm's mid-range chips for the first half of 2015 (before they get replaced by the Snapdragon 618 and 620). The chip comes with an Adreno 405 GPU and supports HEVC decoding, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and QuickCharge 2.0 (3A output).

One of the most interesting aspects about the device is its 13 MP camera, which is quite high-resolution for a mid-range phone. It uses a Sony Exmor RS sensor with a large f2.0 aperture and supports up to 3200 ISO. Sony is one of the few smartphone companies that has started advertising its camera's ISO capabilities. If more companies follow its lead, we may see a fiercer competition in low-light performance.

Sony's "Superior Auto" mode also automatically recognizes what kind of "scene" the user is trying to capture and optimizes the picture to look best in that environment.

There's a 5 MP selfie camera in the front as well, which is also a relatively high-end feature for a mid-range phone.

The device also comes with Android 5.0 out of the box, which shouldn't be a surprise at this point, but some low-end phones such as the Xperia E4g will still arrive with Android 4.4, so this is a welcome feature.

Sony has been heavily promoting the ability of its phones to survive under water, and the Xperia M4 Aqua goes even further with an IP65/8 rating, which means it can be kept under water indefinitely up to 3 meters. This is compared to the Xperia M2 Aqua, which could only be kept 30 minutes under water and could be submersed up to only 1.5 meters.

The Xperia Z4 Tablet (Wi-Fi version) weighs only 389g, making it the world's lightest 10.1" tablet. The device is also only 6.1 mm thick, but it purportedly can last for up to 17 hours of video playback.

"Building on the success of its predecessor, we wanted to take all of the qualities that consumers loved most in Xperia Z2 Tablet and enhance them for Z4 Tablet," said Dennis van Schie, SVP of Sales & Marketing at Sony Mobile. "Consumers appreciate innovation most when it can bring real value to their lives, so we have carefully crafted and considered every aspect of [the] Z4 Tablet to meet even the most demanding lifestyle. Sleek and lightweight, yet incredibly powerful, with standout entertainment and smart productivity features, Xperia Z4 Tablet is an extraordinary tablet that fits perfectly into your day-to-day life."

The Xperia Z4 Tablet comes with an ARMv8-based Snapdragon 810 (Cortex-A57 and Cortex A-53 CPUs), an Adreno 430 GPU, a 2560 x 1440 resolution display (which according to Sony works great in direct sunlight), high-quality sound, digital noise-cancellation, an 8MP Sony camera, a 5.1 MP wide-angle selfie and video-chat camera, 32 GB of storage, and a 6,000 mAh battery. There's also an LTE model for those who want to be always-connected when on the go.

The Xperia Z4 Tablet, just like the Xperia M4 Aqua smartphone, is also waterproof (IP68 rating) despite having a "capless" USB port in order to make the tablet more hassle-free for users.

Sony will sell an optional Bluetooth keyboard dock for the Xperia Z4 Tablet, as well.

The Xperia M4 Aqua will launch this spring in more than 80 countries on more than 100 carriers and will cost around 300 euro. The Xperia Z4 Tablet will launch starting this June. Sony hasn't given any pricing details for the tablet.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

MediaTek announced a new technology today at Mobile World Congress (MWC) called CrossMount that seeks to become a new standard for simplifying hardware and software sharing between devices. That description, pulled from MediaTek's press materials, doesn't really do the announcement justice. Try this: MediaTek built a standard that ostensibly will let your TV, for example, share resources such as its audio with your smartphone's earbuds; another example MediaTek offered is the ability to conduct voice searches on your Smart TV using your smartphone's microphone.

CrossMount is designed to let your devices operate as one, according to MediaTek.

This is a whole new level of device interoperability. "CrossMount is a lot more than mirroring from phone to TV – as has already been developed within the industry," said Senior Vice President, MediaTek. "CrossMount goes the extra mile with hardware and software capability sharing between smart devices, thereby creating many useful and more complex use cases, such as mounting a smartphone camera to a TV and enabling the TV for video conferencing session."

The technology uses the UPnP protocol and otherwise relies on run of the mill Wi-Fi access points (such as your home router), as well as Wi-Fi Direct, to enable devices to communicate. This all happens locally—there is no need for any cloud servers.

It's notable that CrossMount uses a simple networking protocol, because it jibes with the growing trend of living room streaming devices, such as the NZXT Doko, not to mention the trend toward the connected home. Further, UPnP and WLAN are standards that are already ubiquitous, which assures much wider adoption. MediaTek stated that the software needed to facilitate CrossMount is easy to implement.

To promote CrossMount, and push it towards becoming an industry standard, MediaTek announced the formation of the CrossMount Alliance that will ideally get industry partners and developers on board. Early partners include Lenovo, Chang-hong, Hisense and TCL.

For now, CrossMount will work primarily with Android and Linux – although MediaTek said that "other platforms" can support it, as well. Specifically, it will come to "Android-based smartphone, tablet and TV products." Availability for OEMs is expected Q3 this year, with actual shipping devices as early as the end of 2015.

We will hunt for more details on CrossMount this week at MWC.

Follow Seth Colaner @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Just days before Mobile World Congress 2015 kicks off in Barcelona, Archos has introduced a new Android-based 3G smartphone that will be showcased during the event next week. Called the Archos 50 Oxygen Plus, the smartphone will measure 0.29-inches thick and sport a price tag that won't break the bank.

The upcoming phone will have a 5-inch IPS LED-lit screen with a 1280 x 720 resolution. Backing this screen will be a Mediatek MT6592 octa-core processor clocked at 1.4 GHz, a Mali 450MP4 GPU, 1 GB of RAM and a 200 mAh Li-ion battery. The device will also provide 16 GB of internal storage and a microSD card reader for up to 128 GB of extra storage.

The specifications also show that the phone will come packed with Micro SIM and Nano SIM card slots, meaning the phone is capable of supporting two mobile services simultaneously. There will also be an 8 MP camera with flash on the back and a 5 MP camera on the front, and it runs Android 4.4 "KitKat."

"Archos will continue expanding its range of smartphones by unveiling a 4G version of the Archos 50 Oxygen Plus in June 2015," read the company's press release. "The updated 4G version will feature Android Lollipop and will be powered by a 4G Octo-Core MT6752 processor for even more speed and performance."

In addition to the Archos 50 Oxygen Plus, the company will also showcase the Archos 52 Platinum, the Archos 59 Xeon and the Archos 62 Xeon during Mobile World Congress 2015 (pdf). All three will be powered by a Mediatek MT6582 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz and feature 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot and support for dual SIM cards.

The Archos 52 Platinum will have a 5.25-inch IPS screen with a 1280 x 720 resolution, while the Archos 59 Xenon will have a 5.9-inch IPS display with a 1280 x 720 resolution. The Archos 62 Xeon is the largest of the trio, packing a 6.27-inch IPS screen with a 1280 x 720 resolution.

In addition to those specs, all three will have an 8 MP camera with flash on the back and a 2 MP camera on the front, save for the 62 Xeon, which will have a 5 MP camera on the front. All three will also sport Android 4.4 KitKat, meaning users will have access to Google's popular services including Google Play, Google Maps and more. The phones will also have Archos' proprietary Media Center apps pre-installed.

As for pricing, the super-thin Archos 50 Oxygen Plus will cost a mere $199 when it hits the smartphone market next month. The Archos 59 Xeon will cost $145, the Archos 52 Platinum will cost $158, and the Archos 62 Xeon will cost $170. These prices are as-is, meaning the phones will be unlocked -- there's no subsidizing going on with these devices.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Kyocera hasn't been one to be shy about experimenting with its smartphones. Today, the company announced two new and interesting smartphones running Android ahead of MWC. One will be the ultra-rugged Torque, and the other is an unnamed solar-powered smartphone.

The Torque is a 4G smartphone that has been certified Military Standard 810G by the U.S. military. The device is waterproof, dustproof and shockproof, and it has built-in protection against vibrations, solar radiation, humidity, extreme temperatures, low pressure and even salt fog. The device also recognizes the difference between bare and gloved fingers to make operating the device easier.

“Kyocera is committed to building high-quality devices that stand up to real-world scenarios and that allow our customers to be productive at work and on-the-go anywhere, no matter the external environment or harsh conditions they have to face," said Takashi Nohara, General Manager of Kyocera's Communications Equipment Sales Group. “We believe durability is a value for all business people."

The Kyocera Torque comes with a 4.5" HD screen, a quad-core 1.4 GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, an 8 MP camera, 2 MP front-camera and a 3,100 mAh battery, and it runs Android 4.4 KitKat.

Kyocera will also unveil its unique solar-powered phone at the MWC. This phone will have a screen that will actually generate energy instead of consuming it. The screen will use Sunpartner's solar technology to charge the device.

This is a unique form of solar charging for smartphones, because until now, solar-powered smartphones had solar cells stuck on the back. However, when people use the smartphones outside, the back side isn't exposed too much to the sun, so that method is only so effective.

Kyocera's new smartphone, which has Sunpartner's Wysip Crystals within the screen, should be more effective at capturing solar energy and charging the device. The company will unveil the mystery solar-powered device at MWC along with the ruggedized Torque and a new Windows Phone 8.1 device.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Apparently, LG couldn't wait until MWC to announce not one, not two, but four of its mid-range smartphones: the Joy, Leon, Spirit and Magna. The devices range from 4.0" to 5.0" screens, but they all have something in common -- a quad-core Cortex A7 CPU and 1 GB of RAM (although the lower-end Joy may come as dual-core and with 512 MB of RAM in some markets).

“LG's new mid-range collection continues our legacy of offering amazing smartphones at reasonable prices," said Juno Cho, president and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “For millions of consumers around the world, the deciding factor on which smartphone to buy isn't how fast or how big it is but how balanced it is. With our new mid-range smartphones, more and more customers will be looking to LG for their next handsets."

The smallest of the group, the Joy, will come with a 4.0" screen, WVGA resolution (800 x 480), dual- or quad-core Cortex A7 processors, a 5MP rear camera, VGA front-camera, LTE Cat. 4, 4 GB or 8 GB of storage, and 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM (depending on the market). The phone will also come with KitKat in some markets and with Lollipop in others.

The Leon has a 4.5" FWVGA screen (854 x 540), a quad-core 1.2 GHz or 1.3 GHz processor (depending on the market), 8 GB of storage, 1 GB of RAM, 8MP rear camera, 5MP/VGA front-camera, LTE Cat. 4, a 1,900 mAh battery, and it comes with Lollipop out of the box.

The LG Spirit comes with a bigger 4.7" screen with an HD 720p resolution, 1.2/1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 8 GB of storage, 1 GB of RAM, 8MP rear-camera, 5MP or 1MP front-camera, a larger 2,100 mAh battery to make up for the increase in resolution and screen size, LTE Cat. 4, and Lollipop.

Finally, LG's highest-end phone out of the bunch is the Magna, which has a 5.0" screen with HD resolution, 8MP rear camera, 5MP front-camera, 2,540 mAh battery, LTE Cat. 4, and of course Lollipop, as well.

LG will begin the rollout of the devices as early as this week in some markets, but the phones will also be available for testing at the Mobile World Congress early next month.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

The Galaxy S5 is Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone, and while the company did say at MWC that the S5 would be coming to 150 countries on April 11th, there were no specifics as to which countries those would be. Now Samsung Canada has confirmed that the Galaxy S5, along with the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit smartwatches, will be available from nearly every Canadian carrier on the 11th. While no official information has been released about the US launch, it’s safe to say that the GS5 will be available in the US on the 11th too, at least from one carrier.

The Galaxy S5, like the GS4, is more of an iterative rather than radical update to its predecessor, but it does pack a quite a few new interesting features, such as a fingerprint scanner, a heart rate sensor and IP67 dust and water resistance. It also has what Samsung is calling “Download Booster” that bonds your Wi-Fi and LTE connections for faster downloads. The rest of the phone’s specs are a 5.1-inch 1080p screen, either a 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 801 SoC (the faster AC variant) or a 2.1 GHz octo-core Exynos 5422 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage with a microSD slot, a removable 2,800 mAh battery and a 16 MP camera.

In yesterday’s release, Samsung Canada only said that the S5 will be coming to “multiple carriers” in black or white, but we do know that nearly every Canadian carrier will be carrying it, of course including the big-three of Bell, Rogers and Telus. In the US, the S5 is also expected to be available on every major carrier, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. We are not sure which colors will be available in the U.S., but along with the white and black, Samsung also announced at MWC that the GS5 will also come in gold and blue. It is also possible that one of the exotic colors with be a carrier exclusive.

As for pricing, Samsung Canada only said that it will be available on select 2-year plans for $230. However, Telus had said earlier this month that the pricing would be $250, so it looks like the final pricing has yet to be decided. Telus will also starting taking pre-orders for the S5 on April 1st. Rogers also announced its pricing for the Galaxy S5, which will be $250 on a 2-year term, along with a bonus for first 10,000 customers who reserve it. The Rogers Galaxy S5 will be enabled to for Rogers suretap mobile payment system, and those 10,000 S5’s will come a $50 Rogers Prepaid MasterCard (yes, in Canada carrier have their own credit cards!) pre-loaded in the phone’s suretap wallet. As for U.S. carriers, no pricing has been released, but seeing as U.S. pricing is usually a little less than Canadian for a similar term, we can expect the Galaxy S5 to be $200 on a 2-year term.

As for the smartwatches, the only carrier to confirm availability of them in Canada is Rogers, though, of course, the new Gears will also likely be on sale at major electronics retailers on the 11th too. Interesting Rogers did say in their press that the Gear 2 Neo will be “only available with Rogers”, which seems an odd choice for Samsung since you would assume they’d want the more affordable Gear to be available from as many places as possible. In Canada, the Gear 2 will come in black, brown and orange. The Gear 2 Neo will come in black, gray, and orange and the Gear Fit will only be available in black. Again, Samsung Canada did share pricing details for the Gear, but Rogers helpfully told us that the Gear 2 will be $330, and the Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit will be $220. In the U.S., we expect those prices to be $300 for the Gear 2, and $200 for the Neo and Fit.

Stay tuned to Tom’s Hardware for more news on the Galaxy S5 and new Gears. An official announcement about U.S. pricing and availability can’t be too far off. You can also check out our hands-on with the Gear 2 and Gear Fit.

UPDATE: AT&T has now gone live with its pre-order for the Galaxy S5. Starting March 21st you can pre-order an S5 for $200 on a 2-year term, or as low as $25 a month with AT&T’s Next Installment plan. The AT&T site says pre-orders ship on April 8th, so taking into account delivery times, it’s clear that April 11th will also be the US launch date for the S5, at least on AT&T.

AT&T is also offering pre-orders of the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit, and you can get $50 off the Gear 2 or Neo if you buy one with the S5. Pricing for the Gear 2 will be $300, and the Neo and Fit will be $200.

UPDATE 2: It looks like both T-Mobile and Sprint are joining AT&T’s party by announcing their plans for the Galaxy S5 today.

T-Mobile will start taking pre-orders for the S5 on Monday the 24th, and will have an introductory price of $0, with no contract and 24 monthly payments of $27.50. T-Mobile hasn’t said anything about the Gears or the release date of the S5.

Sprint is also offering the Charcoal Black and Shimmery White S5 to their customers for $0, with 24 months of $27.09 payments, and they are
taking pre-orders starting today. They have also confirmed the expected April 11th launch date. Sprint will be selling all the Gears too on the 11th - the Gear 2 for $300 and the Neo and Fit for $200.

Verizon has yet to release information about their plans for the Galaxy S5, other than that they will be carrying it.

_{Follow Alex Davies @alexbdavies. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.}

Yesterday we brought you part one of our exclusive talk with Director of OnePlus Global, Carl Pei, and now we bring you part two.

State of the mobile phone industry

Tom’s Hardware: Without going into too long of a discussion, what do you think is one of the biggest problems with the smartphone industry at the current time? Is it lack of innovation, or lower-quality products?

Carl Pei: There are so many compromises in today’s smartphones, and in the end it is the user that suffers. When companies spend enormous amounts on marketing, they invest less in the product. With the internet, the world has become much more transparent, and users are much smarter now – they can go online and find out everything they want to know about a product, and it’s easier for new companies like us, whose focus is on making a really good product, to get great word of mouth, when compared to some of the other bigger vendors.

TH: Was there anything at MWC that you thought was exciting?

CP: I only paid attention to the smartphone news at MWC, and I was quite disappointed.

TH: One thing I did like is Sony’s push to making all its devices waterproof. Are you guys looking at doing anything like that with the OnePlus One?

CP: We’ve thought about adding water-resistance, but our conclusion was that it’s not a real user need. During my many years of using a smartphone, I’ve never once needed to have water-resistance. If you add waterproofing, this leads to compromises, and they ones involved in adding this technology are currently not worth it for us. It goes against our values of trying to maximize the user value.

TH: I did want to ask if you have any thoughts on Google’s Project Ara, the modular phone, which I do think is a very innovative product. Do you think that the concept of a modular device is something that could be successful?

CP: Yes, maybe in a few years, but today I think we are still quite far from that, because now days our engineers have to spend a lot of time and effort just to go down 1mm in device thickness. Designs today are very compact because users want pocketable phone with quality hardware and lots of features, so if talk about where we are at with today’s technology, modular phones will have to be very big and bulky, because they have to take into account all the modular pieces. So I think currently that wouldn’t be a very good experience for the user. Maybe in the future, when we can get mobile hardware to be even smaller and even more compact, it might be more feasible.

Design and accessory discussion

TH: I wanted to ask about design - even non-Apple users will have to admit that they seem to be the industry baseline as far as material used, design and build-quality. One of the key components of the iPhone is its metal construction, which is also what HTC used for the One. Many phone enthusiasts seem to think that metal phones are the best. However, the inverse to that is that there are also a number of high-quality plastic phones available too, such as Nokia’s Lumia series. What are your thoughts about the kind materials you would use for the perfect phone, and what is the OnePlus One going to use?

CP: It’s true that some companies use metal and have produced great devices. Different materials have their pros and cons – when we are talking about plastic, it can be really cheap plastic, like Samsung uses, or really good plastic like Oppo uses. No matter which choice we are going with materials wise for the OnePlus One, we are confident that it will feel really really good in the hands of our users. We are so confident, in fact, that we are going to invite some of our fans to come to China, including one lucky fan whom we’ll fly in to Hong Kong [which will be decided by a contest], to feel the back of the phone and tell the world about it.

TH: Some devices offer a level of personalization, where you can change the back to change the phone's color. Is OnePlus going to offer any level of personalization with the OnePlus One, where you can change the look and feel of the phone, and if not are you at least going to offer it in a variety of colors?

CP: We think it’s a pity when companies work hard on making the phone as compact and attractive as possible, and then when users get the phone, they buy a big bulky plastic case that covers the phone. We will have different accessories in this regards, and we tried to go back to the basic user need of why they need to cover their phone, and we think we have a really cool solution that addresses this need, which will be a surprise announcement soon that I can’t comment more on.

TH: Speaking of accessories, I think that very often the success or failure of a smartphone can be partially attributed to the number of accessory manufacturers you can get to work with you. For example, last year I owned an HTC One, and while I loved the design of the phone, I still wanted to get a case that was just as stylish and well-made as the phone itself, and I couldn’t find any decent accessories for the One. When OnePlus launches the One, will have any third-parties working with you to bring out a variety of accessories for it?

CP: Because we are a new start-up we won’t initially have any third-party accessory makers working with us, but we have planned a range of accessories that will be released under our own brand.

End of part two.

You can go back and read part one here.

Stay tuned for part three, to be posted soon.

_{Follow Alex Davies @AlexBDavies. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.}

The Best of Mobile World Congress 2014

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) in beautiful Barcelona, Spain is the trade show for any company involved in the mobile market. We caught a glimpse of what to expect in the year ahead at MWC 2014. While most of the big names in smartphones and tablets seem to be taking a more, shall we say...evolutionary approach to their handsets, some of the companies in attendance dared to do something different, and that set the tone for our top picks. This year, the focus of our Best Of MWC 2014 awards is on the products and technologies that captured our attention amongst a sea of iterating.

The following seven reveals made the cut because they promise to shake up, redefine, diversify, or improve the current mobile landscape.

Intel XMM 7260 LTE-Advanced Modem

The Intel XMM 7260 LTE-Advanced modem could possibly give the chip giant the serious wedge it needs to get x86 into mobility.

The hardware supports up to CAT 6 at 300 Mb/s and Carrier Aggregation up to 40 MHz. Due to the simplified two-chip design, Carrier Aggregation is achieved entirely within one chip, thus saving power, as fewer chips need to be engaged at the same time while aggregated LTE segments switch in and out. 

Supporting over 30 bands, to cover every country currently employing LTE technology, the XMM 7260 appears to be a truly global solution. What’s more, up to 22 of these bands can be used simultaneously, which means that switching between bands should be seamless - a key factor for globetrotters, as there would be no more need to carry a different device for every region.  

The XMM 7260 presents a serious effort from Intel to compete in the mobile space, and that's why it earned a spot on our Best Of MWC 2014 list.

Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit

We were pretty surprised when Samsung announced not one refreshed Galaxy Gear, but three. While two of these models are largely the same, the Gear Fit stands alone as a separate product. Aimed at fitness fanatics, the Gear Fit displays data from a built-in heart monitor, and can be used to track your sleep patterns and exercise routine.

While that's cool and all, it's not the reason we’re recognizing the Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit. We’re giving the Gear Fit a Best Of MWC 2014 award because it's the first smartwatch that we honestly wouldn't mind wearing every day. One of our biggest problems with the original Gear was that it was kind of big and ungainly-looking. The Gear Fit, with its curved 1.83-inch 432x128 AMOLED panel is a lot easier on the eye.

SanDisk 128 GB microSDXC Card

At this year’s MWC, SanDisk revealed an entirely new 128 GB microSDXC card – that’s 64 gigabytes bigger than any other microSDXC card currently on the market. Granted, flash storage capacity always doubles at each new tier, but 128 GB of storage that's no bigger than your fingernail is nonetheless a significant achievement. To put it into perspective, the microSD format launched with a 128 megabyte card less than ten years ago, and now nearly a decade later, we have a thousand times greater storage capacity inside the same form factor.

To enable 128 GB of storage on a removable microSD card, SanDisk developed an innovative proprietary technique where 16 memory dies, each shaved to be thinner than a single strand of hair, are stacked on top of each other.

Thanks to smartphone manufacturers who support microSD expansion cards in their devices, some consumers will no longer have to make the tough decision on which storage size to buy. With the SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card, they can simply drop more in – now up to 128 GB more.

Ubuntu For Phones

Canonical has been working on its smartphone operating system for a while now. The company first showed off its mobile version of Ubuntu running on a Galaxy Nexus at CES 2013. The OS was shown running on slightly updated hardware, a Nexus 4, at this year’s MWC. Overall, the experience was a lot smoother, and the operating system itself was a pleasure to use, being both intuitive and visually appealing.

We're eager to get our hands on some new phones running this software, and luckily, we don't actually have all that long to wait. Just last week Canonical announced that both Meizu and BQ had signed on to produce and release Ubuntu-based smartphones. In fact, we already went hands-on with the first of Meizu's Ubuntu offerings, and while our MX3 is running Android, an Ubuntu-flavored handset is due to hit the States later this year.

Boasting a 5.2-inch 1800x1080 display (412 ppi), the MX3 also packs an Exynos 5 Octa SoC, 2 GB of RAM, and an integrated 2400 mAh battery. The handset also features an 8-megapixel rear camera, with a 2-megapixel lens up front, and both cameras can shoot 1080p video at 30 frames per second. While the MX3 isn’t as attractive as the Ubuntu Edge that Canonical initially tried to launch via Indiegogo, it is a bit more powerful than the current Nexus 4 reference unit.

Ubuntu presents a fresh take on the smartphone OS, and that’s why we’re giving it our Best Of MWC 2014.

Roamer

As part of our preparations for MWC, we were going to acquire some foreign SIM cards. That is, until we learned about a solution called Roamer from a UK-based startup. Roamer ensures that you don't miss any calls to your home number while abroad by acting as an extra layer on top of any foreign SIM. Being able to take calls to one's home number is especially important for business travelers.

Roamer has made the process exceedingly simple through its app, which is currently available on both iOS and Android. The app acts as an interface for sending GSM codes to your carrier, forwarding your number to a local one so that you don't incur any international calling charges. Behind the scenes, Roamer actually routes your calls through a more complex series of forwarding so that it can arrive transparently to your foreign mobile. It also works for outgoing calls, and your caller ID remains the same, so people on the other end of the line won't even be able to tell that you're out of the country.

It's a clever system that made our visit in Barcelona a better one, and that's why we’re giving Roamer our Best Of MWC 2014 award.

YotaPhone Second Generation

YotaPhone was one of the most high-profile devices at MWC this year. Yota Devices, the company responsible for the YotaPhone, made headlines in December when it announced the first generation of the device. Now, just three months later, the company is already introducing the next generation. Although announced so soon after the original, YotaPhone 2 is a quite different device. It adds capacitive touch to the rear display, and ditches some of the features that puzzled us with the first iteration, namely the lack of home, back, and task switcher keys, and bizarre camera placement.

Yota Devices says the changes are based on feedback from many different sources. Speaking about the unveiling of the second YotaPhone, Yota Devices CEO Vlad Martynov said: "The Android community, along with our partners, suppliers and retailers, love our dual-screen, always-on concept and have many great suggestions for taking it to the next level." The YotaPhone 2 won't be out until the fourth quarter of this year, so anyone hoping to buy one will have to wait a while, or make do with the old version.

Besides the product’s obvious uniqueness, the smarter design of the next generation YotaPhone was a direct result of a company incorporating community feedback, and so the YotaPhone 2 receives our final Best Of MWC 2014 award.

Follow Jane, Marcus, and Tom's Hardware on Twitter.

ZTE this week announced a brand new Grand smartphone. Dubbed the ZTE Grand Memo II LTE, the device packs a huge 6-inch IPS HD display, a Snapdragon 400 CPU, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of onboard storage, a 13-megapixel camera in the back, a 5-megapixel camera up front, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and a 3200 mAh battery. If you're trying to categorize this phone into high-end flagship or affordable, you'll have a hard time. The truth is that it's a little of column A and a little of column B. Though it might seem like it's neither here nor there, it's an interesting development. So often we see affordable phones that just don't excite at all when it comes to specs. It seems like ZTE is trying to rise above that to an extent with this device.

The device runs on Android 4.4 with ZTE's own custom UI running on top. The company calls this MiFavor and it is, for the most part, fairly unobtrusive, though some users might have a hard time getting used to the little tweaks and changes that give it that unique ZTE flavor. ZTE says it memorizes user habits and offers a customized tailored interface based on the user's needs. We had a chance to go hands on and found a few tweaks we liked and a few we felt didn't really add much to the experience. 

One thing we really liked was that the device allows you to quickly organize your apps into folders. We all understand the merits of organizing apps into categories and folders, but it's a lot of work. By hitting the option key on the lower right hand of the screen, MiFavor gives you the ability to automatically sort your apps into folders. This, of course, means you don't get to choose the categories yourself, but it also means you don't have to do any of the grunt work yourself. You can also revert back to the old tiled, multi-home screen interface at the touch of a button.

The camera is also interesting in that it displays a lot of data on the screen while you're taking photos. This includes various grids and markers to help you frame your photos better, as well as the ISO level and information that most people generally wouldn't pay too much attention to if they're just snapping quick shots. Still, it's nice that this information is readily available if you're trying to get that really great shot but all you have is your smartphone. The phone has 6X digital zoom, but we weren't all that impressed with the quality on max zoom if we're being honest.

We enjoyed our brief time with the ZTE, though we'd love to spend more time with it, so we can get a better idea of how it fares day-to-day, and give it a chance to learn our habits. We'd love to see how that affects the experience. Overall, we're still missing the most important piece of information, which is price. If ZTE prices this right, it could be very successful. Too expensive and it'll be just another underwhelming smartphone that can't stand up against other devices in its price point.

The ZTE Grand Memo II will be available in April in China and is scheduled for release in the USA and other regions after that.

Check out all our Mobile World Congress 2014 coverage here!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Alongside the MediaPad X1, Huawei this week introduced the MediaPad M1 8, an 8-inch tablet. This device also has a SIM slot and can be used as a phone. We stopped by Huawei's booth at MWC Barcelona to get a look at the M1 in person and, like our friends at Laptop Mag, were surprised at how much it looks like a smartphone we know. Oddly enough, that smartphone is not made by Huawei but HTC. Check out the tablet next to the HTC One below and tell us that these devices don't look similar:

So they're not identical, but they do look very similar. Even the speaker placement is the same! That's where the similarities stop, though, as the HTC One is completely different under the hood. And, though both devices are based on Android, they have different UIs on top of Android. The HTC One has the company's Sense software while the MediaPad M1 boasts Huawei's Emotion UI and both of these offer a different experience.

This 8-inch device is still small enough to be able to two-thumb type in portrait mode and feels quite comfortable in your hands. Despite there being only one inch in the difference as far as screen size is concerned, this device is considerably heavier and thicker than the MediaPad X1. Weighing in at 329g, the MediaPad M1 is almost 50 percent heavier than the X1, and it measures 7.9 mm thick.

Under the hood you're looking at Android 4.2 with Emotion UI 2.0, that 8-inch display we talked about before with an 800 x 1280 resolution, a 1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB or 16 GB of storage, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, LTE, a 5-megapixel camera in the back, a 1-megapixel lens up front, and a 4,800 mAh battery.

Similar to the X1, there's been no mention of pricing or release date, but this would slot easily into the mid-range tablet market, so we're hoping the pricing will reflect that. If it's priced in line with high-end current generation tablets, we can't see it receiving too warm a reception with consumers.

Check out all our Mobile World Congress 2014 coverage here!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

One of the most interesting devices on the show floor at MWC was the second generation YotaPhone. This device is different from any other smartphone in that it has two displays, one in the back and one in the front. The second generation YotaPhone brings updated specs as well as touch functionality to the rear screen.

This model of YotaPhone comes a lot closer to the specs we're used to seeing on current generation flagship phones. It has a 5-inch AMOLED display, a quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU from Qualcomm, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of storage. The camera on the back is an 8-megapixel lens, while the front-facing camera is 2-megapixels. Yota has moved the camera from its old location at the bottom left corner of the device's back to a more traditional location at the top of the rear of the phone. We love this change, as the old location meant it was really easy to accidentally cover the camera or get a stray finger in your photos. We're all for innovation, but sometimes standard is standard because that's what works best. Yota Devices has also upgraded the design of the phone. Gone is the square design of YotaPhone 1. This has been replaced with a curvy phone that looks a lot like the Nexus S. As with the original YotaPhone, the YotaPhone 2 is more or less stock Android. There's very little in the way of additional software on the device.

One of the biggest changes, aside from the internal specs, is that the rear display is now also touch sensitive. On the previous generation of YotaPhone, the back was just a regular e-paper display with a touch-sensitive strip underneath that responded to set gestures. Now, both sides of the phone feature touchscreen displays. The back display is always on and can be used to display news feeds from RSS, tweets, updates from social networks, and phone notifications. You can also read books and newspapers without completely killing your battery. In addition, Smart Power Mode lets you turn off the front screen if you're low on power and use the rear screen for important stuff that just can't wait (like emails and texts). The rear display can also display data from your fitness tracker, sports scores, and other real-time information while you're not actively interacting with the device.

The addition of a touch-sensitive e-paper display means we no longer have that strip along the bottom to contend with. While playing around with the first generation YotaPhone, we found the strip to be a little bit flaky in its response to the set gestures. We had the same problem with the front of the device. Unlike other Android phones that have traditional soft keys for 'back,' 'home,' and currently running apps, the YotaPhone 1 used unique gestures along the bottom of the device. Swipe left to go back, swipe right for home, etc. This is a simple concept, but we found it rather hard to use, with some gestures requiring repeated attempts before they'd register. It's very frustrating to have to spend 10 seconds trying to exit an application. Even a simple visual guide of where to swipe would help a lot, but that would have involved some kind of imprint or marking on the front of the device, which Yota likely didn't want. Thankfully, the company has scrapped this 'feature' for the second generation YotaPhone in favor of the regular Android soft keys we're so used to. It's a lot easier to control the device, and while the front of the device no longer has that same air of sexy mystery, we much prefer knowing our key presses are going to be recognized every time. 

So, given that the original YotaPhone was just announced in December, you might be wondering why there's another one so soon. Though we question the merits of announcing a second generation device so soon after your first generation has launched, Yota Device isn't actually going to be selling the YotaPhone 2 for a while, so those who already own the first model can sleep easy knowing they're not outdated just yet. The new YotaPhone is expected to arrive this year, but it won't be until Q4. Something tells us they won't be selling an awful lot of YotaPhones between now and then, given the drastic improvements to design that will come with the second generation.

Check out all our Mobile World Congress 2014 coverage here!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Back in January during CES 2014, Sony teased consumers and the media with its SmartWear Experience vision. This vision would include a range of SmartWear products, Xperia phones, and a Lifelog application. The first product in the series would be a SmartBand (SWR10) that logs daily activities and represents the data visually in the Lifelog application.

"The SmartWear Experience is about emotion as well as motion. Entertainment and information; how you feel as well as what you do. It's about moving, and most importantly, being moved," the company hinted. "And, with open software and hardware, Sony is forging new in-market partnerships, to offer consumers more choice."

This week during Mobile World Congress 2014, the company announced that both the SmartBand and the Lifelog app will be released in March. Together with the SmartBand, the Lifelog Android app tracks more than just steps; it records places the user visits, the books that the user reads, music the user listens to, and so on. The app will also help set activity goals, monitor the process and make recommendations.

"SmartBand's core module is a 24/7 wearable device; fully waterproof (rated IP582) despite its exposed Micro-USB port," reads the company's press release. "It's light, unobtrusive and the independent core means it can be carried or worn as you wish, to fit your lifestyle."

Like the SmartWatch 2, the SmartBand connects to an Android phone via Bluetooth. However, this device provides information to the Lifelog app installed on the phone, and if that connection is broken (aka walk away from the smartphone), the SmartBand will vibrate (up to 33 feet). And just like the SmartWatch 2, Sony's "smart" band will also vibrate when the user receives a call, a message, or a tweet, and when the user gets a "like" on Facebook.

The band can also be used to play, pause and skip tracks in the Walkman app by pressing the button and tapping the band. The device will even wake up the wearer at the best time based on his/her sleep cycle. Sony's band calculates and measures the best time to wake the wearer up and gently vibrates to bring him/her out of sleep.

As previously stated, the upcoming band is powered by a removable "core" module that contains "advanced" sensor technology "that feels your movements and sends data to your smartphone." The band itself is just a wrist strap that holds the core tech in place on your wrist. There's also a Life Bookmark key so that wearers can mark a special moment.

The SmartBand will initially be offered in Black, but the company plans to launch models in various colors sometime after launch. For more information about the new SmartBand, head here.

Check out all our Mobile World Congress 2014 coverage here!

We just saw Kingston in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. At the time, the company was previewing a new product it was prepping for release in the spring, but it wasn't quite ready to talk details. That product was a HyperX-branded gaming headset. Now, a month and a half later, Kingston was happy to dish details on the newest member of its HyperX family.

This headset is part of a collaboration with Swedish company QPad. The HyperX Cloud gaming headset is actually a rejigged QH-90 from QPad, though a Kingston rep at last night's Pepcom event was quick to point out all the ways that Kingston changed these headphones to make them its own. Users can expect memory foam ear cups, a light-weight aluminum frame, a detachable mic, and 53 mm drivers. There's also a padded headband and an inline controller with a volume wheel, a slide button for mic on/off, and a mic mute button.

Kingston isn't talking about price just yet, but the company promised a mid-range price point; we've heard whisperings that it will cost somewhere around $100. Release date is scheduled for early April.

  Check out all our Mobile World Congress 2014 coverage here!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Nokia today made a splash with the introduction of three new Android-based devices but the company also introduced a new Asha device and an ultra cheap new smartphone that doesn't fall under Nokia's Lumia, Asha or X branding. These are both super affordable phones at price points that cost less than a lot of people pay for their broadband service each month.

First up is the Nokia Asha 230, which is a dinky little device with a 2.8-inch display (30 x 240, 142 ppi) and a 1.3-megapixel camera. This phone can go all month, literally. Though it’s battery is relatively small (just 1020 mAh), the phone isn’t extremely bulky in terms of features or specs. As a result, it’s not too heavy on power consumption. Nokia promises 33 days of standby or 42 hours of music playback time. That changes a bit when you look at talk time; Nokia says you can expect 11 hours of talk time on 2G. There’s also WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, Java games, 7 GB of OneDrive storage and optional dual-SIM support. It runs on Nokia’s Asha 1.1.1. The Asha 230 is going to cost you €49 and is available immediately in Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. No word on US launch just yet but we'll try and get more information on that as soon as possible.

Next up is the Nokia 220, which isn't an Asha device and carries no branding other than the Nokia name. It's Nokia's cheapest data-enabled phone to date. That's right, if you thought it couldn't get cheaper than €49, you've got another think coming. The Nokia 220 costs just €29 outright and boasts a 2.4-inch QVGA 320 x 240 166 ppi display, a hardware keyboard, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 3.0, a 1100 MHz battery (29 days standby, 15 hours of talk time on 2G), optional dual-SIM support, and storage expandable to 32 GB via MicroSD. Nokia didn’t offer any information on integrated storage for either the Asha 230 or the Nokia 220, but we’re going to try and find that out. Similar to the Asha 230, the 220 is already available in Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

Stay tuned for hands on!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.