The Barcelona-based Mobile World Congress is rapidly becoming one of the most important events in the tech calendar. It's been a launchpad for generations of flagship smartphones from the likes of Sony, HTC, Samsung and more, and it now covers the most exciting emerging trends in consumer technology, including wearables and the Internet of Things.
For now though, we'll just stick to the smartphones from among them all, and here were the most eye-catching releases from the event just gone by:
1. Samsung Galaxy S5
Day one's biggest reveal was likely the Samsung Galaxy S5 from anybody's perspective, the company's new flagship phone. It's a powerful quad-core mobile with a number of intriguing features and what seems like less of the gimmickry that has loaded up previous Galaxy S phones. Samsung was keen to hammer the consumers slogan again, and that surfaced in an improved camera, better build quality, built-in fitness features and a fingerprint scanner. In short, a logical upgrade to its predecessor.
2. LG G3
LG have been a recent entrant into the Android market, but it's better late than never. The G3 was pushed out as their top of the line phone, and that's a misnomer in itself for what is essentially a phablet sized device. Coupled with a scrumptious screen among other features, LG has quite clearly hit the Silicon gym with this one and wouldn't surprise the neutral if the power packed number of megapixels and fingerprint scanning hardware support result in this one selling like hot cakes.
3. Sony Xperia Z2
Sony's tried and tested Xperia design returns with a slightly slimmer waterproof body. It also has a newly integrated digital noise cancellation feature for clearer calls, and that makes it appeal forthright to the developing markets around the world. It's got a boost in the power department too, with a quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM which should handle Android 4.4 KitKat with ease. A 20.7MP camera finishes off the spec list, and that should be a wholesome enough phone for today's luxury market to latch onto for the year to come.
4. Nokia X
If you were diving into the Nokia Normandy rumour from a year ago, this Android offering from the Finnish manufacturer shouldn't come as a surprise. The entire troika in fact, of the X, X+ and XL all run a heavily modified version of Android in any case, and like the Kindle Fire HDX series of tablets, there's no native Google Play Store. Instead, users will have access to Nokia's own App Store. There will also be baked-in Microsoft Services including Onedrive, Outlook and Skype as one would expect, but the fact that such a device was launched in the first place has surely warped many.
Which other phones do you think were unlucky to make the cut into our list? Reply and tell us now!
