The HTC One Series Smartphones

HTC used MWC as a chance to announce a new line of smartphones, the One Series – three Android powered phones.

HTC One X – Leading the pack is the One X, HTC’s new flagship smartphone. It will have a 4.7-inch 720p HD display, 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor (possibly the dual-core Snapdragon S4 in some markets), and 32GB of internal storage. If all goes as expected, it should be available by the end of April. This is definitely a phone to keep an eye on.

HTC One S – The One S will be the X’s little brother, weighing in a bit lighter with a 4.3-inch qHD display. Under the hood, it will have a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, so it ought to keep up with the X pretty well.

HTC One V – Intended as an entry-level device, the One V dials things back considerably. It will have a 3.7-inch display and only a 1GHz single-core processor, but despite its lackluster specs, this has the potential to be an excellent phone, as long as they get the price right.

Nokia 808 PureView

When we tell you about the 808 PureView, you’re going to think we’re nuts. Basically, it’s a smartphone with a 41MP camera – no, that’s not a typo. If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ll know that megapixels aren’t always everything, but as the PureView demonstrates, having a lot can be useful.

The 808 PureView actually only takes 5MP photo by default. For a smartphone, the ability to take giant 41MP photos that are typically 10MB in size isn’t exactly practical, so PureView uses the extra megapixels for a different purpose. All those extra pixels go towards things like lossless digital zoom and increased light sensitivity. This may very well be the first camra phone that can truly replace a point and shoot.

Samsung Galaxy Beam

We’ve seen those pocket-sized projectors; we’ve even seen Nikon stick one into a camera, but until now, we’ve never seen one in a phone. That’s exactly what the Galaxy Beam is, a 1GHz dual-core Android smartphone with an integrated projector. The projector unit itself only has a resolution of 640×360, but can project up to a 50 inch screen.

The Fancy New Mobile Processors

Both Intel and Qualcomm had a strong presence at MWC this year, and both had good reason. Intel got to showcase their brand new Medfield processor in an actual production phone, the Orange* Phone, built by Gigabyte.

In its current form, Medfield is only single-core, but don’t let that fool you. It uses x86 architecture, which is considerably more efficient than ARM. In terms of performance, the single-core Medfield processor is actually on par with some quad-core ARM chips. It will be very interesting to see how they truly perform when Intel powered smartphones hit the shelves later this year.

Qualcomm’s new processor is the Snapdragon S4. They’ve only so far announced dual-core versions, but quad-core variants will be out before the end of the year. But again, don’t let the core count fool you. The S4 processors showcased at MWC this year actually kept up with (and even out performed) Nvidia’s latest quad-core Tegra 3 offerings.

Smartphones

There were more smartphones than you could shake a stick at this year, and a few really stood out, like Fujitsu’s quad-core Tegra 3 prototype featuring a 4.6-inch 720p display and 4G LTE connectivity, and Nokia’s newly announced Lumia 900 which is a Windows Phone that might shake up the competition.

What really stood out to us, though, was Lenovo’s K800. While Lenovo is best known for their high-end ThinkPad laptops, they’re really entering the smartphone market with a bang. The K800 is the very first Intel based Android phone, utilizing Intel’s brand new Medfield Z2460 mobile processor, a 1.6GHz processing behemoth, and possibly the fastest smartphone processor to date.

Tablets

Tegra 3 tablets were rampant at CES, from Acer’s latest IconiaTab and Pantec’s waterproof Element to the Asus 7-inch MeMO and Samsung Galaxy Note (which is technically a 5.3-inch smartphone). Out of all of the choices, the one we absolutely couldn’t overlook was the Transformer Prime TF700T.

The TF700T is just like the original Transformer Prime in shape, size, and even most of its components, making it compatible with the same keyboard dock; however, it has a few key improvements over the original Prime. Most noticeably, it has a full 1920×1080 HD display which is absolutely stunning. It wasn’t the only 1080p quad-core tablet at CES, but the Transformer’s great track record speaks for itself.

Laptops

Laptops are always popular at CES, and this year was no exception. AMD in particular had a very impressive booth showcasing its upcoming Radeon HD 7000M series graphics capabilities, which for the budget-aware mobile gamer, will almost definitely be the way to go once they hit the market.

But when it comes to feats of both performance and battery life, Samsung’s latest Gamer Series 7 notebook takes the cake. It will come with Nvidia’s yet to be released GTX 675M graphics core, which is expected to shatter current mobile gaming performance records. On top of that, it also features a dial that allows you to switch between the high-performance Nvidia GPU when you need it and the battery-saving integrated Intel HD graphics core when you don’t.

HDTVs

We saw no clear winner when it came to HDTVs this year. Instead, we saw three amazing models, all featuring some amazing technology that we can’t wait to see reach the consumer market. OLED TVs are definitely going to catch some attention over the next year. Both Samsung and LG demoed 55-inch OLED displays that would take your breath away. LG’s demo unit was only 4mm thick, despite looking better than any display we’ve seen before.

Sony was also turning some heads with its own 55-inch prototype. While Sony didn’t choose to go with OLEDs in which each pixel is its own light emitter, it did take a similar approach which it’s calling “Crystal LED.” Essentially, each pixel has its own individual LED backlight behind it. This creates the same effect as OLEDs, but with a greater potential range for color.

Cameras

There were a lot of interesting and impressive cameras at CES this year. In terms of specs, the Nikon D4 certainly holds its own, but Polaroid definitely wins points for innovation, showing the world’s first “Smart Camera,” the SC1630.

The SC1630 takes the guts of your typical point-and-shoot camera (3x optical zoom lens, 16MP sensor, etc) and pairs them with the smartphone based Android operating system. The result is a wonderful compact digital camera with Wifi, Bluethooth, and even the Android Marketplace at its disposal.

Smartphones and Tablets

Over the past couple of years, smartphones have been seeing explosive progress in everything from performance to functionality. At the start of every year, someone makes the claim that it will be the “Year of the Smartphone.” Well, it looks like we’ll be going on the third “Year of the Smartphone” in a row this year, and I, for one, am not disappointed.

Intel Enters the Race

Intel has been talking about developing smartphone processors for a while, but now it’s official. In the second quarter of this year, Lenovo will be launching the very first Intel powered Android phone, the K800. While not quite as power efficient as the traditional ARM processors, Intel’s Medfield chip, now known as the Atom Z2460, will offer a new level of performance in smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks. It will definitely be interesting to see how it compares to Nvidia’s ARM-based Tegra 3.

Nvidia and Tegra 3

Tegra 3, the first quad-core processor to be found stuffed inside a tablet (the Transformer Prime) has been on the market since December, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make an appearance at CES. Not only were there several Tegra 3 tablets from manufacturers like Toshiba, Asus, and Acer, but Fujitsu stole the show by displaying the first Tegra 3 smartphone. And in case you were curious about Tegra 3’s performance, a Tegra 3 tablet was shown playing Skyrim on an HDTV. So yes, current generation console performance has officially been achieved in the mobile sector.

Tons of New Smartphones

Just about everyone had a new smartphone to announce at CES this year. Samsung announced its Galaxy Note (as well as the Galaxy S II HD for T-Mobile); Sony came out with the Xperia S; Motorola had the Droid 4 and new RAZR MAXX (claiming 21 hours of talk time); and Nokia showed us the Lumia 710, as Windows Phone that might actually compete with the iPhone and Android for once. And that’s just to name a few of the big players’ announcements.

HDTVs and Entertainment

Apart from all of the fancy gadgetry, CES has always been a staging ground for home entertainment breakthroughs. HDTVs specifically, as well as other home appliances, have always been popular topics.

HDTVs

For the last year or two, HDTVs at CES were all about 3D. That phase is finally starting to die down (I personally say “Good riddance”), and the TV sector is transitioning onto the next big thing: OLED. LG wowed the audience with a magnificent 55-inch OLED TV that had some of the most vivid colors, deepest blacks, and sharpest image ever. Plus it was only 4mm thick!

There were of course plenty of other products on display, including Dish’s new wireless satellite receiver boxes, some fun remote controlled surveillance equipment, and a ton of talk about a new wave of GoogleTV devices.

Video Games

Even though video game-related stuff is more of an E3 thing, there was plenty to go around at CES. For starters, the Wii U got some demo time, strutting its upgraded graphics and tablet-like controller. The PlayStation Vita also got some valuable face time, with Sony announcing a planned launch date of February 22^nd.

CES 2012 continues through Friday, so stick around and we’ll keep you informed of all the cool gadgets and technology that are headed our way this year.