New Chinese mobile phone gadgets getting attention at world forum

Classic phone brands from yesteryear are coming alive in Barcelona.

The smart money is on the prediction there will be no Galaxy S8 announced at Mobile World Congress this year. Moto is owned by Lenovo, and the unit is still called Motorola Mobility. “There are no new dimensions to the way the smartphones are used nowadays”. BlackBerry announced its KeyOne, a smartphone that could be its best BlackBerry to date, and Nokia literally rose from the dead and even brought back something from the past in the form of the 3310. I would just buy a budget phone and put it in a case.

Nokia has unveiled not one but four phones at MWC. Most of the usual suspects will be there though MWC 2017 will definitely have some exceptions – and surprises. This lack of consistency, combined with the nearly identical look of most Xperia phones for the past few years, kills pretty much any hope of meaningful brand identity for Sony, no matter how good the actual devices are.

The 4.5-inch KEYone will arrive in April 2017. It will likely be powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 625 processor and house 2 GB of RAM.

BlackBerry literally kicked off the MWC a day before the event started with TCL introducing the BlackBerry KeyOne. We also saw the launch of some new wearables including the long-awaited Huawei Watch 2. More than a thousand delegates eagerly waited for the launch of the company’s new P10 handsets and new watch. The new Nokia 3310 has a more modern look with curvy edges and is priced around $50.

The company also revealed extra add-on devices for its Moto Z range that include a projector, a speaker and a zoom camera. You can browse the web via an Opera Mini browser.

Nokia also announced two mid-range Android smartphones at MWC 2017.

The LG G6 sports a 5.7-inch LCD (1440 x 2880) with 564 ppi pixel density, which is an upgrade on the 5.3-inch LCD (1440 x 2560) with 554 ppi.

Rumors suggest the handset is expected to come with a 5.5-inch 720p display with the processing handled by a Snapdragon 425 processor paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, as well as a 3,000 mAh battery. It has a Snapdragon 430 processor, which is on the lower end of the Qualcomm’s CPUs.

But Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, a research director from the personal technologies team, said it is the changing user experience of mobile phones that will lead to future innovation. One of the biggest trends is the emergence of legacy brands that have lost some of their market share to Google and Apple. Both are mid-range devices that will probably compete with the likes of the Moto G. It will definitely be interesting to see if the Nokia name still holds any significant value to the average consumer. It is also the first smartphone with a 4k HDR display (5.5-inch) and is IP68 certified for water and dust resistance. The G6 also has dual cameras on its rear side – allowing pictures to be taken at a wider angle.

“Right now I have heard a lot about 5G, I guess we have more and more smart connected devices, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality”, Stephanie Baghdassarian of USA internet technology research firm Gartner told Xinhua about what she expected of this year’s edition.

Unlike before, the LG G6 has a non-removable battery of 3300mAh with support for Quick Charge technology via USB-C.