The 2014 edition of the Mobile World Congress is about to kick off in Barcelona and we'll be bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of all the phones, tablets, accessories and other gadgets launched during the week.
MWC is the mobile gadget industry's most important platform, and most of the world's top brands will be there, including
Samsung,
Sony,
HTC,
Nokia,
ZTE,
Motorola, and
Facebook. Many of these companies will be holding their own press conferences next week, at which they will announce their new product lineups for the year.
Here's a quick rundown of all the events that have been confirmed so far. Check back
here at these times for live coverage, and also
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like us on Facebook for more coverage direct from the source.
- Tizen: Sunday, 23 February, 12:00pm IST
- Nokia: Monday, 24 February, 1:00pm IST
- Sony: Monday, 24 February, 1:00pm IST
- ZTE: Monday, 24 February, 3:00pm IST
- Facebook: Monday, 24 February, 10:30pm IST
- Samsung: Tuesday, 25 February, 12:30am IST
- LG: Tuesday, 25 February, 12:30pm IST
Here's a quick preview of what we can expect each brand to unveil:
Samsung's
Unbox event has been the subject of much speculation and several leaks have hinted at what we will see. First of all, the new Samsung Galaxy S5 might be unveiled. The new flagship phone could have a
waterproof body, improved front-facing camera,
new processor,
fingerprint scanner,
QHD 2560x1440-pixel screen, and a whole
new TouchWiz UI.
Samsung will also most likely show off a
new line of tablets and more wearable gadgets including a
possible successor to the Galaxy Gear smartwatch and a health monitoring device. Finally, the Korean giant could also unveil one or more mid-range phones running its new
Tizen OS.
Nokia has also sent out an official invitation, and while there should be a few new
Ashas and
Lumias, most of the
excitement surrounds the long-rumoured
Nokia X, which will run
a derivative of Linux with a
heavily customised UI.
HTC is badly in need of a hit, and a lot will ride on the success or failure of the
hotly anticipated successor to last year's One as well as a few mid-range phones such as the
Desire 8 and perhaps
a smartwatch or similar wearable accessories, possibly with a focus on music playback.
LG has pretty much confirmed that it will unveil a shrunken version of its flagship G2, called (what else?) the
G2 mini, but other details are scarce.
Sony will probably devote a bit of time at
its event to
new tablets, before it gets to its new flagship Android phone, the
Xperia Z2.
Huawei is expected to join in with at least one new
smartphone and tablet, while Acer will
try to make a mark in the Android market yet again too. We might even see Blackberry unveil a new
handset for emerging markets in which it still has a presence.
On the software front, we look forward to seeing what
Jolla,
Tizen,
YotaPhone,
Blackphone and Mozilla have to offer. Maybe the first widely available Sailfish or Firefox OS phones?
There was a flurry of activity around
wearable gadgets at this year's CES, and the momentum hasn't slowed down. MWC 2014 will witness the unveiling of a number of wearable devices from well-known brands and first-timers. In addition to smartwatches, we could see more augmented reality headsets, health monitors, and jewellery.
Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to deliver a keynote address to the mobile industry on Monday, but what exactly he'll talk about is still under wraps. In light of Facebook's just-announced
$19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, the conference hall is sure to be jam packed.
Stay tuned for even more leaks and more surprises leading up to each unveiling, and of course the news from Barcelona as it happens next week.