Tablets

BARCELONA, Spain--Samsung's tablet spotlight is on the flashy Galaxy Note 10.1 this Mobile World Congress, but after putting down the stylus, I picked up both new versions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

If you've ever seen the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7 Plus, you'll find similar-looking devices, with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich preinstalled. Instead of making these tablets top of the line, Samsung says it'll introduce them at lower price points than the original, in an effort to compete with dedicated e-readers.

Both devices were on display at … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Forget about a smartphone you have to force to be a tablet. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is a tablet in its own right, and in my opinion, the appropriate size for a device that makes use of a stylus for additional creative composition.

Let's back it up for a moment with a look at the Galaxy Note family tree. The first Note, which CNET first spotted back in September and has since intensely reviewed, comes with a 5.3-inch screen and a skinny, 4-inch tall pressure-sensitive stylus you can use to doodle or take notes.

The … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Samsung Electronics admitted that its attempt to breach the tablet market has largely been a flop, with one executive offering a sobering summary of its performance.

"Honestly, we're not doing very well in the tablet market," Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung, said today during a media roundtable here.

That's about as frank a statement as it gets from any executive at the Mobile World Congress trade show this week.

That Samsung hasn't met expectations in its tablet business isn't a huge surprise; the company lags well behind Apple's iPad … Read more

Chinese electronics company Huawei just made bold claims at MWC when its chairman, Richard Yu, said the Ascend D Quad is the world's fastest phone. Naming another milestone, Huawei has announced plans for the first 10-inch tablet powered by a quad-core processor.

Called the MediaPad10 FHD, the slate uses a similar 1.5GHz K3 CPU Huawei expects to place in the Ascend D Quad. Another alluring attribute you'll find in the MediaPad FHD is a 10-inch IPS LCD screen with a supersharp resolution of 1,920x1,200 pixels. Dolby Surround Sound audio processing will be onboard as well, along with an 8-megapixel main camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter.

Of course I thought the first 10-inch quad-core tablet was the Asus Transformer Prime. Truth be told, that's a 10.1-inch quad-core tablet, so perhaps Huawei is really splitting hairs here. … Read more

Amazon just took the gloves off.

Less than a week after Barnes & Noble introduced an 8GB Nook Tablet for $199, priced to compete head-on with the Kindle Fire, Amazon has started selling refurbished Kindle Fires for $169 shipped.

I should note that this deal first went live on Saturday, and I've been checking all weekend to make sure they're still in stock. As of this morning, they are.

Also worth noting: it wasn't very long ago that scoring an e-ink-screened Kindle e-reader for $169 was major news. Now, for the same price, you can get a … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Asus struck a high note when it introduced the one-of-a-kind Transformer Prime last year, but that device was only the beginning.

Today at Mobile World Congress, Asus finally released its long-awaited Padfone. Though the device first made an appearance last May in a promotional video, sightings of the actual device have been rare. And after skipping an official unveiling at CES last month, speculation mounted that Asus would use Barcelona as the stage instead.

At its most basic level, the Padfone is a candy bar Android smartphone with high-end, though hardly revolutionary, specs. You'll find a 4.3-inch … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--If you, like me, are still trying to figure out what the Samsung Galaxy Note with its S-Pen stylus is really for, then the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet is refreshingly simple as a large slate with a clear purpose.

Leaked before its official announcement at Mobile World Congress, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has the potential to offer a true tablet experience that goes beyond the usual.

That throwback S-Pen stylus has finally found a calling, thanks to improved "pen" hardware and apps that, at least in my demo, seemed carefully considered (I'll know … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--There are no secrets with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, the successor to the original 7-inch tablet family that Samsung unveiled last year. This Mobile World Congress brings not only a 7-inch version of the Tab 2, but an update to today's 10.1-inch model as well.

Both tablet sizes will feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a 1GHz dual-core processor, and two cameras, in addition to the usual scoop of Samsung's apps and hubs. While 3G-capable, there will also be Wi-Fi-only versions.

Samsung will launch the Galaxy Tab 2 series in March, beginning with the … Read more

Over the last month, CNET has written a lot about an upcoming trade show called Mobile World Congress. And over the next week, we'll be writing even more about it.

If you've never heard of the event before, I don't blame you. Indeed, Mobile World Congress doesn't have the same name recognition that CES commands in the United States, but for the wireless world, it's almost as big and just as significant. Each February, folks from all corners of the industry and around the world meet in Barcelona, Spain, to make deals, demonstrate the latest technologies, and show off the latest and greatest phones and tablets.

This will be my fifth year at the show, which begins Monday in Catalonia's Gaudi-obsessed capital city. Though a possible transit strike threatens to make getting around a little difficult, there's guaranteed to be a (metric) ton of new devices, from the very fancy to the strictly functional. It will be a massive amount to cover, but CNET will have a large team on the ground, including editors Jessica Dolcourt, Roger Cheng, Maggie Reardon, and Stephen Shankland. And thanks to CNET TV producers Jamie Yee and Mark Licea, the new handsets will get their star turns on video.

Android avalanche So what exactly will we see?… Read more