Mobile World Congress Day 3: What you missed
It's the third day of Mobile World Congress. The flood of new handsets has slowed, but that gave us lots of time to handle this fresh crop of smartphone hardware.
BARCELONA, Spain--The first and second days of Mobile World Congress certainly flew by in a whirlwind of smartphone product announcements.
While the torrent of press conferences and gadget news abated a bit, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt notably took the stage at MWC. Schmidt rallied the Android troops touting the exponential growth of the mobile OS while calling for less censorship and increased access to high-tech services saying, "Technology is a leveler. The weak will be made strong, and those with nothing will have something."
The less fever-pitch news cycle also gave the crack team of CNET reporters and editors on site a chance to do what they love best--spend quality time with cutting-edge gadgets. We have lots of pictures and videos straight out of Barcelona to share.
Samsung
Jessica Dolcourt got her hands on the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 while managing to spare a few moments to check out the Samsung Galaxy S II Blaze. The Blaze was announced at CES in January and is expected to land on T-Mobile's U.S. network this spring. The fact that it was on display in Barcelona highlights further that MWC is becoming a truly global event.
ZTE
ZTE showed off two new devices too, the ZTE Orbit running Windows Phone and ZTE Era, a quad-core powerhouse with Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Jessica was able to nab hands-on videos of these phones as well.
Nokia and HTC
Despite all the buzz about quad-core mobile processing, phone makers also showcased more modestly equipped handsets. Kent German took both the Nokia Asha 302 that runs Symbian and Nokia Lumia 610 Windows Phone Tango device for a spin. Nokia targets the Asha line at developing markets and first-time mobile phone buyers. Jessica Dolcourt managed to track down the HTC One V, a spitting image of the venerable HTC Legend but with Android Ice Cream Sandwich and Beats audio.