A look at the Chinese booths at Mobile World Congress (pictures)

Companies from China and Taiwan have a big presence at this year's trade show. Here's a quick look of what we found after walking the halls.

Aloysius Low

Feb. 27, 2014 11:28 a.m. PT

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Konka Mobile

Based in Shenzhen, China, Konka Mobile isn't widely distributed around the world, but if you live in India, you've probably heard of this brand.

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Computex at Mobile World Congress?

The annual electronics expo that takes place every June in Taiwan has a presence here at MWC, but mostly to show off winners of its design awards.

Hey look, it's a Galaxy Note -- oh, nevermind

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Hey look, it's a Galaxy Note -- oh, nevermind

This Shenzhen-based company has a small booth, but my eyes were on what appears to be a blatant rip-off of a well-known Korean smartphone.

Gionee shows off its sexy 5.5mm Android smartphone

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Gionee shows off its sexy 5.5mm Android smartphone

I didn't peg Gionee to be a Chinese brand at first, but well, that problem was solved quickly enough when I started talking to the staff there. Then I learned about the pretty awesome Gionee Elife S5.5. You should check out my hands-on here.

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Oppo's first appearance at MWC

Oppo's booth was tucked neatly behind HTC's, and I walked in circles around the exhibition hall before finding it. The company has its excellent Oppo N1 on display, and you can also read the review here.

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Look, more MediaTek handsets

The sudden increase in octa-core handset announcements is due to Taiwan semiconductor company MediaTek and its products offering a cheaper alternative to Qualcomm's chipsets. If your low- to midrange phone isn't running Qualcomm, it's likely to be on MediaTek's solution.

A special section for Chinese manufacturers

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A special section for Chinese manufacturers

Not every company is rolling in cash, so to get to MWC, a government grant is usually needed. This results in a pavilion just for Chinese companies. You'll also find the same is true for other countries such as Korea and Japan.

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Not the Lenovo phone you're looking for

At first, I walked past this booth thinking that this was a Lenovo phone booth -- Lenovo sells its handsets in China with the LePhone brand. But upon close inspection, it's actually another Shenzhen-based company that uses the Lephone branding (without the capital P). You can see many potential distributors and customers checking out this OEM's products.

Askey from Taiwan makes a rugged enterprise handset

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Askey from Taiwan makes a rugged enterprise handset

Taiwanese company Askey mainly specializes in telecommunication equipment, but the company did have a rugged enterprise handset that's powered by Android on display. The TN450A1 is a dual-core device that's powered by Android 4.2 with LTE connectivity.

Coship, the phone with a dual OS that wasn't on display

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Aloysius Low/CNET

Coship, the phone with a dual OS that wasn't on display

Coship apparently has a handset that runs an OS called 960 as well as Android. Unfortunately, the staff had no demo phone to show -- everything was running on Android -- and my attempts at asking for more information were pretty much brushed off.

Considering that the company had plastered its booths with signs about being a dual OS leader, it's pretty odd not to see any of its handsets actually having that feature. When walking past the booth again today, I noticed a picture panel of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and likely the company's founder. I shook my head and walked on.