An overview on all new smartphones and tablets with our personal considerations.
CES 2012 is officially going to open this morning in Las Vegas, but as usual all big names have already held their presentation or keynote in the previous day, and all the important news have already been unveiled. True that CES is normally a US focused event, but there’s always something interesting also for the global markets. Last year we saw the beautiful Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and the LG Optimus 2X, first dual-core smartphone; what has been launched at this edition? Keep reading for our thoughts on the CES 2012 news.
The first on stage is Acer, that after the disappointing launch of its Iconia A200 tablet – a refreshed version of the Iconia A500 – unveils the new 10.1-inch Acer Iconia A700 with Ice CreamSandwich, Tegra 3 proccessor and full HD display resolution (1920×1200). While we’ve never been fans of Acer products, this one looks promising and we look forward to trying it.
Lenovo has also launched an Ice Cream Sandwich tablet, the Lenovo IdeaTab S2, which is “simply” a dual-core slate with a keyboard dock very similar to Asus’ one. We doubt we will ever see it in Europe though.
Carriers, carriers, carriers (yawn!)…
Sprint announces its own version of the Galaxy Nexus, together with an insignificant LG smartphone – the LG Viper, for those who really want to know.
Speaking of insignificant LG smartphones, Verizon announces the LG Spectrum which at least has a 720p display but still runs Gingerbread (and knowing LG won’t probably receive ICS before next Christmas!), plus two new versions of the Motorola Droid RAZR: the Droid RAZR MAXX is slightly thicker to host a larger battery and has twice the memory of its brother, and the Droid 4 is even thicker to host a 5 lines physical QWERTY keyboard but with a smaller 4-inch display.
If we haven’t heard much about T-Mobile after the failed acquisition, it’s AT&T that presents most news, with a full range of LTE devices and a focus on pushing Windows Phones. In fact, besides the LTE versions of Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy S II (here called Skyrocket HD) and a couple of entry-level Android smartphones like the Pantech Burst, AT&T unveils the interesting Sony Xperia Ion with 4.6-inch 720p display, 12Mpx camera, NFC and LTE. Speaking of LTE Windows Phones, the operator launches a powerful HTC Titan II and a disappointing Nokia Lumia 900 (more later).
Asus keeps dominating the Android tablets market: the company starts releasing the Ice Cream Sandwich update for its Transformer Prime right today, and announces the cheaper 7-inch eeePad MeMO with Tegra 3 processor and 1280×800 display.
Chinese manufacturer Huawei already mentioned their ambitious plans for 2012 in the smartphone industry, and unveils today’s thinnest smartphone with the Huawei Ascend P1 S: 1.5GHz dual-core OMAP 4 processor, 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 1GB RAM, 8Mpx rear-camera with 1080p video capture and 1.3Mpx front-camera with 720p video capabilities. There’s also a second version, the Huawei Ascend P1, which is slightly thicker to pack a larger battery. Both smartphones will be available to us at the Mobile World Congress, and we really look forward to trying them!
We already mentioned the Sony Xperia Ion with AT&T, but the Japanese company has also introduced a couple of smartphones for Japan (Xperia NX e Xperia Acro HD) and their new flagship device: the Sony Xperia S, previously known as Nozomi, with its good look and strong build. With a 4.3-inch 720p display, 12Mpx camera, 1.5GHz dual-core processor and NFC, the Xperia S is definitely one of the most interesting devices we have seen so far at CES!
Let’s go back to the LTE Windows Phones announced by AT&T. The HTC Titan II is not just the LTE version of the HTC Titan we already know, but it also adds a massive 16Mpx camera (remember the leak from last April?) with all goodies we met on the latest HTC cameras: f/2.2 aperture, 28mm wide-angle, fast burst, 3D panorama shot and more. Definitely an interesting phone, even though we won’t see it in the old continent.
On the other hand we have the Nokia Lumia 900 which, excepted for the 4.3-inch ClearBlack display, is basically the same smartphone as the Lumia 800 with the addition of the LTE radio. This is, at least for us, pretty disappointing considering the higher expectations we had about the third Nokia Windows Phone. We also wonder why an AT&T customer who chooses to buy a Windows Phone may want to prefer the Lumia over the Titan II: no doubts that Nokia looks good, but feature-wise the HTC is far superior.
What do you think about our considerations? What are your impressions about this year’s CES? Let us know in the comments.