Google announced at the Mobile Money: Delivering Innovative Mobile Payment Services panel during Mobile World Congress that Sprint will introduce “at least 10 additional phones” with Google Wallet support in 2012, Fierce Mobile Content reported on Thursday. The Samsung Nexus S 4G is the only smartphone currently offered by the carrier that supports Google’s NFC mobile payment system. Both the Galaxy Nexus and the LG Viper will launch with Wallet support later this year, however, and Osama B...

This year’s Mobile World Congress is now behind us. And it was quite a show. Android phones got a bump to four cores, camera phones got a bump to 41 megapixels, and reporters and bloggers were run ragged as the wireless industry gave us a glimpse at the stars of their respective portfolios for the first half of 2012. The highlight of the show for us was definitely Microsoft taking the wraps off its Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and our favorite smartphones introduced at the show were HTC’s ultra-sl...

Today is the day you can finally reach out and touch Windows 8. Well, the vast majority of you won’t be able to physically touch it — Windows 8 tablets aren’t yet in the market, but you’re free to download the Consumer Preview on your PC. We spent a bunch of time with a reference version tablet device and were impressed with what we saw — plus this is only the beginning. The download comes in around 3GB and if you don’t feel like jumping on your neighbor’s super speedy unsecu...

The term “entry-level” immediately reduces the appeal of smartphones in markets like the U.S. these days, as flagship phones are typically far more exciting and innovative. Still, it’s notable when a manufacturer goes to some length to differentiate an entry-level line of smartphones, and LG has done just that with its new L series. The L3, L5 and L7 are a new family of devices targeted at budget-conscious consumers that still want a solid Android experience. The L3 has a tiny 3.2-inch scree...

You would think that, given the impressive specs of its new CloudMobile smartphone, Acer would want to place this thing front and center at Mobile World Congress. Think again. For some reason, the company decided to hide its new flagship model within the Google booth. Location aside, the handset’s specs are nothing to scoff at. A 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon chip powers this monster, which sports a 4.3-inch 1,280 x 800-pixel HD screen with a truly incredible range viewing angles, and a really well-engine...

These three new devices announced by Samsung at Mobile World Congress are each intended to occupy different spaces in the mobile market. The Galaxy Mini 2 is a diminutive little smartphone with pretty unimpressive specs, but it is aimed at the entry-level crowd where it may fare well. The 3.27-inch small handset sports a single-core 800mhz processor, Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread with TouchWiz, a 3.2 megapixel camera and a positively terrible HVGA display. It feels odd to use the word “terrible” whe...

Samsung has a number of new devices on hand at this year’s Mobile World Congress, and one of them was the Galaxy S Blaze 4G set to launch on T-Mobile later this year. We got a chance to check out the Blaze 4G, and we left relatively unimpressed. To be fair, the Blaze is a lightning-fast smartphone on par with a number of recent additions to Samsung’s Galaxy line, but it’s hard to get excited over a phone that is only a modest upgrade compared to T-Mobile’s current Galaxy S II. The Blaz...

It may seem odd that Microsoft is hosting a media event at the annual Mobile World Congress trade show this year that will focus on its upcoming desktop operating system, but it couldn’t be more appropriate: Windows 8 is a complete acknowledgement from Microsoft that the future is mobile. Mobile doesn’t have to mean limited, however, and the Redmond-based technology giant’s next-generation OS is its first attempt to marry a touch-focused mobile platform with the robust desktop operating syst...

To say that the past 12 months have been a bit rocky for RIM and the Blackberry eco-system in general would be grossly understating the obvious. The once great manufacturer has seen record capitol losses and watched its market share slide at an increasing rate. One of several reasons for the slip has been a lack of developers attention for the BlackBerry platform, especially relative to competitors such as iOS and Android. The Blackberry Playbook, RIM’s attempt at entering the tablet world, has flounder...

Samsung on Monday admitted that it has failed to gain ground in the tablet market while Apple’s iPad continues to proliferate at an increasing pace. Speaking with reporters at Mobile World Congress, a Samsung product strategy executive stated plainly that Samsung has a lot of work to do if it hopes to gain ground with its tablet portfolio. “Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market,” Samsung’s Hankil Yoon said, according to CNET. Read on for more. (more…)

Huawei is making quite a splash at this year’s Mobile World Congress. The company announced one quad-core handset — the Ascend D quad, which is built on the company’s proprietary in-house processor platform — in addition to a dual-core TI OMAP-based device, the Ascend D1. We got a chance to play with both models and, especially in the case of the D quad, we left quite impressed. These things move fast. Really fast. What’s more, these handsets mark Huawei’s entry into the chip makin...

Intel on Monday detailed a number new products and partnerships during the company’s Mobile World Congress press event. “We are very pleased to add new, important customers and capabilities to our phone offerings today. We remain focused on delivering exciting new features and outstanding performance to smartphone customers around the world.” said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. UK service provider Orange will launch an Atom-powered smartphone based on the Z2460 reference design. The device will ...

ViewSonic is doing its best to make splash here at Mobile World Congress with a number of tablet-related announcements. In addition to specific hardware launches, the company has also made some significant inroads with running Windows 7 Pro on its slates, mainly as proof of concept in anticipation of the upcoming Windows 8 launch. We liked a lot of what we saw but the P100, running both Android 2.3 and Windows 7 (theoretically upgradeable to both Ice Cream Sandwich and Windows 8) was the undisputed star of th...

HTC made no mention of Windows Phone during the company’s Mobile World Congress 2012 press conference on Sunday, instead focusing on its Android-powered “One” smartphones. HTC most certainly has not given up on the emerging platform, however —the vendor’s chief product officer Kouji Kodera has confirmed that the company plans to launch a new Windows Phone once Microsoft releases the “Apollo” operating system update, reports Pocket-Lint. “For Windows Phone we haven&...