Mobile World Congress 2012 Preview

The largest gathering of geeks ever (ComicCon, E3 and Mark Zuckerberg's house parties not withstanding) is about to take place with the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. From the 27th of February through to the 1st of March, smartphone aficionados everywhere will congregate at the mobile world's largest trade show event in order to get a glimpse at industry's latest offers. Many of these we have of course seen through various leaks courtesy of our old pal the internet and others are expected simply through educated guesses made from an evolutionary standpoint. Here's a run down of what to anticipate from some of the major players in the game.

No Galaxy S3. Cue sad face emoticon. I'm afraid that this much is certain. Sammy have indeed decided not to hold a press conference at MWC this year, a major blow for fans of it's flagship Galaxy S2 device which wowed the world last year. Samsung have said that they will still be introducing new devices but I think we can all agree that this is of little consolation. 

With the Taiwanese giants finally realising that less is indeed more, their 2012 mobile strategy is focused on concentrating on high-end devices instead of cluttering the market with a arbitrary release after arbitrary release, each barely different than it's predecessor with a name twice as daft.

Undoubtedly the most exciting of the expected HTC line-up is the HTC Endeavour. This bad boy is rumoured to be a quad-core Tegra 3 device sporting a 4.7 inch display, 4G LTE connectivity, 1GB of RAM, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 and an incredible 312 ppi display. Now that's a spicy meatball!

Another noteworthy addition is the HTC Quattro tablet, another quad core device sporting a 10.1inch 1280x768 display, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. There are also rumours regarding devices thus far known as the HTC Edge, the HTC Zeta, the HTC Ville and the HTC Primo however there hasn't been much in the way of substance regarding these offerings so I guess we'll just have to wait until the show.

Having already demoed the Lumia 900 at CES it is unclear what Finnish Manufacturer Nokia intend to bring to MWC. It's expected we'll see another Windows Phone device of some sort and I've even heard tell of a tablet in the works though I very much doubt we'd see it at the show. There is also news of Nokia's Asha series, a slew of mid-range, affordable Windows Phone devices set to be unveiled.

LG have indeed promised to showcase a range of revolutionary smartphones for 2012. We're already anticipating the LG Miracle, a rumoured Windows Phone handset and leaks have revealed the LG Optimus 3D 2, successor to the Optimus 3D (Thrill 4G) however we're unsure if this is likely to be shown off at the event. There is of course also the LG P880 which is rumoured to sport the LG X3 quad core processor and 4.7inch a 720p HD screen. This could be one to watch.

There really isn’t much worth commenting on with Japanese tech powerhouse Sony. We expect to see more of their Xperia line, with the Xperia Ion and the Xperia S and likely a couple of other phones with random alphabet titles such as the Xperia P and the Xperia U. The worrying thing is that these phones are failing to really excite brining Sony's woeful presence in the mobile space into full view. Here's hoping that the end of their collaboration with long time partner Ericsson spells a bright new era for the long established tech company. Only time will tell.

Little is expected from struggling Canadian tech company RIM at MWC however what we do expect to see is a little more info regarding the Blackberry 10 OS and maybe even confirmation of the Playbook OS 2.0.

Other events worth mentioning are that of Microsoft, who we expect will demo the much anticipated Windows 8 OS and Nvidia who are expected to showcase their quad core Tegra 3 processor in a mobile device.

Stay tuned to The Phone Groupie for more Mobile World Congress 2012 info as it unfurls.