The annual MobileCon in San Diego is held on a smaller scale than both the Consumer Electronic Show and the Mobile World Conference, but it did see its own share of new mobile devices. Though mobile devices did stand out during the first day of the event, there was plenty of news going around about carriers as well. The companies that were primarily featured were Nokia and Samsung, while the major carriers were T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, and most of them had new devices to unveil.
T-Mobile showed off its first Windows Phone 8 handset, the Lumia 810. This phone is going to be available in the next few weeks and comes with a 4.3” ClearBlack OLED touchscreen and an 8 megapixel camera. The phone also has replaceable back panels to enable wireless charging through charging mats and pillows. The carrier also released the LG Optimus G, though it wasn’t announced at MobileCon. This phone features 4G LTE connectivity and runs Android 4.1 JellyBean. It comes with a 4.7” HD-IPS LCD Gorilla Glass 2 touchscreen and a 13 megapixel camera. Powering the device is a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor. In addition to the phones, T-
Mobile also unveiled Moga, a Bluetooth game controller developed by PowerA.
Sprint also showed off a couple of devices including mobile phones and tablets. The carrier revealed the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, which was originally launched as a WiFi only device. It also showed off a 4G LTE USB hotspot stick. Coming to the phone, Sprint announced the LG Mach, which is a 4G LTE QWERTY-toting smartphone from LG and is similar to the Optimus G in several respects except that it has a slide out keyboard. Sprint is currently the only carrier which regularly brings out competent QWERTY slider based smartphones these days, and the LG Mach seems to be another step in the right direction for those who prefer physical keyboards
over touchscreen keyboards.
AT&T and Verizon, the two largest carriers in the United States, didn’t show any new mobile phones but AT&T revealed its first LTE enabled hotspot called the MiFi Liberate, which features an 11 hour runtime along with a touchscreen interface. Verizon mainly promoted its achievements in the 4G area and said that it had achieved its goal of covering over 400 markets with the network. Verizon supposedly has plans to shift even voice communication to the LTE network by the end of 2013.
