Mozilla and Samsung Electronics made a splash with their separate Web-based mobile operating systems at the opening of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this week, but what other features and technology will users likely see in mobile devices this spring?
More varied screen sizes – Manufacturers it seems just can’t get a handle on just how big a mobile device’s screen should be. That may be a good thing for consumers because the market will be flooded with smart phones and tablets of varying sizes to suit each users, taste, needs and finger size.
For instances, there’s Samsung Galaxy Note 8, with its 8-inch screen and stylus device. The Grand Memo from ZTE has a 5.7 inch screen. It’s one of those units known as phablets – a growing category that features devices that are somewhere between a phone and tablet.
Then, there’s the Medias from NEC, a smart phone comes with two 4.3-inch screens that. A hinge separates the screens and allows the device to be folded in the middle.
HD Voice – Investment in High Definition Voice is poised to accelerate across the globe this year. A survey by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association indicates that 160 products that support HD voice have been introduced to the market this year. That is about a 120 per cent growth from a year ago.
HD Voice offers vastly improved sound quality thanks to Adaptive Multi-Rate –Wideband technology, a speech compression algorithm that doubles the range of voice frequencies being transmitted by devices.
Cheaper LTE smart phones – Look out for smart phones that cost around $200 wholesale by the end of 2013. As developments in 4G technology continue to come out, the pressure on manufacturers to roll out lower-priced LTE-capable phones mount.
Samsung, LG Electronics and Huawei Technologies will be competing in this space.
Enterprise-ready features – With more and more corporations arming their employees with tablets and smart phones or allowing workers to bring in their own devices to the corporate network, manufacturers are losing no time developing features and services that cater to the bring-your-own-device trend.
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Citrix Systems also launched its XenMobile MDM at the Mobile World Congress. The mobile device management offering is based on technology the company got with the acquisition of mobile device management firm, Zenprise.
