By Robert Capistrano
BARCELONA, Spain (Eagle News) — “Mobile is Everything” and the Mobile World Congress 2016 has everything you could ever imagine you would want on full display.
Here are three of the coolest gadgets I found at the largest gathering of mobile phone companies from all over the world:
Samsung Galaxy S7
Samsung continues to up its efforts to over take the mobile world with the latest weapon ofit’s arsenal, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. Considering the S6 was launched less than a year ago, so what’s new with the S7 line?
The Galaxy S7 has a flat 5.1inch screen with a curved glass back, adding to the ergonomics. It looks really sleek and cool. The larger Galaxy S7 Edge has a 5.5 inch screen that is curved at the edges making it one of the most narrow ‘phablets’ on the market. We love that.
The S7s continue the waterproofing and expandable storage with a microSD card slot. But possibly the most important improvement is that they have larger batteries, hopefully ending the by mid-day hunt for a power supply. Sorry power bank makers.
The S7s run on the latest version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, have 4GB of Ram for better multitasking and 30% more powerful processors with “thermal spreader” water-cooling technology to avoid the phones overheating. Look out Cupertino.
Huawei Mate Book
While everyone crowded the exhibits of the big boys like Samsung, Sony, HTC and LG, I luckily stumbled upon the Huawei Mate Book.
This is my personal favorite. It has everything a business person would need and more from a hybrid tablet/laptop with a detachable keyboard. I wont get technical with this one. It’s light and sleek, nicely fitting into any briefcase and easily hand carried. It has cool accessories: A stylus, USB and HTML port accessories also in a cool leather pouch.
There are plenty of useful features with the MateBook, including a fingerprint sensor and two bundled adapters. Huawei will also be selling an optional multi-port USB-C adapter so you can charge and use accessories at the same time.
This gadget makes any user especially for business people feel like a boy scout, ‘always prepared’ for any situation.
HTC Vive
Viritual Reality (VR) has been predicated to be a big mobile feature that consumers can look forward to in the near future. The oracle himself, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO declared this about VR: “Pretty soon, we’re going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes, as if we’re there in person.”
HTC made a splash at the event with the debut of it’s Vive.Here are the tempting deets about HTC’s virtual reality headset. The Vive will be available for pre-order starting February 29th before it hits the shelves in early April. It’ll cost a whopping $799. Ouch. Not so tempting after all. But wait, there’s more.
You get more accessories for your money. The HTC Vive bundle comes with two controllers, the Lighthouse base stations, some ear buds plus copies of the games Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives and Fantastic Contraption. You’ll need to provide a solid PC that will be able to run the experiences.
According to PC World Magazine, “The HTC Vive has a reputation for being one of the most immersive VR solutions coming to market, and it certainly lives up to it.”
The consumer edition of Vive is also a good old phone. It let’s you stay connected to the real world, not having to leave the virtual world. The Vive Phone Services can combine both realities without losing touch of either. By allowing you to receive and answer incoming calls, get text messages and send quick replies, it just takes it all to another level.
Cool stuff. Now it’s time to start saving up.