Sony Xperia P and Xperia U hands-on videos and images from MWC 2012

The newly sans Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications held a press event yesterday on the eve of Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona, and presented two new Xperia-branded Android smartphones, the Xperia P and Xperia U. We've already brought you all the official details, and now it's time for the complimentary hands-on post.

The Xperia P and Xperia U, when looked at from over a metre or so, would be virtually indistinguishable from each other (and from the higher-end and previously announced Xperia S) if it wasn't for the slight difference in screen size. Sony sure has put unifying design into all of its new devices. Unifying, recognizable, and quite different from anything else currently on the market. So… that's good, right?

Well… yes and no. It's interesting that Sony brought the blocky corners to the rest of the world (meaning outside Japan – where many smartphones have the same corner design or similar), so I appreciate it going for recognizability. And while that will make you instantly say “hey, that's a Sony” the problem is that you'll never know which Sony. Not for sure, anyway.

And the branding doesn't help either. These three smartphones, which are very similar in appearance, are differentiated in name just by one letter. True, Sony isn't the only company doing this (see HTC, Huawei, and to some extent Samsung which started the whole company brand+smartphone brand+letter madness with the Galaxy S). Yet Sony's devices are the ones which most closely resemble each other. So that could've been done better.

The next problem here is that spec-wise, both the Xperia P and Xperia U are okay phones. Okay, but not ‘wow', if you know what I mean. That has to come with the price point, yet Sony keep insisting that synergies within the group will make its phones stand out. That, in fact, was the exact thing they said back in 2001 when Sony Ericsson was formed – that Sony will step in with its know-how in electronics and bring integrated experiences.

Now we hear the same tune. But this time, because the Ericsson brand is gone – this time it will actually happen. In case you're wondering, this is the same company that Sony Ericsson was a month ago. The same people are working there. It just changed its name because Sony acquired Ericsson's stake in the joint venture, that's all.

Sony has also remembered that it has movie and music studios in the group somewhere, and thinks that people will buy Sony smartphones because they come with Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services.

I don't think so. But it is in a way refreshing to see a company focused less on raw specs and more on user experience. That said, Sony is focused on that just theoretically for now – we'll have to wait and see if they actually deliver something different in this regard.

And the last issue I have with the Xperia P and Xperia U is that they run Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was announced in October. HTC is launching devices running ICS in April. So why can't Sony do that too? The new Xperias will ship in “mid-Q2″, so presumably in May. But they'll ship with Gingerbread.

Sure, an update to ICS is promised, but didn't Sony learn anything from the Xperia X10 debacle of yesteryear? Or maybe that was Sony Ericsson that learnt that, and Sony still hasn't. We'll see.

The Sony Xperia P, with its unibody design and 4-inch screen, is the middle-market offering among the three new Xperias. Here are some hands-on pictures:

And here's a hands-on video showing it in action:

The Sony Xperia U is the entry-level device in the range, and thus should be the most affordable. It comes with some interesting gimmicks too, such as interchangeable colored bottom tips, and the ability to set a specific notification light color. Here's the Xperia U in all its glory:

And here it is on video:

More pictures of the Sony Xperia P and Xperia U are right below this paragraph in the dedicated gallery. Enjoy!

Nokia 808 PureView Comes with 41-Megapixel Camera

Nokia pulled out a surprise during its recent press conference as it introduced a smartphone equipped with a 41-megapixel camera. Yes, 41 megapixels! Whether or not you are a believer of the megapixel myth, cameras such as this in a small mobile device certain catches our attention. What is even more shocking is that the Nokia 808 PureView runs on Symbian Belle OS. Windows Phone gets no love here. The 808 PureView features a 1.3GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4-inch AMOLED display, and a curved Gorilla Glass for a scratch-proof screen. The camera, meanwhile, comes equipped with Carl Zeiss lens and can record videos in 1080p quality. Despite the 41-megapixel sensor, the camera can only capture images up to 38 megapixels, but we cannot imaging people wanting to store photos that large. Nevertheless, the large-megapixel sensor would enable to device to zoom up to 3x without sacrificing the quality. The Nokia PureView 808 will hit Europe in the second quarter of 2012 for about 450 euros (US$603.45). No official announcement yet on whether this will land North American shores.

Intel's Xolo X900 by Lava hands-on

Intel's Medfield-based Android smartphones have been buzzed about for sometime now, but until this past CES, we hadn't actually seen one of these unicorns en vivo. No longer, as the chip manufacturer outed a trio of those very handsets today at its MWC event. Of particular note is the Xolo by Lava, a 4.03-inch, single-core unit running a mostly stock build of Gingerbread and destined for the Indian market. We spent time getting to know the device, so follow on past the break as we parse through its finer qualities. Before you even notice the Xolo's design, your eyes (should you be an Android purist) will be immediately struck by the stock Android 2.3 UI. Indeed, in this cluttered age of OEM skins, we're clearly unused to seeing the OS ushered in by the Nexus S. It's a refreshing change of step and one we heavily clamor for. Still, we understand that the mobile industry needs to keep pushing things forward and to Intel's credit, the Xolo has been running ICS just fine - it's actually up to the OEMs to push that update when they're ready.Belying its angular design is the device's surprising lightness and that's in part to the mix of materials at use. The back of the phone is a smooth, matte plastic case that peels away to reveal the 1,460mAh battery and microSD slot - here loaded up with a 2GB card. That amount of juice may not seem like much, but according to the company's claims, it's rated to last up to 14 days on standby, six hours with continuous 1080p video viewing and eighth ours for talk. Wondering how the chipmaker engineered that feat? Thanks to a proprietary power management system that's integrated into the microprocessors, the phone is able to step down the use of its charge, essentially isolating processes and even going so far as entering a sleep state when the screen is powered off.Let's get back to the build, though. On the front face, there's a chrome trim bordering the 1024 x 600 LCD display and a 3 megapixel camera residing up top, while four capacitive keys stretch across the base. A sleek power button is located up top, followed by a dedicated camera key (no double detente, here) sits on the lower right with volume controls occupying the opposite side. There's also ports for HDMI out and covered micro SIM slot along the edge. Around back, you'll find the usual Intel Inside logo reassuring consumers and accompanied by an 8 megapixel shooter with single LED flash above.In regard to customizations, one area where Intel's really made some interesting tweaks to an otherwise plain affair is the camera app, itself. Using the company's burst shot mode, a series of ten successive pics can be snapped automatically at 15fps. Video playback is also refreshingly instantaneous, as a sample we watched not only loaded briskly, but required minimal buffer time when jumping back and forth to different timestamps.The Medfield Z2460 CPU, clocked at 1.6GHz, is admittedly only single-core, but, regardless, performance continues to keep pace with finger swipes, loading applications fluidly, if not always speedily. For what it's worth, Intel is prepared to offer a higher 2GHz version of the chip, but again, the decision to ship with that onboard lies with the OEMs. You can really see the company's baby work its magic when games, bolstered by the 400MHz GPU, load up on the device. In the snowboarding demo we witnessed, frame rate ranged between 60 to 80fps.As it stands, you'll have to make a trip to India to snag this handset when it launches in Q2 of this year on Aircel and Airtel. In the meantime, let's hope that Intel's along with a willing OEM are cooking something up for us statesiders.Sean Cooper contributed to this post

Samsung Galaxy S III Full Specs “Revealed” – Quad-Core, 1080p Display and Ceramic Body [Rumor]

Okay, I think we know better than to believe another “BGR exclusive” but since I'm a gossip/rumor whore, I'll go ahead and throw it out there, and if you think it stinks, feel free to throw it right back. Seems the Samsung Galaxy S III specs have all but been leaked, spilling out like rainbow vomit onto the floor of the interwebs. The SGSIII will apparently see a simultaneous global launch but for now, let's just jump right into what we're looking at in terms of specs: 1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor 4.8-inch "full HD" 1080p resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio display A 2-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera Ceramic case 4G LTE Android 4.0 To be fair, more than half of this stuff was already a given. 4G LTE? Well, it's not going to launch with yesteryear's radios. Android 4.0? I'd sure hope so. 8MP rear/2MP front facing cameras. Sure. Most interesting is the ceramic body. Not sure exactly what they're getting at their, but maybe it has to do with a ceramic coating and not a phone made of ceramic. A sudden drop and my screen cracking is enough of a worry without having to worry about my whole phone shattering to bits. What really throws me for a loop is the “report” that the device will launch with a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and not Samsung's upcoming new and improved 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Oh, and 1080p display? Is that even possible right now? More than that, how necessary is that? I mean, I'm all for excessive specs. I'll take what I can get, but this sounds more like an Android fanboy's wet dream than real world specs. What do you guys think? Hoop dreams? Or could this really be the spec sheet for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III superphone?

Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G for T-Mobile Hands-on [MWC 2012]

Tucked away inside one of the side events here at Mobile World Congress was T-Mobile's Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G. While the device has already been announced, we haven't had a chance to play with it for ourselves until today. It's a nice little mid-range offering that should be perfect for those who want to ease into the smartphone game. The device is thin and light, and unlike a lot of other mid-range phones (Samsung included) it actually looks very good aesthetically. The device's backplate has a premium-feeling mesh finish which transitions into a nice glossy exterior near the top. Samsung doesn't do anything risky with the design, and it's for that I thank them. As for functional specs, we have a 4 inch Super AMOLED display, a 5 megapixel rear camera which can shoot HD 720p video, a front-facing camera, a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and Android 2.3 with TouchWiz, plus a lot more. For $150 on a two-year contract, it's not the greatest value but with a slight price drop here and there it could be an attractive offering. Look for this one sometime in March. Our hands-on video is above and find some images of the device below. [Note]: The rep we spoke with mentioned the device had a 3.5 inch display and a 1GHz single-core processor. In actuality, the device has a 4 inch Super AMOLED display and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. The discrepancy in the video is due to the lack of a spec sheet at the site of the hands-on. We have corrected the errors in writing.

Nokia announces Asha 202, 203 and 302 at MWC 2012

[MWC 2012] Today at its MWC press event, the company announced the launch of three new Asha phones. For those not in the know, Nokia's Asha devices were introduced at Nokia World last year, as a budget-friendly alternative to smartphones. They are feature phones running on Nokia's Series 40 operating system. Today, Nokia introduced the Asha 202, 203 and 302. The Asha 202 and 203 will be the first Series 40 devices to offer EA games (not to mention, Nokia will be giving away a 75 Euro EA game pack with 40 games for free to customers of either new model. They both features a 2.4″ touchscreen and a traditional keypad, a 2-megapixel camera, music player, FM radio, Nokia Browser, Bluetooth connectivity and SD card slot (up to 32GB). The 202 will also feature Dual SIM Easy Swap technology for those of you who are always swapping SIM cards on the go. They will retail for about 60 Euro and will ship in Q2 2012. The Nokia Asha 302 will be the first Series 40 phone to support Mail for Exchange. It also has a QWERTY keyboard for fast typing (no touchscreen though), a 1GHz processor, 3.5G data speeds, and will be available today for 95 Eruo. No word on whether these phones will be making it over to the US.

Acer CloudMobile hands-on at MWC 2012

Tucked away in the dark corners of the Google booth at Mobile World Congress, amidst several miniature hubs inhabited by all types of various companies, is a stand dedicated to all things Acer. Included as part of the selection was the CloudMobile, the proud owner of a coveted iF Product Design award. So were we that impressed by its trophy-winning feature? Yes and no. It's not tough on the eyes by any stretch of the imagination, especially given its fancy textured back and curvacious construct, but we have a difficult time declaring this to feature the best design of the show, nor is it necessarily much of a ground-breaker. The build quality itself doesn't quite hold a candle to what you'll experience on something like the ceramic-like aluminum treatment used on the HTC One S, but yet doesn't feel like it will smash into a million pieces if we give it the 'ol heave-ho.But perhaps the CloudMobile earned the honors by producing a respectable internal design: it offers a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon chipset and 4.3-inch 720p HD display, for instance, and that panel is absolutely stunning with great viewing angles. We weren't allowed to view any part of the OS beyond the lock and a couple home screens, no doubt due to the model's pre-production firmware, so we'll need to leave our impressions of the UI for another time. From what we can tell, it will definitely be offering a customized skin, though it's unclear to what extent that will shine through in the final production version, still due to come out sometime in Q3.

Nokia 808 PureView video and camera samples emerge

The Nokia 808 PureView's 41MP camera is causing quite a stir at the MWC and we finally get to see its full-sized camera samples. Alongside the four photos are also three full HD 1080p video samples. All of them are really impressive, so let's start. This is what everyone has been waiting for - Nokia 808 PureView's full samples from its 41MP camera. Nokia 808 PureView camera samples Now, to the equally impressive 1080p full HD video samples. They are a month old, so they're definitely taken with pre-release software. They still look stunning, especially the first one, shot at night in low light.

TELUS to Launch New Trade-In Program, LG announces L-style Android Phones & Twitter's App Get Updates

TELUS to Launch New Trade-In Program Most carriers in Canada have some sort of device recycling program in place. The latest was Fido with FidoTRADE, basically mimicking what Best Buy and Future Shop have in their stores. Now TELUS is rolling out their initiative called the TELUS "Trade-In Program". TELUS has partnered with eRecyclingCorps and the premise is similar - new or existing customers can take an old, unwanted, handset or accessory and depending on its condition you'll get a certain dollar amount. MobileSyrup LG announces L-style Android Phones Ahead of MWC LG on Tuesday announced three more Android smartphones ahead of next week's Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain. The "L-style" series will feature the Optimus L3 (3.2-inch), L5 (4-inch) and L7 (4.3-inch), three smartphones for design-conscious consumers. "Design is consistently the top or second most important factor for customers when choosing a mobile phone," president and CEO of LG Mobile Dr. Jong-seok Park said. BGR Twitter's Android and iOS App Get Updates The official Twitter app has just received an update on iOS and Android, bringing new features to both platforms, plus an “optimized” Ice Cream Sandwich experience as seen above. The app is also currently available on Amazon's Appstore for the Kindle Fire now, and the company says it will pop up in the Barnes & Noble Nook Store February 23rd. Engadget Everything You Need to Know About Wireless Spectrum Spectrum is going to be a hot issue in the upcoming year. Freeing up spectrum is a major part of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) National Broadband Plan, and last week Congress passed a law allowing TV stations to auction their spectrum to the highest bidding wireless broadband companies. Mashable

Get fit with your Nokia N9

Been thinking for a long, long time about losing weight, but never really got around to do something about it? Well, if you so happen to have picked up a Nokia N9 recently, here is a tip – you might want to download the free Sports Tracker app to make sure you have concrete information on the details of your performance whenever you break a sweat on purpose, in addition to the Heart Rate Monitor that records how your body is responding to your workout, process that information, and present it to you in a legible and easily understandable manner. You can use it to record different physical activities such as running, walking, cycling, hiking, rowing, and even for rounds of golf.The Heart Rate Monitor for your Nokia N9 will retail at €69.90 a pop, so you might want to pick this puppy up as part of your new training regime. Now the tricky part would be to ensure you have the discipline in seeing your routine through.