Age of Geeks: Major mobile motions

Columns March 5, 2014

Within the first few days of the Mobile World Congress, there has already been a long list of launches of anticipated releases and other exciting announcements, which include the launch event of Samsung’s flagship phone for this year: the Galaxy S5.

Sony also unveiled their flagship phone, Xperia Z2, whose predecessor saw a considerable amount of success last year.

Both of these phones have 1080p displays, Snapdragon 801 processors, and high-resolution cameras, but that’s about it as far as similarities go. All the major carriers in Canada have already announced the arrival of Galaxy S5 in the line-ups, sometime in April. But, Z2 is yet to be confirmed (if it’s even coming to Canada, given how Z1 came here: very late and exclusively to one major carrier).

As far as new features go, they are both now waterproof, dust resistant, and IP67 certified. Galaxy S5 sports a 16 MP camera with auto focus and Z2 has a 20 MP sensor. Galaxy S5 also has an iPhone-like biometric fingerprint scanner and real-time heart-rate monitor.

One significant improvement is that both phones can now record 4k (ultra HD) videos.

Another major announcement during Mobile World Congress is Blackberry adding Z3 and Q20 to their line-up of smartphones. Both these phones, and the S5, will be hitting the stores in the spring.

Nokia unveiled their first Android line-up, as well. They released their X family of smartphones, which run on a “forked” version of Android, which looks like a mix of Windows’ phone OS and Android’s OS. Time will tell what comes of this experiment. But Nokia considering Android is a big move. The stability of Nokia phones and the awesomeness of Android: can it revive the diminishing Nokia? What do you think?