Mobile World Congress. It sounds like a trans-galactic pod where interplanetary leaders of the future might meet to decide what areas of the new frontier to invade for having suspected death-rays of mass destruction.
Actually, Mobile World Congress is an event held in a convention centre in Barcelona, Spain, where men in suits (and scruffy journalists like me) get together to chat about new phones. Recently MWC (as most people end up calling it) has also been invaded by swarms of tablets - and this has caused some confusion.
Last year, Samsung was so baffled about what constituted a phone and what constituted a tablet it went home and designed a 5.3-inch phablet. Or tabphone, if you will (you probably won't).
That is to say, Samsung thought there would be a market for a comically large smartphone handset - the sort of thing you need the pockets of a clown to realistically consider. Ridiculous! Or was it?
Samsung's Galaxy Note proved one of two things - either the world's clown population has been drastically underestimated for many years and the red-nose dollar is ripe for exploitation, or people really wanted phones with massive screens. And why not? Many people spend hours each day playing games, browsing the web or watching videos on their smartphones. A big screen that you can (just) fit in your pocket is a surely a good thing to have, no?
Yes, according to Samsung's arch-rival LG, which is expected to launch a five-inch smartphone called the Vu at Mobile World Congress this week. And who can say who will follow? The newly minted Sony Mobile Communications (apparently less of a mouthful than Sony Ericsson) may decide to celebrate its rebranding with a six-inch phone. Motorola, now under the wing of Google, might add a microphone to its 8.2-inch Xoom 2 Media Edition and start calling it a smartphone. If all the manufacturers had a natter and drew straws to see who'd produce which size gadgets, we'd probably be able to pick our phones sized to the millimetre.
I once (half-jokingly) suggested that in future we'd have a panoply of different-sized gadgets hanging in our hallways, choosing them as we left the house as you might a pair of shoes for the occasion, weather or expected terrain. Now it seems my idea is coming true. Let's just hope I'm wrong about that space pod full of politicians, eh?
© 7Days 2012
