Affordable smartphones, new OS, mobile payment and cloud services were seen during the first day of this year’s Mobile World Congress
The annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has officially begun. The event is known as one of the biggest exhibition of new smartphones, tablet and other mobile devices. A number of companies already started unveiling some of their latest products that will soon hit the stores. For now, day one is dominated by a large price variety in the smartphone sector, as well as by Mozilla’s mobile operating system.
Affordable Phones
The newest trend at the show is affordable mobile phones. Even before the start of the Mobile World Congress , many of the companies, that were signed up to participate, stated that they will offer cheaper and yet smart phones. This is mainly due to the necessity to make these devices more affordable for regions in South America, Asia and Africa. There the demand on low-end electronic devices is currently increasing.
The first manufacturer which showcased cheaper smartphones was Nokia. The Finish tech company introduced Lumia 520 which will be sold for only $183. The price of the device is a few times lower than Apple’s iPhone. According to Nokia, their new device will offer consumers a top-quality performance despite its affordable price. The company also unveiled the high-end Lumia 720, as well as cheaper devices like Nokia 301 and Nokia 105.
New Mobile Payment System
The popularity of mobile devices results in an increasing number of mobile payments. MasterCard used this years’ World Mobile Congress to show a new digital payment system. It bears the name MasterPass and it will allow consumers to use different mobile gadgets to pay for products. The system will keep users’ banking data in a protected cloud on the web.
New Mobile Operating System
A number of manufacturers introduced smartphones that run on a new operating system produced by Mozilla – Firefox OS. Among them were Alcatel. The company unveiled the low-end Alcatel One Touch Fire with Firefox OS. In addition, it presented a high-cost Android phone called Alcatel One Touch Idol X.
ZTE also showed off a Firefox OS smartphone. ZTE One is does not boost with impressive specs and like One Touch Fire it is expected to be rather affordable. The company also introduced a 4G cloud radio solution. It will try to assist mobile operators in solving important issues in the process of 4G adaptation from LTE, 2G and 3G networks.
In addition, Mozilla is preparing to launch mobile phones together with other companies like LG and Huawei. These devices are said to run on Snapdragon processors.
The 2013 Mobile World Congress takes place in Barcelona, Spain from February 25 to February 28.
