If you’ve been keeping track of Tizen or the events taking place at Mobile World Congress, you’ll have noticed Tizen showing off their new mobile operating system on a Samsung-built reference device. Although the OS hasn’t spent that long of time in development, Tizen seems eager to get it out to the public and will be teaming up with France based telecom, Orange, to bring out some Tizen 2.0-ran handsets this year.

As Samsung and Intel are working together on the Tizen OS, it’s obvious Samsung Tizen handsets will make it to the market, but Huawei will also have a shot at the OS. It’s going to be interesting to see if Samsung and Huawei can grab any smartphone space over the currently booming market though, especially with Ubuntu, Firefox OS and BB10 also launching this year, as well as all the other mobile OS’s already in play. Regardless of what happens, this year is going to be the beginning of a very interesting new chapter in the mobile wars.

From what we’ve seen, Tizen doesn’t seem to look amazingly original in its designs, and the OS being showcased at MWC bears a resemblance to both Android and iOS. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Are you interested in the new Tizen 2.0?

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ZTE, Alcatel, LG and even Sony are all taking a great deal of interest in Mozilla’s FireFox OS, and already have a couple of entry-level phonesare  ready to go on sale sporting the new system, but Android powerhouse Samsung isn’t biting.

The low-cost nature of FireFox phones makes them ideal candidates for developing smartphone markets, and that is exactly where Samsung sees it’s own Tizen powered phones. Samsung are investing a lot in to Tizen, and have just announced that they have combined their Bada OS into the platform.

Mozilla’s OS is still in the early days and manufacturers are adopting the OS, but if we were them we would prefer the mighty Samsung as a powerful partner rather than competitor. What do you think of Firefox OS, can it compete in the fierce mobile market? How about Tizen?

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When we think of ZTE, some of you will envision the low-cost Android phones of yesteryear, while the rest of us think about the newer flagship show stoppers such as the ZTE Grand S and Grand Memo. At Mobile World Congress, show goers are seeing another side to ZTE: a Window’s 8 tablet side.

The ZTE V98 is the company’s first Windows 8 slate and it looks like they have done a great job. The design is attractive with a nice chrome strip around the edge, and hardware isn’t bad either with 1.8Ghz Intel Atom CPU and 2GB RAM driving the 10.1-inch display. They’ve even made room for 32GB of memory, and SD card reader and even LTE and GSM network support.

Windows Phone Central have managed to get some hands on time with the ZTE V98 tablet which you can see directly below:

What do you think of ZTE’s first attempt at a Windows tablet? Would you ever consider a tablet built by ZTE?

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Back at CES, Samsung announced an all new version of the Exynos processor called the Exynos 5 Octa. Simply put, the 5 Octa is a 8-core CPU which will be used in mobile devices from phones and tablets to possibly even Chromebooks, but it’s not all as open shut as that.

The Exynos 5 Octa is actually made up of 4 Cortex-A15 cores and 4 Cortex-A7 cores, with the cores switching on an off as and when they are needed. For example opening a web-page requires more grunt so the A15′s will kick in, but once the page has loaded the A7′s will take over. Playing graphically intensive games will make use of the A15 side of the Exynos 5 Octa, while video will only need the power of the A7 side.

This LITTLE.big core switching means the processor can run more efficiently and can possibly reduce power drain by as much as 50%.

Samsung has put together a prototype tablet running the Exynos 5 Octa for ARM at MWC, where Engadget have been able to take some video of it in action, as seen below:

What do you think, impressed by the prototype unit or not?

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Three new Android tablets have been announced by Lenovo at the Mobile World Congress, each of which will come with a budget orientated price tag, which could sway potential customers from a possible Nexus 7 purchase.

With three tablets to choose from and sizing from 7-inch to 10.1-inch, Lenovo looks to have a tablet for everyone.

The Lenovo A1000 and A3000 tablets both come with 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution displays. The A1000 packs a dual-core processor, allows for up to 32GB SD cards and features large front speakers and Dolby Digital Plus audio, while the A3000 boasts a 1.2Ghz quad-core Mediatek chip, up to 64GB of external storage and the option of built in 3G. For those of you who prefer a larger tablet, the Lenovo S6000 has a 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1280x 800 which is powered by the same quad-core chip as the A3000 and also has the option for built in 3G. 

Pricing hasn’t been announced just yet but the tablets are set to be launched worldwide with the A1000 being described as priced “Very aggressively.”

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HP surely learned a lot of lessons when they tried to take on the iPad with their webOS-based Touchpad, the sales of which were stopped after just seven weeks. Now it appears they have targeted the Google Nexus 7 with their first ever Android tablet, the HP Slate 7. The new tablet is intended for the budget segment, but the question is whether it will succeed against its top rivals.

Running the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, the HP Slate 7 costs just $169, cheaper than the $199 Google Nexus 7. But the Slate 7 is slightly more expensive than budget 7-inchers from Acer (Iconia B1) and the Asus (Memo Pad).

Specs wise the device is not that impressive, but it seems to be just about right for the low price. The device sports a 7-inch HFFS display with a resolution of 1024×600, lower than the Nexus 7.

It also features a 1.6 GHz dual-core A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, 3MP rear camera and a VGA front facing cam. In comparison, the Iconia B1 has no rear cam and boasts just 512MB of RAM, and no rear camera and only a single core processor on the Memo Pad. The Slate 7 is coming with 8GB on-board storage, but you can extend it with the microSD card slot. The device also features Beats Audio and the HP ePrint application, which will allow you to print directly over Wi-Fi.

So the specs are not that bad for that price range, but still HP is a bit late to enter this segment and an April launch means that other rivals may also arise. While HP hopes to compete thanks to its slightly cheaper pricing than the Nexus 7, that extra $30 for Google’s flagship 7-incher gets you a quad-core Tegra 3 processor,, GPS, NFC, and 16GB of storage.

The HP Slate 7 is an attractive enough tablet, though it doesn’t seem to offer any “WOW” factor either. What do you think of the HP Slate 7, does it bring anything new or worthwhile to set HP apart in the growing budget 7-inch market?

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However, further rumours suggest that the P2 could be sporting a Huawei developed 8-core processor and will be available in either a 1GB RAM or 2GB RAM version with pricing starting at around $480!

The rest of the purported specs claim that the phone will ship with a 4.7-inch FHD 1080 display, 13 mega-pixel rear camera, 3000mAh battery and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean! Pretty amazing stuff for a phone costing less that $500.

If the device makes its way to your local market, would you be interested or not?

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Rumors that Huawei are set to unveil the Ascend P2 at MWC later this month are nothing new, what is new however are the suggestions that Huawei could also showcase a smaller version of the phone dubbed the Ascend P2 Mini.

Much like the Samsung Galaxy Mini, the Ascend P2 Mini will borrow some of the larger phones styling, but in a smaller package and with slightly downgraded specs. While images of the rumored phone have yet to surface we do have a rough idea of the hardware thanks to Chinese site MyDrivers who claim the screen will be a smaller 4-inch 720p unit, with 1GB RAM and an 8 mega-pixel rear camera. In contrast, the full-size Huawei Ascend P2 is expected to receive a larger 4.7-inch 1080 display, 2GB RAM, 13 mega-pixel rear camera and a quad-core 1.8Ghz CPU. 

What do you think, would you be interested in a miniaturized version of the Ascend P2?

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MWC 2013 is quickly approaching and that means plenty of new announcements from big mobile device makers, Samsung included. While we still have about a month before these big reveals, that doesn’t stop rumors from circulating like crazy.

Now we have news that Samsung may be launching their next-gen range of Galaxy tab devices at MWC. The rumor comes from a South Korean publication and claims that a full HD 7-inch Tab is in the works with a quad-core processor and that there is also a 10.1-inch model in the works but there are no details as to what is under the hood at the moment.

As you can see, the details we have are pretty fuzzy right now. All we know for sure is that MWC is shaping up to be very exciting. What do you think, would you like to see a refresh of the Samsung Galaxy Tab line at MWC this year?

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Scheduled for February 25 to 28, MWC could be the stage where we see a Nokia Lumia tablet of some kind. Remember that the Nokia Lumia 920 is widely touted as one of the best Windows Phone 8 devices out there, so it makes sense that Nokia would continue this partnership with the release of a Windows-powered tablet too. Since they’re using the ARM architecture, it’d be an RT tablet and not a full blown Windows 8 tablet.

Word out of China is that Microsoft, Qualcomm and Compal Electronics are continuing their development of a 10-inch Windows RT tablet for Nokia. It won’t be ready in time for CES next month, so the next major event would be MWC in Barcelona. I’m not sure this will be enough to spur on greater adoption of Windows RT, but if it’s priced right, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

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