Galaxy Note 8.0 touted on Samsung stand prior to MWC 2013 launch - 2013

Not that this will be a surprise to most readers, but it now seems absolutely certain that

Samsung's long-rumoured Galaxy Note 8.0 will be officially unveiled in a couple of days at

Mobile World Congress.

An anonymous tipster, presumably part of the set-up crew in Barcelona, snapped a picture of

the Samsung stand and there, lo and behold, is the Galaxy Note 8.0 featured on the big screen.

Naturally, the device looks absolutely gigantic, but it seems Samsung is still intent on us using it

in portrait mode with one-hand, although that could be a bit of a stretch for anyone who's not

named LeBron James.

The latest leak comes just a week after the Note 8.0 was accidentally revealed at a Samsung

event in South Korea.

Top billing

Speculation has suggested that the new, iPad mini-bothering member of the Note family will

pack a 1280 x 800 Super Clear LCD display, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, a 1.6GHz quad-core

processor and 2GB RAM.

The placement of the Galaxy Note 8.0 promotional screen, in the centre of the Samsung stand,

suggests that it'll probably be the Korean giant's top announcement at MWC 2013.

We already know that the Samsung Galaxy S4 won't be making an appearance at the event

this year, with latest speculation suggesting it will arrive at a dedicated event on March 14.

200 million workers want Windows tablets instead of iPads 2013

 Forrester Research study from yesterday got a lot of attention because of one surprising fact: workers would rather have a Windows tablet at work than an iPad.

Buried a little deeper is one likely reason why -- and it also explains why Microsoft might never put out a version of Office for the iPad.

First, the surprise. In a survey of nearly 10,000 employees from 17 countries, 33% said they'd prefer a Windows tablet for their next work tablet. Based on Forrester's estimates of the total size of the "information worker" market, that means 200 million people are clamoring for a Windows tablet.

Only 26% wanted an iPad for work, and 12% would pick an Android tablet. That seems pretty startling to the tech press, given the middling reviews and sales performance of Windows 8 and Surface so far.

The numbers were switched around in similar proportions for smartphones: 33% want an iPhone for work, 22% an Android phone, and only 10% a Windows Phone.

But equally interesting was the chart of common app usage for work on PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The top work app on all three devices was email. After that, it split in an interesting fashion.

Word processing was the second most used app on a PC, used by 80% of workers. It was number three for tablets, down at 40%.

But on smartphones, word processing was way down the list, behind social networking, expense-reporting apps, and HR apps, and in the same neighborhood as data dashboards, finance apps, and travel apps.

In other words, smartphones are suited for quick lookup and data entry.

Tablets are more like PCs, and workers want to use tablets like they use PCs -- for productivity. Right or wrong, most workers probably associate work productivity with Microsoft Office. And, by extension, with Windows.

This is still Microsoft's best chance to make a dent in the tablet market -- by promoting it as the best tablet for running Office to get work done. That's also a very good reason for Microsoft never to release a full version of Office for iPad.

Mini iPhone -

The next device from Apple is rumored to be the iPhone Mini, a smaller - and more importantly cheaper - version of its smartphone, and the release date may be in the summer.

There are plenty of reasons why Apple needs to start making the cheaper iPhone Mini, and the Morgan Stanley managing director of the PC hardware industry, Katy Huberty, points that out after meeting with Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer.

Emerging markets like China and Brazil have snapped up the iPad Mini, according to her comments picked up by CNET.

"iPad Mini is expanding Apple's customer base with 50 [percent] of purchases in China/Brazil representing new customers to the ecosystem," said Huberty.

Likewise, Chinese consumers are showing signs that they're willing to buy into the latest models of the iPhone instead of the smartphone's older generations.

Preparing for expanding markets as well as existing ones, she anticipates that new carrier partnerships will take place in Q2 2014 with NTT Docomo, T-Mobile, and China Mobile.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Outside of those emerging markets, Huberty notes that Apple's everyday consumers have been buying older versions of the iPhone.

"iPhone 4 demand surprised to the upside in the December quarter," she said.

She didn't speculate whether the reason for this is due to the lower price of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S or the lack of innovation in the iPhone 5.

In addition to saying that the iPhone Mini could launch in the summer, Huberty said that she expects that the iPad could be refreshed in the middle of the year.

I'm no analyst, but I think summer and middle of the year might happen at the same time.

Either way, rumors suggest that an iPad Mini 2 will roll out with a Retina display, and that iPad 5 will be completely redesigned.

Samsung Galaxy S4 a no-show at Mobile World Congress - 2013

The Galaxy S3 launch event last year in the U.K.

Samsung Electronics wants the spotlight all to itself for the Galaxy S4.

The Korean electronics giant will be holding off on any major announcements at Mobile World Congress later this month, according to a person familiar with its launch plans. As with last year, Samsung will likely hold its own separate event to launch the latest iteration of its flagship Galaxy S franchise.

We're making the annual pilgrimage to Barcelona to worship at the altar of all things mobile so join us for our comprehensive MWC 2013 coverage

.

We're not sure exactly how many major new phones will launch at the show this year, with Samsung, HTC and Apple all saving their flagships for separate events.

But we're really excited to see what Nokia's got up its sleeve, and we're expecting a slew of handsets from the likes of LG, Huawei, ZTE and Acer.

Tablet time

Not forgetting tablets, of course, which we reckon Samsung and Asus are likely to focus on at the show.

And in between the two, we have no doubt that 'phablet' will be one of this year's biggest buzzwords - perhaps we'll get the answer to that age old question: at what size does a 'phablet' become a tablet?

The coverage kicks off on Sunday and we'll be bringing you all the news and the most comprehensive hands on reviews of the new gizmos all the way through the week.

So sit back, relax and join us - we'll be updating this page to keep you posted on what's what, as well as tweeting and Facebooking throughout.

The issue comes down to the general tendency for technology companies to be run by engineers with no IT experience and therefore no real clue about what a business IT organization-including their own-actually does.

IT, when done right, is largely transparent. As a result, it's often taken for granted. This makes it hard to build products for IT without engaging IT and hiring people with significant IT experience to work on the effort.

BlackBerry: Keeping IT in Mind From the Beginning

BlackBerry started with businesses as its primary customers. Then known as Research in Motion, the company initially brought the two-way pager into the mainstream-and, unlike today's typical smartphones and tablets, these actually entered the market as executive tools, not consumer products. From the very start, the company had to learn what IT needed and how to protect top executives. These were lessons hard learned.

Look at BlackBerry security efforts, then, and you see that they start and end with targeted IT needs. BlackBerry ties its systems into IT policy, assuring that IT can easily get the devices to conform. This is critical; IT doesn't have the time to manage everything that's currently on the table, and BlackBerry is designed to assure compliance without significantly increasing IT overhead.

One of the most talked-about problems since the introduction of the smartphone is separating personal and corporate information. This is because IT doesn't want to deal with personal apps and files, and users don't want IT seeing their personal stuff.

BlackBerry separates the environments on its devices, giving the user his own space and letting IT manage and secure the business information under its control. This is unique in the market-and it was driven by IT demands for this feature.

When developing its unique tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, the company tied it to its overall security framework and sandboxed the apps so they can't do hostile things. Looking at the overall nature of email and application attacks, BlackBerry created permissions and monitoring components that directly address the damage these attacks can cause, even though BlackBerry platform is generally less likely to be attacked than one of the consumer platforms.

Samsung: Start With an Insecure Platform, Bolt on Security

Samsung, in contrast, created SAFE. The company started with Android, the only platform actively being blocked by IT organizations due to security concerns. I was at an event last year where McAfee showcased that an Android phone can be remotely attacked, put into a loop, overheat and catastrophically fail.

Top 5 phone - Best mobile phones to buy in 2013

Samsung Galaxy S3

The best Android smartphone just got better

Our Expert Opinion The Samsung Galaxy S3 is still the best Android smartphone there is. It's slim, fast, has a beautiful AMOLED screen and runs the bang-up-to-date Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system.

The phone has just got better, too, thanks to an upgrade to support 4G. On Everything Everywhere's network we saw speeds up to 25Mbit/s, which is twice as quick as many home broadband connections.

Samsung has also loaded the phone with clever features. If you bring the phone to your ear while a contact is on screen it will call that person automatically, if you flip the phone over while it's ringing it will turn the ringer off, and the Smart Stay feature uses the front camera to keep the screen on while you're looking at it.

Throw in an excellent camera and you've got all the ingredients for the perfect smartphone.

SPECS

OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.1

PROCESSOR SPEED 1.4GHz

NUMBER OF CORES 4

RAM 2GB

MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, 4G

DISPLAY 4.8in 720x1,280 LCD

CAMERA 8-megapixel

INTERNAL STORAGE 16GB

MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD

DIMENSIONS 137x71x9mm, 133g

Google Nexus 4

Google's cut-price Android 4.2 wonder

Our Expert Opinion The latest Google-branded smartphone is made by LG, and it's a stormer. The Nexus 4's quad-core 1.5GHz processor runs Android 4.2 incredibly quickly, and its 4.7in 1,280x768 display has a similar pixel density to the iPhone 5's Retina screen.

There's also a high-quality 8-megapixel camera and built-in NFC, so the phone will support Google Wallet's tap-and-pay service when it arrives in the UK.

The phone is also incredibly good value SIM-free at just £239 - it's a lot of phone for the money.

SPECS

OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.2

PROCESSOR SPEED 1.5GHz

NUMBER OF CORES 4

RAM 2GB

MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA

DISPLAY 4.7in 768x1,280 LCD

CAMERA 8-megapixel

INTERNAL STORAGE 8GB

MEMORY CARD SLOT none

CLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 15 hours talktime, 16 days standby

DIMENSIONS 134x69x9.1mm, 139g

Apple iPhone 5

A worthy update to the iPhone

Our Expert Opinion Five generations on, and the iPhone is still the model to beat. Android has taken great strides, but iOS is still the slickest, fastest and easiest to use operating system, and there's no arguing with the quality of the apps in the Apple App Store.

The iPhone 5 is an evolution of the 4, with a longer screen for more room for app icons and an aspect ratio better suited to widescreen films. It's also incredibly quick - more than twice as fast as the iPhone 4S in the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark.

The only thing stopping the iPhone 5 from getting an award is Apple's horrendous new Maps app, which replaces Google Maps, but this should improve with time.

SPECS

OPERATING SYSTEM iOS 6

PROCESSOR SPEED 1GHz

NUMBER OF CORES 2

RAM 1GB

MOBILE DATA 4G

DISPLAY 4in 1,136x640 LCD

CAMERA 8-megapixel

INTERNAL STORAGE 16GB

MEMORY CARD SLOT none

DIMENSIONS 124x59x8mm, 112g

Motorola RAZR i

A gorgeous slimline Intel phone

Our Expert Opinion The RAZR i has an Intel rather than ARM processor, and it's seriously quick - around the same speed as the iPhone 5 in the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark. It runs Android 4.0 incredibly smoothly, and the operating system looks great on the phone's 960x540-pixel Super AMOLED screen.

The RAZR i has a 4.3in screen, which is big considering how compact the phone is. It's also incredibly slim, and the rubberised back looks great and makes the phone comfortable to hold.

It's a classy handset all round, and is also remarkably good value on contract.

SPECS

OPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.04

PROCESSOR SPEED 2GHz

NUMBER OF CORES 1

RAM 1GB

MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA

DISPLAY 4.3in 960x540 LCD

CAMERA 8-megapixel

INTERNAL STORAGE 8GB

MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD

DIMENSIONS 123x61x8mm, 126g

Nokia Lumia 920

The best Windows Phone 8 handset there is

Our Expert Opinion Nokia really went to town with its first Windows Phone 8 handset. It's a chunky phone which feels beautifully made, and has a 4.5in screen with a huge 1,280x768 resolution.

The screen is an IPS model, and has excellent contrast and viewing angles. The display's resolution is big enough for web browsing without having to zoom in and out, and particularly suits Microsoft's gorgeous Windows Phone 8 operating system.

Windows Phone 8 has had some useful tweaks, such as the ability to resize the home screen's Live Tiles depending on how much information you want each to show, and it runs beautifully on the phone's dual-core 1.5GHz processor. The phone also has a camera with optical image stabilisation, which excels in low light; the only disadvantage is the phone produces over-processed daylight shots.

SPECS

OPERATING SYSTEM Windows Mobile 8

PROCESSOR SPEED 1.5GHz

NUMBER OF CORES 2

RAM 1GB

MOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA

DISPLAY 4.5in 1,280x768 LCD

CAMERA 8.7-megapixel

INTERNAL STORAGE 32GB

MEMORY CARD SLOT microSD

DIMENSIONS 130x71x11mm, 185g

Samsung GALAXY Note2

Network

3G: HSPA+21Mbps

(HSDPA 21Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps)

4G LTE: 100Mbps / 50Mbps

Processor

1.6 GHz quad-core processor

OS

Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

Display

140.9 mm (5.5") HD Super AMOLED (1,280 x 720)

Dimension

80.5 x 151.1 x 9.4 mm, 182.5g

Battery

Standard battery, Li-ion 3,100mAh

Memory

16/32/64GB User memory + 2GB (RAM)

microSD slot (up to 64GB)

S Pen Optimized Features

S Pen Experience

- S Note, S Planner, Email with hand-writing

integration

- S Pen Keeper

- Quick Command, Easy Clip, Photo Note,

Paper Artist

- Shape Match, Formula Match

1 Step tasking / Multitasking features

Air View

Popup Note, Popup Video

Page Buddy / Tag Buddy / Word Buddy

Connectivity / Sharing Features

Bluetooth® v 4.0 (Apt-X Codec support) LE

USB 2.0 Host

WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4 & 5 GHz), Wi-Fi HT40

Wi-Fi Direct

NFC

S Beam

Samsung AllShare Play & Control

Samsung AllShare Cast (WiFi Display)

- Mirroring & Extention

Samsung AllShare Framework

Other

Samsung TouchWiz / Samsung L!ve Panel

Samsung Kies /Samsung Kies Air

Samsung ChatOn mobile communication service

Smart Stay, Direct claa, Screen Recorder,

Quick Glance

Samsung ChatOn mobile communication service

Samsung S Suggest

Camera

Main (Rear) : 8 Megapixel Auto Focus Camera with LED Flash, BSI

Sub (Front) : 1.9 Megapixel VT Camera, BSI

Best Photo, Best Face, Low light shot

Video

Codec: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VC-1, DivX, WMV7, WMV8, WMV9, VP8

Format: 3GP(MP4), WMV(ASF), AVI, FLV, MKV, WebM

Full HD(1080p) Playback & Recording

Audio

Codec: MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, ACC+, eAAC+, AMR(NB,WB), MIDI, WAV, AC-3, Flac

Music Player with SoundAlive

3.5mm Ear Jack

Content / Services

Samsung Apps

Samsung Hub

- Game Hub

- Media Hub (US only)

- Learning Hub / Music Hub / Video Hub

※ The availability of each Samsung Hubs may

differ by country

Sensor

Accelerometer, RGB Light, Digital Compass, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer

GPS

A-GPS

Glonass

Enterprise Solutions

On Device Encryption (H/W)

Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

VPN(F5, Cisco, Juniper)

MDM(Sybase Afaria, MobileIron, SOTI, Good)

CCX

VMware MVP

LG Optimus G with quad-core processor 2013

LG Optimus G may not have been officially unveiled in the country yet, but it is now available with online retailer Saholic for Rs. 30,990. The website is promising delivery within 4 business days. Rumour has it that the official launch of the phone is around the corner, but looks like retailers have pipped LG on this one.

LG Optimus G was originally launched in September last year. It is powered by 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor alongside 2GB of RAM. It includes a 4.7-inch 1280x768 (320ppi) display and sports a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 1.3-megapixel front shooter.

LG Optimus G comes with 32GB of built-in flash storage, but no microSD card slot or expandable storage of any kind. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Micro-USB and NFC. The phone originally shipped with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but as per the listing on Saholic, in India, the phone will come with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean preloaded.

With LG already having announced Optimus G Pro in other markets, it looks like the company is getting ready to unveil the Optimus G in India.

LG Optimus G key specifications
4.7-inch 1280x768 display
1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro
2GB RAM
32GB internal storage
13-megapixel rear camera, 1.3-megapixel front camera
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
2,100 mAh
131.9 x 68.9 x 8.45 mm