Significant MWC-2018 announcements: five interesting devices

It seems that Nokia has found an effective way to attract attention to itself. To return to the big market in 2017, she timed a remake of the hit Nokia 3310 model, and a year later — as part of the MWC-2018 exhibition — the legendary "bananophone" from the film "Matrix" in a modern guise was shown to the public.

I tried on the device for myselfa bright yellow "suit" with a curved body shape and a slide-out slider, under which a mechanical keyboard is hidden (there is also an authentic black version of the phone). There is no mechanism for unfolding the lid in the design of the model, so this simple procedure will need to be done manually. But the slider allows you to effectively answer a call or end a conversation, which will undoubtedly be appreciated by others.

The name and similar features in appearance are the only thing that unites the modern device with the legendary 8110. After all, a completely modern "filling" is installed "under the hood" of the mobile gadget, which allows the model to be ranked among the squad of smartphones. The "bananophone" works under the control of the "operating system" KaiOS (a spin-off part of the FirefoxOS system), and the entry-level Snapdragon 205 chip "conducts" it. "Out of the box" the phone comes with pre-installed Google services (including maps and Google Asisstant voice assistant), and in the app store the user has the right to download social network clients, messengers and simple programs.

It is still impossible to call Nokia 8110 4G a full-fledged smartphone. Firstly, you will need to adjust to handling it due to the non-touch display, and secondly, you simply will not be able to stick such a label to the phone due to the form factor of the model. As a result, the mobile device will show itself well as an additional "handset", and will also be useful for distribution to other Internet devices — support for working in 4G networks and the Wi-Fi module in the communication arsenal of the model contribute to the realization of this opportunity.

Sony Xperia Ear Duo is not just a wireless headset, but an intelligent assistant that will tell you the weather forecast, inform you about a scheduled meeting, allow you to listen to music, make calls and hear ambient sounds at the same time.

The "trick" of the model lies in the fact that it does not isolate the user from the sounds of the surrounding world (in the naming of Sony proprietary technologies, this function is called Dual Listening). Depending on the level of external noise, the headset automatically adjusts the volume of music playback or the interlocutor's speech, for which it is necessary to thank another implemented technology — Clear Phase.

The headphones integrate with Google's Asisstant and Siri voice assistants, highlighting user commands among other sounds through four built-in microphones. In addition, Sony Xperia Ear Duo supports touch control and performing simple functions with head rotations (for example, you can answer an incoming call with a nod, and switch music tracks with head turns). Gesture interaction is achieved due to the built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, in addition, there is a barometer, proximity sensor and electronic compass on board the model.

When talking or listening to music, the headset works for about 4 hours. However, you can replenish the energy reserves in the headphone battery directly "on the go" — a battery is built into the case for carrying them, full tanks of which are enough to charge the wearable gadget three times. An additional bonus is the protection of the model from splashes according to the IPX2 standard. The main goal of creating the Sony Xperia Ear Duo is to make users less distracted by the screen of their smartphone. And the headset handles with it "with a bang". She would have had a lower price tag and the number of people wishing to acquire a technologically savvy product would have increased significantly.

The pro version of the Huawei MediaPad M5 tablet with a 10.8-inch display diagonal is equally well suited for entertainment and work. The thing is that with a slight movement of the hand, the tablet turns into a laptop — when the keyboard case is connected, the desktop mode of displaying images with Windows characteristic of Windows is activated.

The model also differs from its usual counterparts in the line by the support of the M-pen stylus, which recognizes 4096 degrees of pressure, and a full-fledged file manager that provides the ability to conveniently operate with data. User information, by the way, is stored in the internal memory of the tablet with a total volume of 64 GB or can be read from a microSD flash drive with a capacity of up to 256 GB inclusive.

The device is based on the high-performance Kirin 960 chipset, which has been "run-in" on the flagship smartphones Huawei P10, Huawei Honor 9, etc. Coupled with 4 GB of RAM and powerful graphics, the model is able to cope with the vast majority of tablet tasks — from watching movies to spending a long time in front of the gadget screen in resource-intensive games. The high resolution of the display (800x1600 pixels) and four built-in stereo speakers from Harman/Kardon with the function of volume sound significantly "pump" the multimedia capabilities of the tablet.

Huawei MediaPad M5 10 Pro cameras turned out to be very good with an eye on the tablet family. So, the main photo module has a resolution of 13 MP and boasts phase autofocus, and the device uses an 8 MP front-facing camera as a selfie camera. A number of manual settings and preset shooting modes are available to the user. The battery in the bowels of the metal case of the model is also very good — with a capacity of 7500 mAh, it has got support for fast charging technology, and besides through a two-way USB Type-C port. There are no special disadvantages of the tablet with the Pro prefix, which, together with the many advantages mentioned above, elevates it to the rank of one of the most interesting models running Android OS.

Usually, when it comes to transformer laptops, compact devices with a relatively small display diagonal appear before your eyes. But not in the case ofLenovo Yoga 730 — the older version of the "shifter" is equipped with a 15-inch screen, which in conjunction with a performant hardware turns it into a full-fledged laptop for serious tasks.

Depending on the configuration, the display resolution of the model may vary between FullHD (1920 x 1080 pixels) and UltraHD (3840x2160 pixels). Anyway, the screen combines high image quality under one wing, support for touch input and recognition of up to 4096 degrees of pressure (it will be useful when working with a stylus, which you will need to buy in a separate order). As usual in the Yoga line, the display is mounted on a swivel hinge that provides an opening at an angle of up to 360° and turns the laptop into a huge tablet.

The computer runs on Intel Coffee Lake processors, is equipped with an SSD with a capacity of up to 1 TB, up to 16 GB of RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 discrete graphics can also be optionally installed in it. In the maximum configuration, the laptop is suitable even for video editing, and not just for sofa gatherings at home. A serious "filling" on top is "seasoned" with loud JBL stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos volume sound technology and the presence of a fingerprint scanner on board the device.

The laptop has not been spared the fashionable trend of equipping gadgets with voice assistants. There are two of them in the Lenovo Yoga 730 arsenal at once — Alexa from Amazon and Cortana from Microsoft. However, you can communicate with them in a limited number of languages and there is no Russian among them yet. In general, the transformer laptop feels like a reliable device that perfectly handles with both everyday duties and more complex tasks.

The main actors of the largest exhibition of the mobile industry Mobile World Congress are smartphones. However, the Chinese company Huawei decided otherwise and brought to the event in 2018 a line of Huawei MediaPad M5 tablets, as well as a frameless touch ultrabook Huawei Mate Book X Pro.

Thanks to the thinnest frames, the 13.9-inch laptop display occupies over 90% of the area of the top cover. Its resolution is atypical, however, it is easy to remember — 3000x2000 pixels. For the sake of the newfangled framelessness, we had to abandon the classic location of the front camera. Nevertheless, you can't think of a better new place for it — the camera's "eye" is built into the flip key between F6 and F7 in a row of function buttons.

The laptop screen gets special praise for supporting touch input and 10-point multitouch. Moreover, due to the 100% coverage of the sRGB colour space, it is well suited for close work with photo and video materials. In this role, not only the display plays an important role, but also the hardware, and Huawei Mate Book X Pro has a very decent one. Various configurations of the model provide equipment with an Intel 8th generation processor (in particular, Intel Core i7 8850U), NVIDIA GeForce MX150 discrete graphics with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and up to 16 GB of RAM.

The laptop has an island-type keyboard with a small key stroke and built-in backlight. It is convenient to use it for typing texts, but because of the huge size of the touchpad, there is a possibility of false cursor jumps. A fingerprint scanner is additionally integrated into the model's power key, and holes are made on the sides of the keyboard unit to output sound from four stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos volume sound technology. The connection interfaces in the device are represented by one full-size USB port, a pair of USB Type-C connectors and a 3.5mm audio output. In the dry balance, the laptop gives the impression of a high-quality product, the main advantages of which are frameless execution style, advanced ergonomics and minimal dimensions.