Best of MWC 2014: Samsung Galaxy S5, Nokia X series, Sony Xperia Z2 and more!

As the Day 1 at the Mobile World Congress 2014 wrapped up, it has left a rather sweet-sour aftertaste. The event witnessed some nifty announcements such as flagships from Sony and Samsung to the first ever Android phone from Nokia. We also saw a gamut of fitness-focused smart wearables. Here’s a quick look at the hottest announcements on Day 1 of the MWC 2014.   **Samsung Galaxy S5** Samsung has finally announced its latest flagship – the Galaxy S5 – a phone that had set rumour mills buzzing for months prior to its launch. Retaining most of the rumoured features, the Galaxy S5 comes with a fingerprint scanner and dust- and water-proof capabilities. The S5 is a 5.1-inch upgrade to the year older Galaxy S4 and sports a full HD screen with the same Super AMOLED panel, and not a 2k display. The plastic-built Galaxy S5 also adds a heart-rate monitor just below the camera module. The smartphone comes with a 16MP camera with improved menu and user interface. It also gets a 2.1MP front-facing camera. **Check out** all the specs of the Galaxy S5. [caption id=“attachment_218884” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Samsung Galaxy S5 comes with a 16MP camera and features such as improved HDR and Selective Focus mode[/caption]   **Blackphone** Keeping with its promise, Silent Circle and Geeksphone have launched their **anti-NSA smartphone, Blackphone** , at MWC 2014. **Blackphone** is a privacy-oriented smartphone designed to not only make secure phone calls and send/receive data, but the device will also ensure that the content stored on the phone is secure from snooping. The privacy-focused device is now available for pre-order at $629.   **Sony Xperia Z2** Sony has finally pulled the wraps off its all-new Z2 smartphone at the MWC 2014. The smartphone runs on Google’s latest Android 4.4 KitKat and is the first Xperia device to shoot in 4K. The Z2 has borrowed waterproof and rugged capabilities from its predecessor, and sports a 5.2-inch 1080p full HD Triluminos display with “widest colour palette.” It comes powered by a 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 and Adreno 330 GPU, coupled with 3GB of RAM.  Sony has also added digital noise-cancelling capabilities and a massive 20.7-megapixel camera. [caption id=“attachment_218821” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  New Sony flagship smartphone is here[/caption]   **Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet** Sony’s incredibly thin Z2 Tablet is finally made official at the MWC 2014. The Z2 Tablet is touted to be an iPad Air-killer with mere 6.4mm thickness and superior features. It comes with a 10.1-inch Live Color LED display that promises to offer the widest color gamut of any mobile device, also seen in the Z2 smartphone. Moreover it also powered by the quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor coupled with 3GB of RAM, just like its flagship smartphone. It runs on the latest version of the OS i.e. Android 4.4.2 KitKat.   **Qualcomm 64-bit chipsets** It was not long ago that Qualcomm was mocking MediaTek for bringing out an octa-core processor-based SoC. And now the world’s leading mobile chip maker has announced its own octa-core system-on-chip – the Snapdragon 615 – at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Qualcomm has announced two 64-bit mobile SoC’s namely the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 610 and the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615. The Snapdragon 610 will house four Cortex A53 CPU cores whereas the Snapdragon 615 will have two blocks for four Cortex A53 CPU cores. Both these SoCs are based on the 28nm manufacturing process.   **Nokia X, X+ and XL** Nokia has finally made many a dreams come true with the announcement of its first ever Android-based phone at the MWC in Barcelona. But unlike what we expected, Nokia arrived on the scene with three new Android-based phones. The Nokia X and X+ will be four-inch budget smartphones, while the Nokia XL will be the 5-inch phone that’s set to be the flagship X series phone. Nokia X and Nokia X+ appear on the company’s India website with a “Coming soon” tag. [caption id=“attachment_218832” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Nokia XL is a 5-inch phablet with Android underpinnings[/caption]   **Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit** Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S5 smartphone along with the new Samsung Gear Fit, which is a wearable band aimed at fitness savvy users. According to Samsung, the device is the industry’s first curved, Super AMOLED wearable device. It has a 1.84-inch curved Super AMOLED display with 432×128 screen resolution. The screen is fully touch capable. The sensors on the device are Accelerometer, Gyro, Heart Rate. In terms of connectivity it has Bluetooth 4.0 and it is IP67 Water and Dust Resistant.   **Sony Xperia M2** Along with the high-end **flagship Z2** smartphone and **Z2 Tablet** , Sony has also unveiled the Xperia M2 targeted at the mid-range segment. The M2 is the successor to the **Xperia M** , and comes with significantly improved specs. It sports a larger qHD 4.8-inch display with 960×540 pixels resolution and is lightweight at 148 grams. Under the hood, it comes powered by the MSM8926 quad-core Cortex A7 processor that clocks at 1.2GHz and coupled with 1GB RAM. This mid-range smartphone also supports LTE.   **Huawei TalkBand B1** Huawei has now announced a new Bluetooth sports band dubbed TalkBand B1. The fitness band comes with a 1.4-inch OLED display and supports Bluetooth as well as NFC. What sets it apart is the removable earpiece that supports wireless calling. However, it also makes the band a little fat at 14.6mm. In a nutshell, it appears to be a Bluetooth headset–fitness tracker combination. [caption id=“attachment_218799” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Huawei’s TalkBand B1 fitness accessory[/caption]     **Galaxy Gear 2 and the Galaxy Gear 2 Neo** Along with the Gear Fit, Samsung also announced the Galaxy Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo just a day ahead of the MWC 2014. The new Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo will have a heart rate sensor, a pedometer and various tools to measure exercise, sleep and stress levels. The low-resolution, 2-megapixel camera on the Gear 2 is being moved to the main body; it was on the strap on the original Gear. The Gear 2 Neo has no camera and is slightly larger, but lighter. Available colors are also slightly different.   **Sony SmartBand** At the MWC 2014, Sony also gave us a glimpse of its new SmartBand that will be launched worldwide in March. The SmartBand is powered by company’s Core fitness tracker and also serves as a music remote control, for making Life Bookmarks using the Lifelog app and more. The SmartBand offers water resistant capability. The device will also measure your sleep cycle, a feature that is likely to be seen in Huawei and Apple smartwatches. The device supports Bluetooth as well as NFC to help pair it with Android phones.