Huawei was the biggest surprise in 2010 market share redistribution. Currently ranking as the 4th largest cellphone manufacturer in the world is preparing an Android tablet and a new smartphone. The MWC 2011 is the ideal place to showcase those.

 

Expected to make an appearance at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in a few days, the Huawei S7 Slim tablet, as its name suggests is a slimmer and fitter version of the Huawei S7 tablet we covered last summer.

 

 

As for the Huawei Ideos X3, the details about it are equally scarce, but it seems to be aiming at the mid-range smartphone market, unlike its bigger brothers, the Ideos X5 and Ideos X6. The X3 will come in four color flavors red, blue, black and silver.

 

 

 

 

Olympus has a thing for superzoom compacts so its little wonder that three of their four camera announcements today belong in that category. Today the company lifted the curtain of the DSLR-like SZ-10, packing 18x zoom lens, the ultra-wide angle VR-330 and VR-320 that zoom up to 12.5 times and the affordable VG-110.

The star of the show, the Olympus SZ-10, packs a 1/2.3-inch 14 MP CCD sensor and f/3.1-4.4 lens that covers the 28 - 504mm range in 35mm equivalent. The SZ-10 3-inch LCD screen features 460k dots, which is decent for a camera in this class.

Along with that, the Olympus SZ-10 introduces a new 3D mode that allows you to capture stereoscopic images. With no dedicated 3D lens at hand you need to shoot 2 images for the 3D image to be stitched. Fortunately, its fully automatic you take a shot and than slowly pan until the camera automatically takes a second one.

The video recording capabilities of the Olympus SZ-10 max out at 720p, which is somewhat modest as far as current trends go. You still have an HDMI port for sharing those images and videos on your HDTV, though. The SZ-10 will set you back $250.

The Europe-bound Olympus VR-330 and VR-320 share the sensor of their bigger brother, but are somewhat more compact. Their 12.5x f/3-5.9 zoom lenses stretches from the ultra-wide 24mm all the way to 300mm. By the way, from where I stand, that really looks like the more convenient zoom range to have.

The differences between this couple boil down to the 3-inch display resolution (460k dots for VR-330 and 230k dots for VR-320) and the 3D shooting and HDMI port mode, which are only available on the VR-330.

Video recording on both the VR-330 and VR-320 goes only as high as 720p. The VR-330 will only be available through online retailers for £160, while the VR-320 will be an exclusive to Jessops UK online store and will go for £140.

Finally, there is the Olympus VG-110, which has a retail price of $90. For that you get a 1/2.3-inch 12 MP sensor, VGA video recording and 4x zoom f/2.9 -6.5 lens (27-108mm). Bargain hunters should definitely check this one.

The Olympus SZ-10 will be available in March, while the other three newly announced compacts should hit the shelves this month.

 

Today HP announced the TouchSmart 610 and 9300 Elite, part of the refreshed line of all-in-one TouchSmart PCs.

Whats novel about the two new all-in-one TouchSmart computers from HP is that they can have their screen recline to help with touch usability. The TouchSmart 9300 Elite has a screen, which reclines to a 60-degree angle, while the TouchSmart 610 supports only a 30-degree recline of its screen.

Now for the juicy specs. Both the 9300 Elite and the 610 enjoy a 23-inch LED backlit 1080p screen and can pack up to 16GB of DD3 RAM.

Powered by a range of Core i3 through Core i7 processors and running on Windows 7, the TouchSmart 9300 Elite is primarily aimed at business users. Its main idea is to be placed in kiosks, hotels, banks and other public places. It supports up to 1TB hard drive or an optional 160 GB SSD and as far as graphics goes, gamers won’t be pleased, since both the 9300 Elite and 610 run on integrated Intel graphics chips.

The base 610 model, on the other hand, which is aimed at the mass user, starts with a 3.2Ghz Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and 750GB of hard drive space. If you want something with a little bit more oomph, the TouchSmart 610 is upgradable to a Core i5 and 6GB of RAM. Both the 9300 Elite and 610 will pack a Blu-Ray drive, SD card reader and a 2MP webcam.

HP will start shipping the new TouchSmart 610 model in February 9 with a starting price tag of $900. As for the 9300 Elite, it will be available by the end of May. Unfortunately, no pricing information is available yet, but its expected it to be more expensive than the 610.

 

Texas Instruments is not going to let NVIDIA get all the glory, as the company has just unveiled its TI OMAP 5 platform of processors and this includes a high-end, dual-core chip with smartphones and tablets that can get up to 4 GHz.

 

The TI OMAP 5 will use two ARM Cortex A15 MPCores whcih can get up to 2 GHz per core. TI is also saying that the high-end 28 nanometer processor can offer up to three times the processing performance and five-fold the 3D graphics push than existing competitive products.

 

"The next decade will bring a revolution in mobile computing, as devices continue to converge, attempting to become one single device that meets all of our computing, entertainment, and complex day-to-day needs and interests. However, the bridge to true mobile computing enablement was missing until today. The OMAP 5 platform will be at the heart of driving the mobile computing revolution by delivering the highest computing, graphics and multimedia performance possible within the low power budget required by mobile form factors," said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president, OMAP platform business unit, TI, in a prepared statement.

The high-end TI OMAP 5 processor will also be able to support up to four cameras at once, which may become more important as 3D cameras like those on the LG G Slate become more prevalent. The chip is able to playback 3D video at 1080p HD, as well as preform real-time conversion of 2D content to 3D.

While we are still waiting for TI OMAP 4 devices to really hit the market but its good to know that TI has a great roadmap in place. Expect the fifth version of this lineup to hit handset and tablet makers this year but devices will not land until 2012.

 

 

 

The Dell Venue has just arrived to the US in two versions after it launched globally a couple of months ago.

 

The Venue is Dell high-end Android smartphone. It does not have a QWERTY keyboard, which is its second major difference from the Dell Venue Pro, which does have a QWERTY and runs Windows Phone 7. The good news is that Dell is offering the Venue with a bonus 16GB microSD card. The smartphone is available for $499 and its got tow versions with ATT US and T-Mobile US 3G bands respectively.

The Venue has got the blue blood heritage is a real upper-class Droid. It runs Android 2.2 Froyo and has a 1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, an 8MP camera with 720p video plus a Gorilla Glass protected 4.1-inch WVGA AMOLED screen. Those specs alone should be enough to give you a clue what we are dealing with here.

 

The Dell Venue is now available in the US in two versions one for ATT and one for T-Mobile. Both will be unlocked, the only difference is the 3G bands. You can grab a Venue straight from Dell online store$499.99 for both versions with 16GB microSD card in the box.