What’s going on at MWC 2013: Events, launches and parties

We run through the big events with a full Mobile World Congress 2013 schedule including announcements, briefings and parties

Mobille World Congress is jam packed with announcements, booths, briefings and showcases. But it's not all work and no play, there are also plenty of parties, drinks and social events too.

Read on for our full run-down of all the events at MWC 2013.

Sunday February 24

Things have already kicked off with Samsung officially announcing the Galaxy Note 8.0 this morning.

As expected, it’s an 8-inch device with an S-Pen stylus and includes multi-screen functionality.

Power comes from a 1.6GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9-based Exynos processor and a 4,600mAh battery pack. Surprisingly it also has phone functionality with calls and texts.

Next in the line-up is Huawei’s big event which started at 2pm (1pm for those of you still in the UK) where the company announced its Ascend P2 Android flagship.

The Ascend P2 features a 4.7-inch 1280x720 pixel display with a pixel density of 316 pixels-per-inch (ppi), Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with the company’s own Emotion UI on top, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage and a 13-megapixel camera.

Mozilla is hosting its own event from 6pm where it’s expected to unveil its Firefox mobile OS in partnership with ZTE and Telefonica (O2), amongst others. We believe we’ll see a ZTE handset running the platform revealed for release on O2’s network in the UK.

Later in the evening we’ve got the Pepcom Mobile Focus Global event at 7pm onwards, which should see a range of phone-makers and related companies attending to show off their latest gear.

Monday February 25

Monday starts at 8am with events scheduled by Sony and LG, with Nokia hosting its own conference at around 8.30am.

Sony is expected to showcase the Xperia Z smartphone and Xperia Tablet Z 10-inch slate, but it’s also hoped it will reveal details of the tablet’s availability outside of Japan.

We’ve got our fingers crossed for a UK-facing launch date. LG has confirmed it will launch the Optimus G Pro flagship, which is believed to have a 5-inch 1080p display and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 clocked at 1.7GHz with 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 320 GPU.

Nokia might have a Windows tablet up its sleeve, or alternatively we could see some more Lumia smartphones.

Rumoured devices include the Lumia EOS PureView or Lumia ‘CatWalk’, both of which are believed to have aluminium bodyshells. Other possibilities include the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720, which may be budget Windows Phone 8 models.

Alcatel is hosting a One Touch Pepcom Recovery Breakfast from 9am but we’ll be talking with the company more at 1pm. Huawei is hosting a booth tour from 10pm showcasing its latest kit, likely including the Ascend P2.

Qualcomm is hosting a keynote event at just after 11pm. We expect to find out what the company has planned for new processor capabilities in 2013 and 2014.

Asus will host a press conference from 2pm, followed by a product showcase at 3pm. We hope to see more of the newly launched Padfone 2 hybrid tablet and smartphone device.

It’s also possible we’ll see other tablet hardware from the company based on both Android and Microsoft’s Windows 8/Windows RT platforms.

ZTE will host its own event from 3.30pm in the afternoon where we hope to see more Android and Windows Phone devices as well as more info and hands-on time with the ZTE Mozilla phone.

Other events include Box and Friends’ Mobile Enterprise Celebration, the Mobile Premier Awards from 3.30pm onwards, the MWC Networking Event from 5.30pm to 9pm, IBM’s Mobile Hackathon from 3pm to 7pm and MEF Connects 2013 from 8.30pm onwards.

Tuesday February 26

On Tuesday we’ll be seeing an Intel Benchmarking session showcasing the company’s Atom mobile processing architecture and giving some insight into where Intel-powered phones and tablets might be heading. We’ll also be talking more to Qualcomm and LG.

From 12pm there will be a Samsung stand tour demonstrating the Korean manufacturer’s latest hardware, including the Galaxy Note 8.0.

At the same time we’ll also be checking out Motorola’s presence at the show and from 12.30pm we’ll be seeing more of Huawei.

At 2pm we’ll have more of Alcatel followed by HP at 3pm, Acer at 3.30pm and Lenovo at 5pm. Huawei is hosting drinks from 7pm onwards.

Other events include the Mobile Marketing Mixer from 8pm until 1am, Techmeetup drinks from 6pm to 9pm, Barca Starta from 5pm and IMMA cocktails from 6.30pm.

The Interactive MWC Ultimate Party will take place from 8pm and Bubble Over Barcelona starts from 6pm. The GSM Global Mobile Awards begin from 2.30pm.

Nokia's App Developer party is happening from 10pm and the Party with Pocket Gamer takes place from 8pm onwards.

Wednesday February 27

Wednesday will see us talking to Qualcomm from 9.30am and Sony at 11am. We’ll be speaking to LogMeIn at 12.30 and LG at 2pm.

Lenovo will be hosting a booth tour from 5pm and a Samsung event is pencilled in for after 7pm.

Mobile Mixology will begin at 8pm, TechCrunch Barcelona Mobile Meetup 2013 goes from 7pm onwards, while WIP Jam Party starts from 7pm.

Thursday February 28

Things are most assuredly winding down by this point and most of the Know Your Mobile team will be back in the icy grip of London, but, for those who remain there’s the big MLOVE party which is the largest social event of the whole show.



by via Know Your Mobile