This year there’s a number of manufacturers, old and new, trying to break into the mobile space. I think it’s been about 7 years since I last used an NEC phone, back when 3G was a new technology and 3G video calling was thought to be the “next big thing”. Anyone remember the NEC e606 flip-phone on Three ? I think that was the UK’s first 3G phone.
Now NEC are back here in Barcelona showing off some of their latest phones. I tried to get a meeting with their device specialist but he was very busy all week unfortunately. Their phones are on display in hall 8 and, although they’re safely tucked away behind glass, they managed to raise a great deal of interest from attendees and press.
One device in particular (above) stood out for me due to the interesting fold-out form factor. All I can tell you is that it’s an LTE phone, it’s red, runs Android (4.0 I’m assuming) and is called the NEC Medias W.
They had other handsets there too, including a thin waterproof Android phone with a “rapid camera” called the Medias X and another called the Medias Z. There was also a tablet named the NEC Cloud Communicator LT-8 which was waterproof, had a dual-core 1GHz CPU and a 7″ screen despite it’s name. They all looked very thin and well designed. No-one seemed to be able to gleam any further detail about them but they certainly looked beautiful.
