The Mobile World Congress is known as one of the biggest international venues to launch the latest smartphone products for the year. But this year's MWC event in Barcelona will not only be dedicated to smartphone launches. Instead, the event will also be the launching pad for some of the latest wearable devices from different mobile manufacturers worldwide.
For this year's MWC, several smartwatches are expected to be unveiled by different brands. Some of them are improved editions of the manufacturers' early releases, while others just came up with a brand new product. But which among the latest wearable devices are worthy to be checked out?
Here is a list of the smartwatches that are expected to be released in this year's MWC:
Huawei's Android-powered smartwatch
In January, the Chinese mobile company presented a road map showing their plans of releasing new products this year. Although some are expecting that a new smartphone will be launched sometime in 2015, Huawei actually refers to an Android Wear-operated wearable device when they released the "Next is here campaign."
Phone Arena reported that the new wearable device from Huawei has a round watch face with a star located at the end. Last September, Huawei CEO Richard Yu teased that their upcoming smartwatch will be similar to Samsung's Tizen-operated Samsung Gear because it can operate without a smartphone or tablet working beside it. However, he also mentioned that their soon-to-be released wearable device is "innovative and beautiful," and it can surpass the performance of the product from the South Korean brand. The said device is reportedly priced at $320.
Samsung Orbis
The South Korean brand's earlier smartphone releases have rectangular faces. This year, Samsung is planning to join the circular-faced smartwatch bandwagon once they release the Samsing Orbis in the upcoming MWC event.
The new wearable device from Samsung will reportedly come out with a rotating bezel ring that is meant for navigating the built-in menus, scroll through the widgets, apps, and notifications, as well as other functions. This device will reportedly be powered by the company's own Tizen OS.
HTC Petra
After talks spread last year about HTC's discontinuation of wearable device development, new rumors came out in January, claiming that the Taiwanese company will be releasing their new smartwatch in time for the MWC 2015.
According to reports, HTC will reveal the alleged HTC Petra smartwatch during the event in Spain. It is said to have a 1.8-inch 32 × 160 PMOLED display, an ST Micro STM32L151 chipset, Bluetooth and GPS support, as well as long-running battery life since the battery can last up to three days straight.
These devices will allegedly see the light of day between March 2 and 5.
