CES 2013: Innovations in the Mobile Market

Currently in Las Vegas, the largest consumer electronics show, CES 2013, is taking place. As part of the event, mobile device manufacturers have unveiled a host of new products.

Sony showcased its new flagship at the exhibition, the Xperia Z based on Android 4.1 with a 5-inch Reality Display, boasting a resolution of 1920x1080. But this gadget is more than just Full HD. Another highlight of the Xperia Z, which will hit store shelves by the end of the current quarter, is the quad-core Snapdragon™ S4 Pro at 1.5 GHz, featuring an Adreno 320 graphics subsystem and 2 GB of RAM. However, regular consumers will likely notice other features: the glass back and the flagship's water resistance.

In a similar vein, the Chinese company Huawei presented the Ascend D2. This device, like Sony's flagship, is equipped with a 5-inch screen with Full-HD resolution (a new format — a new trend that raises the cost of graphical content to a new level, leaving cheap-to-produce mobile games in the past). Huawei also introduced a 6.1-inch device — the Ascend Mate.

At CES 2013, the trend of larger screens was noticeable not only in smartphones but also in tablets. For example, Panasonic presented a gigantic 20-inch "tablet" running Windows 8.

It's unlikely that increasing tablets to almost TV sizes will attract users. This is more indicative of a crisis of ideas in the current mobile device market. Manufacturers keep increasing processor speeds and memory capacities but are yet to move beyond the paradigm introduced by Steve Jobs in 2007.