July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In terms of smartphones, Samsung seems to have one main imperative these days: Make them larger.

Like the Galaxy Note II, Samsung’s new Galaxy Mega is proof that Samsung is intent on creating smartphones at every conceivable size — even if those sizes are hugely impractical for mobile devices.

The Galaxy Mega comes in two forms — one with a 6.3-inch screen, the other with a 5.8-inch screen. Both devices are larger than the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II, which is either good or bad depending on which side of the “bigger is better” debate you fall on.

Source: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Make it stop.

Spec-wise, the two Mega versions offer slightly different numbers. While the 6.3-inch model comes with a HD display, 1.7 GHz processor and LTE/HSPA radios, the smaller version offers a reduced screen resolution and less powerful processor. Little of that really matters, however, because these are devices that Samsung is selling on screen size, not processor speed.

In terms of style, the Galaxy Mega is more or less identical to every other Galaxy phone, which makes press images largely useless if you want to get a sense of how big the thing is.

A good reference point, however, is Huawei’s Ascend Mate, the 6.1-inch smartphone monstrosity the company unveiled earlier this year. As you can see in the photo to the right, it’s tough to talk on these massive phones without looking impossibly goofy (no offense to VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig, who always looks great.) Just imagine squeezing something like the Ascend Mate into your pocket.

Samsung says the Mega will make its way to Europe some time next month, and possibly elsewhere soon after.

You’ve seen what we loved at CES last week, as well as some of the weirdest news out of the event. Now here’s a choice selection of the very worst of CES 2013.

Huawei’s Ascend Mate destroys all logic

In the quest to make smartphones ever-bigger, Huawei now reigns supreme. That’s not exactly a good thing. The Chinese company debuted the 6.1-inch Ascend Mate at the show, putting it firmly between Samsung’s already big Galaxy Note line and 7-inch tablets.

The impracticality of the Ascend Mate trumps the slight convenience of a bigger screen: It’s too big to fit in most pockets, almost impossible to use one-handed, and it looks completely ridiculous when you actually try to use it as a phone. There’s a point where we have to say “no more!” when it comes to increasingly larger smartphones, and I believe the Huawei Ascend Mate is it. – Devindra Hardawar

The big players hold back

This was a surprisingly weak year for major device announcements from big companies like Microsoft and Sony. Most companies now hold their own events for smartphone and tablet launches, since it allows them to control the news, instead of fighting for attention at CES. Many are also waiting until Mobile World Congress next month to show off their new mobile gadgets. It could be that we’re also seeing a drought of new devices after the tablet and smartphone gold rush of the past few years.

Whatever the reason, the door seems wide open for smaller companies to make a splash at CES in the future. Just look how much of an impact Nvidia and Qualcomm were able to make at the show. — Devindra Hardawar

Sony and Microsoft had nothing to say on the console front, as they’re waiting for E3 in June to make a splash with the game audience. On top of that, Microsoft had very little to say about where the Windows 8 ecosystem is going after its underwhelming launch in the fall. This foot-dragging by industry leaders is giving opportunity to startups and usurpers. But those companies won’t have the muscle to push aside their rivals. For consumers, that means they’ll have to wait longer for innovation. — Dean Takahashi

Source: Hyper Drive's Instagram

Hyper Drive proudly posted pics of its booth babes on Instagram.

The booth babes

It’s 2013 and we’re still dealing with companies showing off scantily clad ladies to hype their wares. You could say it’s just Vegas, but of course that would be a lie. “Booth babes” are a staple of pretty much every major tradeshow, especially when they involve tech like games and cars. But it seems more than a little anachronistic today when we’re having serious and important discussions about gender equality in the tech industry.

The storage company Hyper Drive was one of the worst offenders. Its booth featured women wearing practically nothing except underwear and body paint, with all the agency of a statue. Sexual objectification ahoy!

Just look at the storm VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell whipped up when she (rightly) lambasted a sexist CES ad campaign. That post ended up sparking the #notbuyingit hashtag, which sadly applied to quite a few companies at CES. — Devindra Hardawar

4K Ultra HD TVs swing … and miss

4K Ultra HD TVs were introduced by nearly every major consumer electronics vendor at the show. But the innovations were all too similar. Each vendor had similar (huge) screen sizes, since they source their screens from many of the same vendors. Nobody spoke about price tags, but $10,000 for a 55-inch 4K screen sounds like a typical figure.

The big problem is that the 4K ecosystem is very weak. Hollywood-style support in the form of movies is going to be slow in coming. That lack of content support is similar to the debacle around 3D TVs and the 3D glasses needed to watch them, when consumer electronics manufacturers tried to push a technology that consumers didn’t want. There isn’t a great way to get 4K video content into the home and distributed around the house. 4K looks better than the usual HDTV, for sure, but the manufacturers better bring down the prices and make the systems more useful and differentiated. – Dean Takahashi

As a movie lover, I’m enamored with the idea of getting an even bigger TV with a crazy-high resolution. But Dean’s point still stands — right now we’re just seeing nice TVs, not the content ecosystem to support it. There’s no new disc-based format on the horizon to support huge 4K files, and we’ll need to see major advances in streaming compression (not to mention home Internet speeds) to see a 4K version of Netflix’s streaming.

The practicality of 4K TVs is also a problem. You’ll need at least an 80-inch set to see the difference between 4K and today’s 1080p HD, which makes the format all but useless for people who can’t fit giant screens or a projector into their home.– Devindra Hardawar

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Huawei, you’ve successfully built the world’s largest smartphone with the 6.1-inch Ascend Mate. Congratulations?

This CES has been fairly quiet when it comes to new smartphone announcements, so Huawei’s reveal yesterday of the massive Ascend Mate was a nice little reminder of previous years. But after playing around with the phone for a few minutes, I can confirm that it’s about as silly as you’d imagine.

The Ascend Mate simply looks and feels massive. I can’t imagine anyone finding it comfortable enough to use as their daily phone (let alone fit it into their pocket).

I had similar initial reservations about Samsung’s Galaxy Note in 2011, but at 5.3-inches, at least it looked like a typical phone and fit into your pocket. Samsung also managed to make its successor, the Note II, thinner and lighter (while also squeezing in a slightly bigger screen).

Avoiding just about everything great about modern smartphone designs — light weight, thin frames, a focus on pragmatic features — the Ascend Mate simply seems to say, “Fuck you, I’m big.” That may not be the best way to market a phone.

Below, we’ve compared it to the iPhone 4, Nexus 4, and the iPad Mini. Not surprisingly, when placed against the iPad Mini, the Ascend Mate looks far more like a tablet than a phone.

Ultimately, I can sum up the way I feel about the Ascend Mate with my response to Huawei’s rep when I first held it. “No, just no.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

If size is all that matters, Huawei has just won: Its Ascend Mate smartphone boasts a 6.1-inch touchscreen, making it either the largest phone ever or the most compact tablet. Just try holding it up to your ear when you need to answer a call.

Sure, we made these jokes last year about Samsung’s Galaxy Note, which, with a 5.3-inch screen, seemed massive at the time (and entirely too big to hold up to your head like any other phone). The Galaxy Note II has a 5.5 inch screen, but that’s just a tiny bit more than the first model. And the Galaxy Note went on to become a huge hit in 2012.

So why not go even bigger, Huawei’s executives must have asked. Why not, indeed? The Huawei Ascend Mate is big in almost every way. It has a 1.5 GHz Hi-Silicon quad-core processor and a 4050 mAh battery, plus an 8 megapixel camera on the back (it looks like it sticks out a bit, which is odd given how much room there is inside the case) and a 1 megapixel front-facing camera. It has stereo audio recording capabilities, with noise reduction, and includes Dolby audio enhancements. It’s running Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean, the latest shipping version of the OS. The only thing that’s not huge is the screen’s resolution, a relatively paltry 1,280 by 720 pixels. Good enough for HD, sure, but way too small for showing 4K media.

Huawei says the phone will be available in China only, starting in February, but has not announced the price.

The company’s press release includes a quote from Richard Yu, the chief executive of its consumer business, that hints at the reason for making such a large device: “The Huawei Ascend Mate breaks barriers to deliver a supercharged entertainment, communication and creative experience for all your personal and professional needs.” I interpret that to mean that they want this phone to do everything, including entertain you, and perhaps the size isn’t such a barrier to usage among Chinese users.

My question is, why stop at six? Add phone capabilities to a Nexus 7 or a Kindle Fire, and you’d have a seven-inch smartphone instead of a tablet. Even a 10-inch iPad could become a phone, if only Apple had Huawei’s crazy, stop-at-nothing genius. Or 27 inches, like Lenovo! Go for it, Huawei engineers!