ZTE is busy packing its case for Mobile World Congress, and it has made sure to bring two new smartphones with it, along with a refreshed version of the MiFavor Android user interface. Combined with the new hardware announced during CES, ZTE’s CEO Adam Zeng is feeling very positive about the coming year, saying he expects it to be the “strongest yet,” and adding it’s “putting our customers at the heart of everything we do to help us achieve that.”
The big news, literally, is the forthcoming arrival of the Grand Memo 2 LTE, a sequel to the Grand Memo launched during last year’s Mobile World Congress show. This time, ZTE has bumped the screen size up from 5.7-inches to 6-inches, but it hasn’t mentioned if the 720p resolution has shifted to 1080p. This will be essential if ZTE wants to compete with the excellent Huawei Ascend Mate 2 though. As the name suggests, 4G LTE connectivity will also be added to the Grand Memo 2’s spec sheet.
Joining it will be a new Firefox OS phone called the Open C, which will run version 1.3 of Mozilla’s mobile operating system. A rumor report from last year indicated ZTE would launch another Firefox phone in 2014, and it would have a larger screen and a dual-core processor. We spent some time with its first Firefox OS phone, the ZTE Open, and didn’t particularly enjoy it, so we’re hoping to see considerable improvement in the Open C and the new software.
Hidden in ZTE’s press release is further news of its first smartwatch, or rather, a quick name change. When we saw it at CES, it was named the Blue Watch, but now it’s referred to as the Grand Watch Smart Watch. We didn’t think it was very grand at the time, but were told the hardware was going to change, so we’re ready to see an updated version which lives up to its new name. The exciting, innovative Projector Hotspot will also be on display, and we’re hoping for some news on its release.
ZTE hasn’t shared any technical details on either the Open C or the Grand Memo 2 LTE, nor has it said anything about what we can expect from the new version of MiFavor, so there’s still plenty of news to come from the company when the show begins next week.
