What was hot. . . and what was not

HOT: Big phones:If you thought the Samsung Note 2 was a hefty-screened device, you haven’t seen anything yet. This year saw the march of the massive mobile phones, with Huawei showing off its 6-inch screen monster Mate and LG, meanwhile, went to 4.7 inches with its new Optimus G.

 And they weren’t the only ones. ZTE’s Grand Memo comes with a 5.7-inch screen. The line between the phone and the tablet is blurring even more.

Samsung, meanwhile, went the other way, by slimming its Note tablet down to 8 inches in size, but added the ability to make voice calls on the device. Insert your own Trigger Happy TV joke here.

Gesture recognition

The Kinect effect continues to be seen in electronics, with companies demonstrating different ways we could be interacting with our devices in years to come.

On Intel’s stand in the App hall (above), Tobii was demonstrating eye tracking and gesture recognition that allowed you to flip through and select photos. GestureTek was also at it, showing off some technology for Android and Symbian developers that allows them to build motion and object tracking into games and applications.

And if Israel’s Eyesight Technologies interface becomes more common, we will soon be able to interact with devices by simply pointing at the screen. A generation of couch potatoes could be in the offing.

Near Field Communication

Whether it was at Sony’s booth, where the company was using the NFC tags to do everything from back up your photos to a hard drive to making a speaker play music files stored on your phone, or around the conference where you could enter with an NFC badge or get more information from NFC-enabled posters elsewhere, everyone was going for it in a big way. Attendees could even register for one of MWC’s official phones, the Xperia T, which gave you a chance to try NFC out for yourself. The future, it seems, is contactless, paperless and cashless.

Budget electronics

We’re in a global recession, yet it seems that mobile phone and tablet makers keep churning out the high-end electronics, and we keep on buying them. But this year, it seems that some manufacturers are realising that there are some consumers who may not be in a position to splash that much cash around. Nokia unveiled some more budget-friendly Lumia Windows Phone handsets (above), while HP’s Android Slate 7 is also a more wallet-friendly alternative for those on the lookout for a tablet.

Waterproof electronics