MWC 2014: Various brands overview

BQ Aquaris hands-on

The BQ Aquaris phone is one of the first Ubuntu phones, but unfortunately it wasn't a working prototype so we only got a feel of the exterior design.

The Aquaris has a 4.5" display and is powered by a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor with 1GB RAM, courtesy of MediaTek. The phone will have 16GB of storage and aims for a €180 / $250 price point.

Wiko Highway hands-on

The Highway is the higher end of the two devices Wiko showcased at the MWC. It's a dual-SIM phone with a 5" 1080p screen and an octa-core processor. It's about as thin as an iPhone 5s, measuring 7.7mm (0.1mm thicker than the iPhone).

The Wiko Highway has a laminated 5" IPS LCD display with Gorilla Glass 2. It's one of the taller 5" devices we've handled (144 x 70 x 7.7mm), as tall as the Xperia Z1 but narrower and thinner. At 154g it weighs less too. The sides of the device are part of the aluminum frame, similar to Sony's Xperia phones.

441ppi IPS LCD screen

The phone features a 16MP camera with a BSI sensor courtesy of OmniVision. It can record 1080p video and has the popular effects and modes - HDR, spherical panorama, cinemagraphs and erasing moving objects.

The front-facing camera is an 8MP shooter for epic selfies.

16MP camera with dual-LED flash

The Highway runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on an octa-core Cortex-A7 processor at 2GHz (MediaTek we're guessing). It has 2GB of RAM. The potential downfall of the phone is the limited storage - 16GB built-in storage and no microSD card slot.

The phone has a 2,350mAh Li-Po battery, which should last 11-12 hours of 3G calls.

Two SIM card slots on the aluminum sides

The Wiko Highway is available right now in Europe at €350.

Several color options for the Wiko Highway

Wiko WAX hands-on

The Wiko WAX has a 4.7" 720p screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 2. The image quality is quite good with excellent viewing angles.

4.7" 720p display

The WAX is the first phones with NVIDIA's new Tegra 4i chipset - the first from the GPU maker that features an integrated LTE modem. The 4i is based on Cortex-A9r4 quad-core processor at 2.3GHz and the same GPU tech as the Tegra 4, but with fewer cores (60 vs. 72). We have some benchmarks from the WAX, you can find them at the bottom of the page.

The phone has 1GB RAM and runs Android 4.3. Storage is a tight 4GB, but there's a microSD card slots (cards up to 32GB are supported). TegraZone is preinstalled on the WAX to give user access to Tegra-optimized games.

The camera on the back of the Wiko WAX is an 8MP shooter and there's a 5MP camera on the front.

8MP camera with dual-LED flash on the back

The phone itself feels very light - perhaps too light for our taste.

The Wiko WAX is a very light device

If you haven't heard of Wiko, it's an up and coming French phone maker and so the WAX will be available in Europe this April. There's no info on price just yet but NVIDIA says the Android 4.4 update will roll out shortly after launch.

Wiko synthetic benchmarks

We ran several benchmarks on the Wiko phones and it turns out four Cortex-A9 (revision 4) cores and eight Cortex-A7 perform at the same level. The A9s have a clockspeed advantage though - 2.3GHz vs. 2GHz.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  169
• Wiko Highway
  226
• Wiko WAX
  261
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  308
• Huawei Ascend Mate
  347
• Motorola Moto G
  392
• Nokia X
  677
• Nokia XL
  681

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4
  34016
• Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 (S800)
  33996
• Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  33198
• Transformer Pad TF701T
  32991
• Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (Exynos)
  32796
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Sony Xperia Z2
  30189
• Wiko Highway
  26886
• Wiko WAX
  26560
• Gionee Elife S5.5
  26539
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  24236
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  20216
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  19131
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  17159
• Google Nexus 10
  12695
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  9070

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPad Air
  373
• Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (Exynos)
  531
• Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  569
• Transformer Pad TF701T
  606
• Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 (S800)
  607
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4
  651
• Wiko Highway
  807
• Wiko WAX
  893
• Sony Xperia Z2
  952
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  1150
• LG G Pad 8.3
  1190
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  1233
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  1366
• Google Nexus 7
  1703
• new Apple iPad
  1722
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  1891
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  1953
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
  1992
• Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
  2253
• Huawei MediaPad
  2490