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One of the mobile world's Ones To Watch is back. Huawei's phones are getting bigger and better, but it seems two new phones just last month wasn't enough. The company's here at MWC and we're expecting to see some new slender models and hopefully something we haven't already been given hints about. The liveblog starts here -- but not just yet. You'll have to wait until the time stated below.

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Just ahead of Huawei's press event, Huawei's treated us to an early viewing of its new 8-milimeter smartphone, the Ascend P2. With Android 4.1, a quad-core 1.5GHz processor and a 720p 4.7-inch display, it joins the likes of the Ascend Mate and D2 in forming the Chinese manufacturer's smartphone family in 2013. And boy, it's a slender, feather-light phone with a glossy backing that come sin both black and white. Design-wise, like those leaks, it looks an awful lot like its predecessor. Its notable feature is the highest-speed LTE connection seen so far in a smartphone, up to 150Mbps. We also got to play wiht Huawei's Emotion UI, which can draw on the 1GB of storage housed inside. There's plenty of storage, with 16GB inside. The right side houses a volume switch and a physical camera button -- these were a bit plasticky, but has a nice matte finish. The other side is where the power button belongs, with both the headphone and micro-USB charging port found there.

We'll have a hands-on video up soon.

Developing...

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If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought confirmation of Pantech's next phone for Verizon, legal battles over the airwaves in India and a new smartphone to Virgin Mobile. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of February 18th, 2013.

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We've arrived in Catalonia's capital city, where snow, apparently, has marked the start of this year's Mobile World Congress. That's right, the hills surrounding this typically warm Mediterranean metropolis have been blanketed in a thin layer of flurries, but we're nonetheless optimistic about this week's smartphone show in Barcelona. As MWC 2013's massive new venue begins to take shape, we're preparing to deliver the hottest hands-ons, directly from Fira Gran Via. Some manufacturers, such as HTC and LG, have already demoed their latest handsets, and other devices have made an early debut, but there's plenty of excitement still to come, as you'll discover in our show preview. We'll be sharing our liveblog lineup in a few hours -- for now, it's time to bookmark our event page, and check back often throughout the next week.

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Remember that ZTE teased the MWC debut of its upcoming Firefox OS phone? Well, according to this spec sheet spotted by a tipster at ZTE's MWC booth, said device will be appropriately named ZTE Open, and it'll come with a moderate set of components: a Cortex-A5-based Qualcomm MSM7225A (which is known to clock at either 600MHz or 800MHz), a 3.5-inch HVGA TFT display with capacitive touchscreen, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 512MB NAND storage and the usual set of radios like WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 (with EDR3), GPS and FM radio. Interestingly, there will be a 3.2-megapixel front-facing camera, but it appears that there'll be none on the back. The Open will be available in three SKUs with different UMTS bands: 850/1900, 850/2100 and 900/2100. As always, we'll be sharing the full announcement and hands-on once we see the phone at MWC, though we have a feeling that we've already played with it before.

Update: As some of you have pointed out, yes, the "FF" may actually mean "fixed focus" instead of "front-facing," and the former seems more likely.

[Thanks, anonymous]

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At last, here's what we've been promised: an 8-inch flavor of Samsung's Galaxy Note lineup. Spotted by an anonymous tipster on the MWC show floor earlier today, the booth shows off said tablet designed with portrait usage in mind, meaning it'll pretty much cover up most of whichever hand you'll be holding it with. And obviously, the Note 8.0 comes with a stylus as well. There's not much more to share at this point, but we'll be seeing this new device in its full glory very soon, so stay tuned. One more shot after the break.

Update: The folks over at Beste Product caught a few models posing with the Galaxy Note 8.0 for Samsung's photographer. The Dutch website even has a video -- embedded after the break -- of the whole action, and there you can see some design similarities of the tablet's backside, especially how the camera protrudes a little.

[Thanks, anonymous]

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Wikipedia has long been pushing for access to its communal knowledge among those who can't afford the latest technology, going so far as to strike deals with carriers to deliver free mobile web viewing. It's set to expand that reach to those for whom any advanced cellphone is out of the question. In part through the help of a Knight News Challenge grant and South Africa's Praekelt Foundation, the non-profit's Wikipedia Zero effort will offer its content through SMS and USSD messages in the next few months. Curious users will just have to send a text message to get an article in response, with no web required at all. It's a big step forward for democratizing online information for those who may not even have access to a smartphone, although we're curious as to how it will handle large articles; we can only imagine the volume of messages when trying to look up the known universe.

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When HTC dissolved Dashwire's original service just months after acquisition, many wrote off the smaller company; it all but disappeared from the limelight, even with its early cloud sync service still in action. Rather than relegate Dashwire to the oblivion traditionally associated with takeovers, though, HTC is staging a comeback. It's relaunching Dashwire to help carriers get customers up and running on a new smartphone, including contacts and a customized look. Details are short, but the revived service won't be HTC-exclusive: Dashwire will support "leading" Android device makers. While the company's return to form will depend on successful sales pitches at Mobile World Congress, it at least stands a chance of being more than just a footnote.

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