February is always the most exciting month of the year for mobile phone fans, as it's when the entire phone industry has a big, boozy party somewhere in Europe and shows off the new phones and tablets it'll be launching over the spring and summer.

The show has been dominated in recent years by the vast number of new Android models that continuously swamp the market, with the big players like HTC, Samsung and Sony using the event to thrill punters with their newest ranges.

Last year saw HTC unleash its impressive One series, LG debuted the Optimus 4X HD and even Nokia decided to go large at the tech event for once, showing off its bonkers 808 PureView model complete with 41MP camera.

In short, if you care about the mobile arms race, MWC is the most exciting time of the year.

Previously held in Barcelona's palatial Fira Montjuic halls, this year's MWC is switching venue to a less glamorous (but more convenient for stressed journalists and marketing managers) spot a little nearer the city's airport. And in a building twice the size. Imagine how many cheap Android tablets it'll be able to contain this year.

MWC 2013 kicks off on 25 February. We'll be there, sobbing into a laptop in an unlit corner somewhere. Here's what we're expecting to see from the big names of mobile.

Back at MWC 2012, LG wowed attendees with the Optimus 4X HD, a powerful 4.7-inch phone that helped signal the start of the race to stick quad-core processors in mobiles.

It also showed off the Optimus 3D Max and the oddball Optimus Vu, but the less said about those the better, as with 2011's reveal of the original Optimus 3D.

As for 2013, LG's already carried out a bit of teasing, with an updated Optimus G expected to be shown at some point, and the maker using the recent CES event to announce plans to show off a "tier one" smartphone at MWC 2012.

Given that the original Optimus G was a quad-core monster that LG soon rebranded as the Nexus 4, any sequel arriving so soon is unlikely to be much of a leap above the first phone, as even in 2013 we'd still be impressed by a quad-core phone with a 4.7-inch display.

But has the Nexus 4 done enough to make LG a respected brand name and a major player?

Yet more generic black slabs on the way from LG.

Sony's just announced a new flagship model at this year's CES tech show, so it's unlikely to have anything hugely new and exciting at MWC. But it will give the media a chance to play with its new Xperia Z, the exciting, quad-core, 5-inch monster the hardware maker is set to launch this March.

Sony Xperia Z release date: when can I get it and where?

In fact, it looks like Sony's following the same hardware launch plan as last year. In 2012, the Xperia S was announced at January's CES event prior to MWC, with Sony using MWC to launch the Xperia P and U, a couple of smaller models based on the same design.

So pick a couple of letters of the alphabet Sony hasn't used yet (F and R are free), take an inch off the Xperia Z's screen size, and that's a good bet as to what Sony will have at MWC 2013.

HTC unleashed the One series of phones at last year's MWC, showing off the One V, One S and the glorious One X as it tried to reinvigorate its line up.

But in 2011 it disappointed us a little, showing minor upgrades of its old HTC Desire range, the awful Wildfire S and the niche Salsa and ChaCha models to a very, very quiet fanfare. In fact, it wasn't even a fanfare, just a mouse playing Three Blind Mice on the recorder.

2013, however, looks like being another good year for HTC, as we've already seen fairly concrete details of one of its new models leak.

We expect HTC to bring along its HTC M7 mobile, which, as we've previously seen, is believed to be a quad-core device with a 5-inch 1080p display and 13MP camera.

Loads of companies will be showing phones of a similar size and power level, but we'll always have a soft spot for HTC's lovely old Sense interface.

The star of MWC 2012 for most, HTC's stonking One X.

Samsung disappointed the nerds of the world last year, when it opted to announce its flagship Galaxy S3 model a couple of months later at its own private event. But even if it repeats that trick this year and doesn't show off the Galaxy S4, it's guaranteed to be bringing along plenty of other Android phones.

Last year Samsung underwhelmed us all by using MWC to announce the Samsung Galaxy S Wi-Fi, a Galaxy S2-styled media player, plus the rather odd and niche Galaxy Beam, complete with integrated media projector.

So either we see the Galaxy S4 and Samsung has a stormer, or it brings along some cheaper models and we write it off.

However, there's a small chance we may see something really exciting. Samsung's working on hardware powered by the new Tizen OS, a supposed Android rival that Samsung claims it'll be bringing to market some time in 2013. Good luck with that.

One of the low key oddities from Samsung's 2012 MWC showing, the Galaxy Beam

Nokia's had a wide selection of phones at last year's MWC, showing off the bonkers Nokia 808 PureView and its 41MP sensor, alongside the rather less exciting budget Windows Phone powered Lumia 610 and the high-end Lumia 900.

One Nokia-based rumour claims it's working on a slimmer update of the Lumia 920, which would use an aluminium body to reduce the weight of its hefty flagship phone. Nokia's traditionally preferred to show phones off at its own events, so it's hard to guesstimate whether it'll have new stuff at MWC or not. It's a maverick. It makes its own rules.

Huawei's really made a name for itself in the UK over the last year, thanks to its winning budget Ascend G300 and the recent Ascend G330 update, plus the powerful Ascend P1.

At last year's MWC it announced the impressive looking Ascend D Quad, a 4.5-inch model in a slim 8.9mm case, alongside a 10.1-inch version of its MediaPad tablet. Neither of which made it to the UK officially, so we were left a bit disappointed by its commitment levels.

Huawei's also just announced a tasty pair of smartphones at CES in the form of the Ascend D2 and Ascend Mate, so it's likely to elaborate more on these at MWC 2013 rather than announce many new phones.

Huawei's Ascend D2. Already announced, bound to be popular in February

MWC 2013 is going to be absolutely critical for RIM. The troubled BlackBerry maker is revealing its BB10 hardware and software at a standalone event at the end of January, so MWC will be a chance for the masses to properly fiddle with the new OS and the two phones it'll initially be running on.

Last year's MWC was a bit of a disaster for RIM. All it managed to show was the BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 OS update for the super-flop tablet. This year it ought to have significantly more buzz surrounding its presence, although it should have already announced the phones that will be running BB10 by the time we stumble off the plane onto Spanish tarmac.

MWC 2013 should be another good year for the budget makers, as we're expecting to see bigger screens and more powerful processors hitting the cheaper end of the market.

Last year ZTE announced the ZTE PF112, a 4.5-inch device said to be running on the dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset, but that pretty much sunk without trace and is yet to go on sale.

And the ZTE Era, a promising 4.3-inch quad-core model, is also missing presumed never to hit the UK.

One MWC 2012 phone that did arrive was the Mimosa X, which ZTE renamed the Grand X for the UK. It was a bit of a disappointing mid-range model that undid much of the maker's hype.

So don't get too excited by what the ZTE man is waving around, it might just be a balsa wood model that'll never see the light of day.

In fact, ZTE's started making its pledges for 2013 already, with the promising ZTE Grand S just announced at CES. It's another member of the 5-inch / 1080p / quad-core club, which ought to be a big winner... if it ever appears on the shelves.

Niche smartphone maker Acer always has a packed show stand, with the company using MWC 2012 to announce its Liquid Glow models, which were a vast improvement on the Liquid E and Liquid MT it took to MWC 2011.

Since then, Acer's launched a few decent mid-range Android models, like the CloudMobile and Liquid Gallant, although we'd expect to see it make more of a deal about its tablet ranges at MWC this year, seeing as that's where the Android hot money is going these days.

Last year's MWC was a big winner for Asus, which updated its winning Transformer tablet range with a couple of impressive quad-core models.

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But now, in 2013, flush from its success making the Nexus 7 for Google, we expect Asus to reveal something a little cheaper. Plenty of rumours have suggested it's planning a "$99" Android tablet, which may or may not end up on sale in Europe.

Asus also made a big deal of its PadFone hybrid at MWC 2012, which teamed a 4.3-inch phone with a bizarre 10-inch docking tablet display. Given the lukewarm reception that oddity received, we'll eat this crusty Dell keyboard if any more phone/tablet hybrids appear this year.

Keep it safe, Asus. People like safe.

MWC 2013: What to expect

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Category: Acer, ASUS, HTC, Huawei, LG, MWC, Nokia, Samsung, Sony

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