Pocket Picks round-up: 12th February - HP and WebOS, INQ and Android, Nokia, and Windows Phone 7

Hello and welcome back to the weekly Pocket Picks round-up.

The week before the Mobile World Congress kicks off has been pretty hectic in terms of announcements, with Nokia making a U-turn on policy, HP getting stuck into the WebOS re-launch, and Texas Instruments getting stuck into the chipset wars.

Those hoping for a Facebook phone may want to check out what INQ's been up to, while everyone else would be wise to keep an eye on Samsung's next Galaxy handset, as it's sounding like it could be another big hit for the company.

That hammering sound you hear is the final nail in the coffin - but will it be just Symbian and MeeGo that are locked inside, or Nokia as a whole?

Time will tell, but there’s no denying that Nokia’s move to enter a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft is a brave move by the Finnish giant.

It means that future Nokia handsets will be running the new Windows Phone 7 platform - a four-month old OS that’s still awaiting its first update - in most, if not all, of its future smartphones.

It’s a fiery topic, especially among the millions who still stand by Symbian, but considering that system’s lead is being rapidly eroded by Android it may turn out to be a wise choice.

This talk of WP7 and Android is all very well, but what about the critically acclaimed WebOS platform?

Having bought up Palm, HP has now officially taken the lid off the first fruits of the acquisition, with two new handsets - the Pre 3 and Veer - and a new tablet PC - the TouchPad - making their first appearance this week.

While the specs sound good in today’s market, especially for the TouchPad, the summer release dates make us a little wary as it runs the risk of being out-muscled by the inevitable successor to the iPad and iPhone, not to mention all the dual-core Android handsets preparing to leave the factory.

Talking of dual-core, Texas Instruments must be feeling a little put-out by all this Tegra 2 chatter going on right now, as it’s released information concerning the successor to a chip that isn’t even in any consumer device right now.

The OMAP 5 is unique in that it’s the first time we’ve seen the ARM Cortex A-15 architecture being deployed by a manufacturer (all the rest, including the Tegra 2 and 3, are based on the less-powerful A9).

The 2Ghz dual-core processor is also capable of handling pretty much every modern standard you can throw at it, including 3D graphics, 1080 recording, and more.

Let’s hope the OMAP 4 makes it into some phones before then, though, or it’s going to get really confusing.

Bigger is better, right? Samsung thinks so, as rumours are heavily suggesting that its upcoming Galaxy S2 will come with a massive 4.5 inch screen - enough to cause some of my pockets some issues, that’s for sure.

It’s also meant to be packing some serious hardware inside the large frame as well, with a new ARM Cortex A-9 dual-core processor, dubbed ‘Orion’, powering the machine.

Given how much better than the competition the previous chip - Hummingbird - was, the prospect of the Samsung engineers working on a dual-core setup is tantalising.

The successor to the Galaxy S is expected to be officially unveiled at the Mobile World Congress next week, so we won’t have too long to wait to find out if these latest rumours are true.

While the world waits expectantly for Facebook to release its own phone (you know it’s going to happen), INQ has been quietly producing ‘Facebook phones’ for a good three years now.

Now INQ have unveiled the Cloud Q and Cloud Touch - not the most inspiring names, I have to say.

Still, these two are primarily set up as ways to quickly get connected to Facebook, almost as much as they are about making calls, and there’s even a vertical keyboard to help out with messages.