First Take: Fujitsu’s Super-Fast Tegra 3 Smartphone

You might not be familiar with Fujitsu as a smartphone maker if you live in the United States or Europe, but the Japanese company is making some ambitious strides with its smartphone and tablet lineup for its home country. Fujitsu is showing off one of four Tegra 3 quad-core phones here at Mobile World Congress alongside its portfolio of water-proof tablets and phones.

The LTE-capable Fujitsu “ultra-high spec smartphone” (that is how the company is referring to it in press materials) has a 4.6-inch bright display, a 13.1-megapixel camera, a fingerprint sensor, and runs the latest version of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

The Fujitsu also has a very curious feature: an antenna. No, it isn’t a throwback to the old cell phones of yore. It is actually a TV antenna, which is a common feature on smartphones in Japan. Clearly, this version of the Fujitsu quad-core phone is meant for Japanese customers.

Design-wise, the phone is quite slim, but the construction feels cheap. The phone isn’t exactly eye-catching, but I liked both that the black battery cover had a little bit of sparkle to it and that the top and bottom edges are rounded. The three navigation buttons under the screen aren’t touch sensitive; there are actually thin hardware buttons beneath the button symbols.

In terms of performance, this Tegra 3 phone is blazingly fast. In my quick hands-on, apps opened up quickly and Web pages loaded in seconds. Video also looked great on the 4.6-inch display, but details weren’t as sharp as I would have liked.

Whether or not Fujitsu will ever bring smartphones to the United States, shows like Mobile World Congress are great for seeing what our friends on the other side of the world are doing in mobile.

For more blogs, stories, photos, and video from the world’s largest mobile show, check out PCWorld’s complete coverage of Mobile World Congress 2012.