BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2012 -- With five booth tours under our belts, we made our way to the final destination -- the Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. stand in Hall 8.

Visits to ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Nokia Networks and NEC Corp. (Tokyo: 6701) had already been completed, so now it was time to see what the Chinese giant had in store for us in Barcelona. (See MWC 2012 Photos: ZTE Booth Tour, MWC 2012 Photos: NEC Booth Tour, MWC 2012 Photos: NSN Booth Tour, MWC 2012 Photos: AlcaLu Booth Tour and MWC 2012 Photos: Ericsson Booth Tour.)

Huawei was the sixth and final mobile network equipment vendor we visited with a photographer during this year's MWC and we gave them all the exact same challenge: Show us your three market leading/cutting edge/most important products and tell us about them in just 10 minutes.

The idea of the exercise is to determine what an average visitor might be shown if they were trying to get a sense for what the major mobile vendors are focused on right now. All the companies were given the exact same advance brief, treatment and opportunity: Some responded better than others.

So here's what we saw when we called in at Huawei, with the overall grade, based on perceived performance, relevance and other factors (some rather subjective), provided with the final picture caption.

Click on the picture below to start the tour.



All photos taken by Siqui Sánchez/Getty Images, but he's not in any way responsible for the picture selection or the words.

You can see how Huawei and its peers performed last year by checking out the 2011 booth tours below:

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading

A Winged Horse WelcomeHuawei's winged horse logo loomed large as we arrived at the Huawei stand. That equine image was to appear again outside Hall 8 -- but we'll come to that later. Android in the HouseThe other welcoming figure was Droid, giving us a clue that our 10 minutes at the Huawei stand might be more about devices than network infrastructure.No Shortage of InterestAs we headed to start the tour, the first issue was going to be one of space, as the Huawei stand was busy with interested MWC attendees checking out the vendor's new devices.D is for DeviceOnce the crowds had been parted, the tour started with Handset Product Director (Europe) Ying Zhang, who showed us the new Ascend D quad smartphone HSPA+ device that runs on the Android 4.0 OS and which has been built using the vendor's own quad-core 1.5 GHz chip. Pocket IconThe Ascend D boasts a battery that lasts up to 2 days with 'normal' usage and an 8-megapixel hi-definition rear-facing camera as well as a 1.3-megapixel forward-facing camera.Mini Entertainment SystemWhat was most impressive was the sharpness and clarity of the screen when showing video/games and the speed at which applications were loaded and running (in an instant). The smartphone, which also has a HDMI port and Dolby sound, is set to be launched in the second quarter of 2012 in multiple markets.More Entertainment!While the Ascend D smartphone was clearly capable of providing an entertaining experience on the move, Huawei also had a device designed more for the home entertainment experience. This was the MediaPad 10 FHD tablet, introduced to us by Home Solution Portfolio Director Frédéric Mathieu.Tablet TimeAlso set for release during the second quarter, this 10-inch tablet houses Huawei's quad-core CPU and enables 3-D gaming as well as providing an all-round hi-definition multimedia display. In addition to hooking up to any home Wi-Fi, the tablet can also connect to 3G HSPA+ networks and is LTE-ready. Multi-Mode Medium for M2M For the third and final product we met Georg Steimel, head of M2M Solutions at Huawei's European terminal business. He wanted to tell us about the E589, a multi-mode device that can act as a mini wireless hub by connecting to mobile networks (2G, 3G, FDD and TDD LTE) upstream and then connecting up to 10 local devices using Wi-Fi.Sharing the Mobile InternetThe primary use of the device, which is not much bigger than a business card, is to connect multiple local devices to the mobile Internet using a single wide area network link and, said Steimel, has a user interface designed for multi-user management. Huawei is focusing on the LTE TDD capability of the device, which is set to be commercially available in Europe in April, when it will be launched with operator partners in the Nordics. And with that, Huawei's time was up!Artistic ImpressionSo Huawei had most definitely focused on its growing and impressive device portfolio, which, of course, is a major part of its growth strategy in the coming years. And the devices were impressive, for sure, in terms of their design and capabilities, as was the winged horse statue, built using smartphones, on display further up the show grounds. We were, though, a little surprised there wasn't at least a nod to the work the vendor is doing in addressing the small-cell needs of mobile operators. Overall, then, an impressive and efficient presentation that nets Huawei an A- grade.