On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

HTC's appearance at IFA 2012 might be rather muted, but it does have at least one announcement for the show-- the HTC Desire X, an "affordable" successor to the 2010 HTC Desire.

Previously known as the Proto, the Desire X carries a lower-end dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, together with a 4-inch LCD WVGA display, 5MP camera and 4GB of storage.

Android 4.0 handles OS duties.

Like a number of HTC handsets it also has integrated Beats Audio, even if Beats recently bought back HTC's shares in the company.

The camera is similar to that in seen in One series devices, using the same image sensor-- with features including HDR capture, continuous shooting and simultaneous video/stills photo capturing.

The HTC Desire X should launch in a number of European countries from September 2012.

Go HTC Desire X

Soulmate? No, Solemate, a portable Bluetooth speaker from Jabra with a quirky footwear-inspired design and some fairly decent specs.

The shoe theme extends to a removable rubber "sole" acting as a store for a 3.5mm audio cable and a "heel tab" for carrying purposes. The rubberised casing is shock- and water-resistant, while an included sound bag adds extra protection.

The audio specifications impress-- the front has a duo of acoustic tweeters and a subwoofer with a passive bass radiator on the back, a combination capable of producing up to 120dB of sound.

Connectivity comes through Bluetooth 3.0, as well as 3.5mm audio jack and microUSB.

According to Jabra battery life is around 8-10 hours of continuous play on a single charge.

Go Jabra Solemate

The Nokia-Monster relationship bears further fruit with the Purity Pro-- a wireless successor to the Monster-branded Purity HD headset, now with Bluetooth and NFC connectivity.

Monster provides audio and active noise cancellation technologies, with feed forward and feedback features for ambient and percussive noise cancellation.

Designed to "perfectly match your Lumia," the Purity Pro ship in 4 colours (black, red, yellow, white) from October 2012. Can we assume the colour selection matches that of a soon-announced future Lumia device or two?

Go Nokia Purity Pro Headset

Sometimes big is just not big enough-- Samsung announces the Galaxy Note II at IFA 2012, an even bigger successor to the massive 1st-generation Note phone-tablet hybrid device.

While the Galaxy Note has a 5.3-inch display, the Galaxy Note II carries an impressive 5.5-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen. Looks-wise it resembles the Galaxy S III, complete with rounded edges, thin display bezel and similar physical button configuration.

The internals include a 1.6GHz quad-core processor and 2GB RAM, making the Note II the most powerful Galaxy smartphone according to the company. It is also the first Samsung device running on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) skinned with the TouchWiz UI.

The S Pen stylus makes a return (together with Note-specific apps), together with the Samsung sharing features (S Beam, ShareShot, AllShare Play, AllShare Cast) seen in the Galaxy S III and Note 10.1 tablet.

Samsung has other offerings at IFA 2012, such as the Galaxy Camera-- a 16MP digital camera with a 4.8-inch touchscreen identical to the one found on the Galaxy S III. It runs on Android 4.0 and comes complete with integrated wifi and 3G connections.

Go Samsung Galaxy Note II

Go Samsung Galaxy Camera