Android: From the Editor's Desk: MWC in T-minus 7 days ...

From the Editor's Desk: MWC in T-minus 7 days ...

The clock is ticking. We're now a week away from one of the busiest days of the year, both as fans of newfangled smartphones as well as of the extremely lucky press corps that gets to cover them.

And if you'll allow me but a brief second of complaint â€" it'll be a miracle if we survive March 1. That's a good thing, of course. (And chances are I say it every year.) But I wish I could share what our calendar looks this time next week. And that's still a day before Mobile World Congress even opens in Barcelona.

Consider:

• Samsung Unpacked and the Galaxy S6.
• HTC's presser with the HTC One M9.
• LG.
• Huawei.
• Alcatel.
• Nokia.
• Qualcomm.
• And not one but both of what I call the "night events," (officially called "Showstoppers" and "Mobile Focus,") wherein dozens companies pay a fee to rent some ballroom space to show their stuff to an exclusive crowd of journos. It's a bit of a cattle call, really, and sometimes is one of the more frantic parts of any show.

So, yeah. It's gonna be a little crazy. And that's just the stuff I can talk about. (A good chunk of our calendar would need to be heavily redacted for public consumption.) We'll at least be liveblogging Samsung and HTC. Possibly more. Check back. And a quick reminder that Barcelona is 6 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone; 9 hours ahead of the west coast. (Everything Sunday is during U.S. daylight hours, though.)
We'll have a full MWC preview this week, so I don't want to get to into the nitty gritty here. But bookmark our MWC page. Look for that MWC logo that's on this post and click it anytime you want to be taken to everything. This is going to be fun. Thanks for coming along with us.
A few other things I think I think:

• I care as much about a German retailer possibly outing the M9 as I do leakers outing the M9. Ain't nothing official until it's official. And it'll be official next Sunday.
• Besides which â€" and I say this every damned year â€" specs and pictures only tell about 5 percent of a smartphone's story. It's that other 95 percent that gets me up in the morning. Leakers really do very little, as far as I'm concerned.
• Other things I couldn't care less about: The Oscars. How many schools could we build with the money spent on those damned awards shows?
• That said, I absolutely still need to catch up on Whiplash and Foxcatcher. Long plane rides are good for that, though.
• I like the Amazon Echo a lot. I'm just not crazy about Bluetooth speakers at home anymore. Google + Sonos, please?
• I've kinda fallen in love with our little series on the new Quick Charge stuff. Especially when it comes to juicing up in the car. As convenient as wireless charging is, I'll take quick charging over it in a heartbeat.
• (Please, please let what Qualcomm says about any battery life degradation being moot because you'll get a new phone first be true.)
• Don't sweat Android 5.1 being on Android One phones first.
• I've got $5 that says it officially gets announced while I'm on a plane this week. Typical.
• I'm really curious what Motorola has in these boxes. But chances are it's not a big as folks think it is. (And, yes, I'm on a plane as these things are being delivered. Typical.)
• Also really curious what Pebble's about to drop on us.

That's enough for this week. Safe flying to all my work pals head to Spain later this week.