ZTE was showing off its new Era smartphone, a quad-core packing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich handset that measures less than 8mm thick, at Mobile World Congress 2012 and we stopped by ZTE's booth for a closer look.

ZTE has announced the Orbit, its second Windows Phone device. The Orbit is one of the new lower-end Windows Phone smartphones that makes do with a lower-spec processor and less RAM than older models were required to have. We stopped by the ZTE booth at Mobile World Congress 2012 to get a quick look at the Orbit.

At Mobile World Congress 2012, ZTE has announced the Era, a new high-end Android smartphone with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a 7.8mm thick frame.

ZTE has announced the Orbit, its next Windows Phone smartphone after the Tania from last year. The Orbit is powered by a 1GHz processor and has 4-inch display.

Not content to let LG steal all of the multi-core thunder at Mobile World Congress next week, ZTE has revealed that it will announce 8 new smartphones at the show. ZTE has already tipped its hand a bit this week with announcements of the Mimosa X and the PF200 and N910, but it seems that the company has more surprises in store for the actual conference. ZTE says its announcements will feature devices with multi-core chipsets, LTE, and other 4G services, and will include both Android and Windows Phone devices. The company is holding a press conference on Monday, and we will be there to bring you all of the goodies.

NVIDIA and ZTE have introduced the Mimosa X, a new smartphone that is the first on the market to be powered by a Tegra 2 processor and use NVIDIA's Icera HSPA+ modem.

Offering a pre-Mobile World Congress tease (expect to hear that phrase quite often this week), ZTE has announced the launch of two new LTE-equipped smartphones that will come with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Sprint has announced the launch of the ZTE Optik, a new, entry-level 7-inch tablet with Android 3.2 Honeycomb.

ZTE and Ericsson have announced that the two companies have settled their patent disputes and have entered into a cross-licensing agreement. The cross-license is applicable worldwide. Ericsson had initially sued ZTE over alleged infringements, and ZTE fired back with a lawsuit of its own shortly afterwards. The disputed patents cover GSM and 3G/UMTS cellular technology.

It's not often that device manufacturers let slip how much they pay in licensing fees to use a particular operating system on their smartphones, but that appears to be just what ZTE did recently, as it outed the cost of Windows Phone licenses for its smartphones.