Mobile World Congress—or simply MWC—isn’t considered one of our favourite commerce reveals simply because it’s located within the lovely metropolis of Barcelona throughout a seasonally applicable time of 12 months. (Cheap cava and tapas don’t have something to do with it both.) No, this present is a favourite as a result of it is one of many best to navigate, and there’s at all times loads of attention-grabbing, enjoyable, or simply plain loopy tech to scavenge via.
This 12 months, such bounty contains transparent laptops, bendable telephones, a Barbie flip cellphone, and extra. Here are the highlights.
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HMD Rebrands (Sort of) and Teases a Barbie Phone
HMD was speculated to be the rebirth of Nokia telephones again when it made a splash at MWC 2017, but it surely wasn’t lengthy earlier than the corporate misplaced steam and it was clear that the Nokia model identify wouldn’t actually compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple anymore. HMD as a substitute put its concentrate on funds Android telephones over the previous few years and its function cellphone enterprise. At MWC, it introduced that 2023 was the corporate’s first worthwhile 12 months, and now it’s making an attempt to alter issues up with a rebrand. First is the identify—it’s leaning extra on “Human Mobile Devices” (the total model of its acronym) as a substitute of HMD. This 12 months’s lineup of units will embrace an HMD cellphone, an iconic Nokia cellphone, plus a Barbie flip cellphone.
Yep, you heard that proper. HMD is collaborating with Mattel to launch a Barbie function flip cellphone. It’ll be coming this summer time, will clearly be pink, and is being touted as a digital detox system. That’s all we all know. The solely footage of all of the teased telephones have been pixelated.
What we do find out about HMD’s different cellphone is that it’s going to revolve round a system known as HMD Fusion. Similar to Motorola’s Moto Mods or Google’s long-lost Project Ara, it seems like a system of modular elements builders can construct for the smartphone, from an prolonged battery and a barcode scanner to a fee terminal to medical tools. It launched a toolkit builders can use to get began.
HMD additionally had an enormous concentrate on repairability—it expects half of its units launched globally this 12 months to be repairable. But this summer time, it says it would have a system that dramatically reduces the variety of steps it takes to repair a cracked display screen.
Motorola Bends a Phone, and Debuts Smart Connect
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Late final 12 months at Lenovo’s Tech World occasion, Motorola unveiled a bendable idea cellphone known as the Adaptive Display. I received an opportunity to mess around with it at MWC. It appears and looks like its Razr folding telephones, besides as a substitute of getting a hinge that snaps the cellphone closed exactly in half, you possibly can bend the entire thing backward.