Cell World Congress—or simply MWC—isn’t one in all our favourite commerce exhibits simply because it’s located within the lovely metropolis of Barcelona throughout a seasonally applicable time of 12 months. (Low cost cava and tapas don’t have something to do with it both.) No, this present is a favourite as a result of it’s one of many best to navigate, and there’s at all times loads of fascinating, enjoyable, or simply plain loopy tech to scavenge via.
This 12 months, such bounty consists of clear laptops, bendable telephones, a Barbie flip cellphone, and extra. Listed here are the highlights.
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HMD Rebrands (Kind of) and Teases a Barbie Telephone
HMD was presupposed 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 an alternative put its concentrate on price range 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 vary issues up with a rebrand. First is the identify—it’s leaning extra on “Human Cell Units” (the complete model of its acronym) as an alternative 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 gadget. That’s all we all know. The one photos of all of the teased telephones had been pixelated.
What we do learn about HMD’s different cellphone is that it’ll revolve round a system referred to as HMD Fusion. Much like Motorola’s Moto Mods or Google’s long-lost Challenge Ara, it seems like a system of modular elements that builders can construct for the smartphone, from an prolonged battery and a barcode scanner to a cost terminal to medical tools. It launched a toolkit that 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. However this summer time, it says it can have a system that dramatically reduces the variety of steps it takes to repair a cracked display screen.
Motorola Bends a Telephone, and Debuts Sensible Join
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Late final 12 months at Lenovo’s Tech World occasion, Motorola unveiled a bendable idea cellphone referred to as the Adaptive Show. I obtained an opportunity to mess around with it at MWC. It seems and appears like its Razr folding telephones, besides as an alternative of getting a hinge that snaps the cellphone closed exactly in half, you may bend the entire thing backward.
