What to expect from Mobile World Congress 2018

2025-04-27 01:50:41admin

If you've been looking to buy a new Android phone, you might want to wait a few days. Mobile World Congress -- the biggest mobile industry event of the year -- starts on Feb. 26 in Barcelona, and that means we'll see a lot of new Androids. The good ones.

Of course, this is true every year, but this particular instance of the MWC appears to be even more news-packed then usual. We'll see new devices from Samsung, LG, Huawei, Sony, Alcatel, and Asus, to name a few.

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For some of those manufacturers, we know pretty much exactly what they'll be showing. And this year, it's smartphones. A lot of them.

So. Many. Phones.

LG, for example, has announced a new version of LG V30 (possibly called the LG V30s), which will retain the same look as the V30 but come with a bunch of AI-powered enhancements, particularly in the camera department.

LG hasn't given us any details on when, exactly, this new phone will launch, and the company doesn't have an event scheduled for MWC, but we're sure we'll be able to grab an LG exec or two by the sleeve if we see them.

We also know Samsungwill be launching its new flagship phone, the Galaxy S9, on Feb. 25. Thanks to a steady stream of leaks, we know pretty much everything about the phone; we even know what some of its accessories, like the DeX Pad, will look like.

The rumored specs for the Galaxy S9 are 5.8-inch AMOLED screen, Snapdragon 845 chipset, 4GB of RAM and a single camera on the back. Its bigger brother, the Galaxy S9+, should have a 6.2-inch screen, 6GB of RAM and a dual, vertically oriented camera on the back.

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Of course, Samsung being Samsung, we can expect a few surprises at their event, which is happening around 12 noon ET on Feb. 25.

Huaweialso has an event on Feb. 25, but we don't know what, exactly, the company will unveil. It could be a new phone, but Huawei has also announced an event for March 27 in Paris, so it's quite possible that we won't see a new smartphone flagship before that date.

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The company's announcement for the event has a tagline saying "Experience new horizons," but that could mean literally anything.

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Still, previous rumors claim Huawei is about to launch the P20, which will be a big leap from its current flagship, the P10, and not only in name. It's rumored to come in three variants: P20, P20 Plus and P20 Lite, with the first two variants sporting a triple (!) 40-megapixel rear camera.

As for Sony, the company hasn't revealed much beyond this cryptic video (below), but we're still betting they'll show a phone during the company's event on Monday, Feb. 26. Rumors say at least one new phone is coming, and -- as is the case with all Sony flagships -- you can expect a big focus on the camera.

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China's Alcatel will have an event on Feb. 24, where it's likely to show three new smartphones. Nokia (HMD Global) will probably unveil a new phone on Feb. 25. Asus has an event on Feb. 27, where it'll possibly show the iPhone-like Zenfone 5. And we could see phones from other manufacturers, including Lenovo, BlackBerry, and ZTE.

5G, cars, and, you guessed it, blockchain

This year's Mobile World Congress definitely lives up to its name -- from the announcements we've seen so far, it'll mostly be about phones.

But MWC is always bigger than just devices. One topic that we'll hear about this year is 5G. Though still far from becoming commonplace, the next-generation mobile network standard is coming in the next few years, and we're likely to see a few demonstrations of its insane speeds in Barcelona.

Last year, Peugeot surprised everyone by unveiling its Instinct concept car at Barcelona (instead of, say, the Geneva car show), and this year we might see quite a bit of car-related tech at MWC.

Huawei, for example, will showcase a Porsche Panamera being driven by the Huawei Mate 10 Pro's AI. Hopefully, no dogs were harmed during the filming of the announcement video (below).

And Daimler will show off some AI technology of their own, in a brand-new Mercedes-Benz model, on Feb. 26.

Finally, a topic that dominated the tech space in the past year will definitely be hot at the MWC as well. I'm talking, of course, about blockchain. I fully expect to see blockchain-based/mobile startups at the show as well as tons of companies trying to somehow squeeze blockchain buzzwords into whatever they're actually doing. Some of it might make sense, some of it might not, but it'll be interesting to see how the mobile world adapts to this new trend.

The MWC officially takes place in Barcelona on Feb 26 - Mar 1, but our coverage starts a day earlier, on Feb 24. Stay tuned!

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