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Good morning from Barcelona! Richard and Tom are here to see, hear and generally mess around with all the new stuff getting announced at MWC today. Stuff such as the OnePlus Concept 11 and OnePlus Pad.
As its name suggests, the Concept 11 isn’t going to be available for purchase, but is rather a platform for OnePlus to show off. It features the world’s first smartphone-sized liquid cooling system for sustained performance, and unique design elements that it claims you’d normally find on expensive wristwatches.
The OnePlus Pad is going on sale however, with a release slated for April. It’s obviously an iPad/Galaxy Tab rival, but while OnePlus borrows some features like tablet-phone collaboration and stylus compatibility, it also does some more unique things like offering a squarer-than-average display and rapid charging tech. It’ll be interesting to see how the final thing performs against Samsung and Apple’s best.
We knew about the OnePlus Pad prior to Mobile World Congress, as OnePlus announced its first attempt at a tablet alongside the release of the OnePlus 11 earlier this month. But MWC afforded us the chance to experience some OnePlus Pad hands-on time, so we have some initial impressions to share on the tablet ahead of its April release.
Sustainability is a hot topic right now, and Lenovo’s done a couple of things to try and show its taking the issue seriously. That involves a new plant-based laptop shell and plastic-free, biodegradable laptop packaging.
The Flax Fiber Cover is an optional extra for the new ThinkPad Z13, made from woven strands of flax fiber. Those strands are sourced from the stem of the flax seed plant, and once woven are encased in a special “bio-based resin” to ensure proper durability. Meanwhile the packaging is made from a mix of bamboo and sugarcane, which Lenovo promises is 100% biodegradable and compostable.
It doesn’t change the fact that big tech is a pretty dirty business, but baby steps are still progress.
MWC is a show for concept designs, and Lenovo has taken that challenge up. We’ve just seen new rollables from the company that extend the screens on both phones and laptops.
Sadly, neither of Lenovo’s concepts are close to being ready to release, but they do show us what rollable display technology will mean for tech devices. In the case of Lenovo’s rollable phone, the 5-inch screen adds an extra inch with the press of a button. When not expanded, that spare display real estate can act like the cover display on a Galaxy Z Flip phone.
The rollable laptop from Lenovo can extend the screen to double the available space. In our demo, we saw a 4:3 aspect ratio on a laptop convert to an 8:9 ratio — the equivalent of two 16:9 displays stacked on top of each other.
Xiaomi’s picked MWC as the spot to reveal its latest flagship phones, the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro, as well as a new pair of true wireless earbuds, the Buds 4 Pro and a Watch S1 Pro smartwatch.
The new phones both feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and 50MP main cameras with Leica tuning, as well as speedy charging (50W in the basic phone’s case, 120W for the Pro). The Pro goes even further though with a 1-inch main sensor and 50MP sensors for both its ultrawide and telephoto cameras too.
Meanwhile, the Buds 4 Pro cover the key premium earbuds features of adjustable ear tips, active noise canceling, LDAC and Hi-Res Audio Wireless support and “Dimensional” spatial audio. Finally, the Watch S1 Pro offers a two-week battery life, a 1.47-inch AMOLED display protected with sapphire glass and a wealth of health and sports features like exercise tracking, SpO2 monitoring and more.
Flagship phones tend to get the majority of the attention, but the low cost phones still keep coming. HMD, the company that makes Nokia phones, has three brand new low cost devices coming this Spring — the Nokia G22, Nokia C32 and the Nokia C22.
The G22 has been built with repairability in mind, thanks to a partnership with iFixit. The idea here is that ordinary people can switch out the battery and screen without having to pay a professional for the privilege. U.S. pricing hasn’t been announced, but it’ll be available in the U.K. from March 8 for £150.
The Nokia C32 is designed to bring better photography to low budget phones, packing in a 50MP camera. Both it and the C22 will also maintain the same durability and long battery life modern Nokias are known for. In fact HMD claims that both phones offer a 3 day battery life, toughened glass and elegant designs you wouldn’t normally associate with cheap handsets.
U.S. pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but the Nokia G22 goes on sale in the U.K. for £150 on March 8. The C32 and C22 will go on sale this spring, priced at £130 and £110 respectively.
Our favorite among the products we’ve seen so far on Sunday is the Motorola Defy Satellite Link. While the likes of the iPhone 14 may have an emergency satellite SOS system built in, this gadget can add this feature to any smartphone via a Bluetooth connection. And it costs just $99, plus a subscription that starts at $5 a month.
If that wasn’t enough, downloading the Bullitt Satellite Messenger App offers a two-way satellite messaging. That allows you send messages to the satellite, and have them passed on to a recipient as a standard SMS text message. If your recipient has the same app, the system will reverse to let them respond – and at no cost to them.
Frankly, it’s going to be hard to top that, and the show has only just begun. Of course MWC 2023 will have plenty more cool stuff to offer, so be sure to check back later for our ongoing live coverage direct from the show floor.