Tag Archives: mobile-world-congress

Black phones are boring, but sell. Yet for brands, color still matters

The Galaxy S10 in Canary Yellow and Flamingo Pink. The foldable Galaxy Fold in Martian Green. OnePlus 6T in Thunder Purple. The list goes on. Every sales figure and expert tells us that people buy phones for their camera, battery and screen. But any product designer or marketer will tell you that color and finish matter, too. …

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The biggest 5G breakthrough may be this harmless, little plastic strip

5G is going to change your life. But first, it actually needs to get to you.  Though 5G networks are starting to go live, the deployments remain limited. That’s because many of the carriers, including Verizon and AT&T, are employing super high-frequency airwaves through something called millimeter wave spectrum, which offers a fat data pipe for insane speeds but has …

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Mate X costs $2,600, but Huawei hints at cheaper foldable phones

Update, Oct. 23: The Huawei Mate X was released, but only in China so far. Original story follows. When Huawei announced that the Mate X foldable phone would sell for 2,299 euros — roughly $2,600, £2,000 or AU$3,660 — the audience at Huawei’s Mate X launch event at MWC gasped and groaned. But it may not be that way forever.  “It …

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MWC 2019: The 7 coolest things we saw

And just like that, MWC 2019 is over. With it, came a huge truckload of announcements. When it came to foldable phones, we saw Huawei’s Mate X, TCL’s foldable prototype that turns into a smartwatch, Motorola’s foldable phone plans and more. Beyond that there was the HoloLens 2 and the five-camera-packing Nokia 9. For the TL;DR on what you need to know from …

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CNET Asks: Do you want a wearable smartphone?

Smartphone design just got taken to another level. Nubia, an associate company to Chinese telecommunications company ZTE, just unveiled the world’s first wearable smart phone at MWC 2019. The smartphone, (or is it a smartwatch?), named the Nubia Alpha, looks like something out of a sci-fi novel, and it’s a first step toward the wearable tech of the future.  The …

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5G and VR let me Spider

I’m swinging through Manhattan, shooting my web at flagpoles, buildings and — inadvertently — a tree branch. I gain a little speed and altitude and start flying through the city. It certainly beats taking the subway. Now playing: Watch this: Spider-Man VR lets you shoot webs with 5G 2:28 While this virtual world places me in New York, I’m actually …

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Motorola will sell its first foldable phone, likely the Razr, this summer

Motorola is jumping into foldable phones. And it’s likely doing it with one of the most iconic names in the business.  Motorola, a unit of Chinese consumer electronics giant Lenovo, plans to sell its foldable smartphone in the summer, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans. The person said the design would be unlike the Samsung Galaxy Fold, …

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Galaxy Fold, Huawei Mate X: Foldable phones are so tantalizingly close

Update, Oct. 23: The Huawei Mate X was released, but only in China so far. Original story follows. Samsung last week spent nearly 15 minutes on stage showing us slick concept videos and stills of its Galaxy Fold smartphone. The amount of time we actually got to see the real thing: Less than two minutes. At MWC Barcelona over the weekend, …

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Clean your phone while charging it with Lexon’s Oblio

MWC 2019 is (mostly) about phones, so it makes sense that the show also has plenty of phone accessories. Cases, headsets and Bluetooth speakers are typical fare, but there’s more to see around Barcelona. Take the Lexon Oblio, which I found at a press event the night the show opened. Appealingly shaped like a minimalist vase, the Oblio doesn’t just charge …

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Five phone cameras? Three? Galaxy S10, PureView, Xperia take different tacks

Cast your mind back to the heady days of 2012 when Nokia scored an award for launching the best new device at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The winner was the Nokia 808 PureView, a Symbian-powered phone that boasted a camera with 41 megapixels. Seven years later, there’s a new PureView in town, but this time it’s less about the …

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