Opinion: MWC isn’t the can’t miss mobile event it once was, but the 2025 instalment was compelling for mobile-lovers. The quirkiness was back and the innovative spirit lives.
I wasn’t particularly enthused for Mobile World Congress this year. With most of the major manufacturers choosing to host events on their own timescales, rather than trekking to Barcelona, the event has held less significance.
Plus I expected more of the same; each manufacturer showing up with their own take on the same AI tools we’ve been subjected to over the last couple of years.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. The absence of multiple flagship releases from tech’s the biggest names left room for other companies and products to shine. And it was intriguing hardware concepts making most of the headlines.
We were treated to some more offbeat tech, cool advancements and zany concepts that not even Apple’s interestingly-timed iPad launches could take the shine off.
Cook delicious pizzas with this Ninja deal
Get ready for the summer with this epic deal on Ninja’s outdoor pizza oven, letting you save well over £100 on its original cost.
- Ninja (via eBay)
- Use code SPRING10
- Now just £242.10
Notable notebooks
Look at Lenovo, for example, who showed up in Catalonia armed with some really neat laptop concepts, including the Lenovo Yoga Solar PC, which is loaded with solar cells in the display’s back panel that can convert 20 minutes of direct sunlight into an hour of additional video playback time.
I love it as motivation to spend a little bit more time outside to replenish the battery life, rather than being tied to the home office to ensure there’s enough juice to last the day.
We also got the Thinkbook Flip, which is a unique take on a foldable display that gives users more vertical real estate for viewing documents, webpages, and more. It starts off as a 13-inch laptop that can be flipped up to an 18.1-inch option.
This enables split screen apps, or even a mirrored display if you fold it back on itself. It also has a pretty unique trackpad with media controls akin to the dearly departed MacBook Touch Bar.
Continuing the expandable display theme, the company debuted new versions of its Magic Bay accessories, which would make it easy to add a pair of additional displays either side of a laptop screen to form a veritable command centre.
This is exactly the type of thing you want to see when you show up at a tech show. Something tactile and tangible; not a bunch of executives yammering on in an endless keynote about how AI can steal from the pockets of creatives.
Phone cameras are back
The launch of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra set a new high water mark for the best camera phones in 2025 with its 1-inch-backed main camera, auxiliary lenses and a neat camera grip accessory. But on the periphery of the show were signs that manufacturers were preparing to think way outside of the box when it comes to cameras once again.
As our mobile editor Lewis Painter points out, MWC 2025 was awash with intriguing camera concepts the likes of which we haven’t seen in quite some time, since tech companies were experimenting with cameras that were also phones rather than the other way around.
The Realme Ultra camera phone concept, for instance, connects to a standard DSLR lens adding incredible flexibility to the shooting experience. Xiaomi rocked up at the event with a concept for a portable lens (below) that simply magnetically attaches to the back of a modified Xiaomi 15 phone.
From the show flow in Barcelona, Lewis wrote: “Now, I know this is a concept, but it feels so well manufactured and polished that I wouldn’t be surprised if it became a feature of the Xiaomi 16 Ultra, if not the entire Xiaomi 16 range. I sure hope so, anyway.”
What’s old is new again
Realme rocked up at MWC with some pure Global Hypercolor t-shirt vibes. The RealMe 14 Pro changes colour when exposed to the cold, and check this out from Samsung? Retro and futuristic in one fell swoop.
Yes, there were lofty AI promises
We mentioned relief that AI wasn’t the overriding theme of MWC this year. However, No major tech show would be complete without a highfalutin concept promising to reshape society as we know it.
Honor was on-hand to propose an AI-based Alpha Plan that would “create a new paradigm for civilisation” through collaboration with other players through the various stages of AI development.
Thankfully, this show was more about the mobile hardware than the overriding AI spectre. Long may that continue.
