Feb 23, 2019, 03:33pm
MWC 2019: All The New Phones To Expect From The World's Biggest Mobile Show
Jean Baptiste Su Contributor
Enterprise & Cloud Vice-President of Advanced Technologies at Atherton Research
The annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the world's largest mobile event of the year and it's also the venue where many of the top Android phone makers will reveal their flagship smartphones for 2019 (Angel Garcia/Bloomberg Finance LP)© 2019 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP
The annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the world's largest mobile event of the year and it's also the venue where many of the top Android phone makers will reveal their flagship smartphones for 2019.
Although MWC doesn't officially kick off until Monday in Barcelona, Spain, Huawei, LG, Nokia, OnePlus and Xiaomi are all having their launch events the day before, while Nubia, Sony, and ZTE are hosting their press conferences on Monday.
However, to avoid being drowned up by the flood of announcements, Samsung revealed the latest generation of its Galaxy smartphones (S10, S10+, S10e, and the foldable Galaxy Fold phone) last week.
Huawei also plans to host another big hardware event in Paris after MWC, on March 25, where it will reveal the next iteration of its P-series phone lineup (P30) that is aimed at consumers obsessed with design and camera quality.
Which still leaves quite a lot of new devices to be announced in the next few days. So, here are all the new smartphones that we're expecting to see at the show.
Mate X, Huawei's foldable 5G smartphone
A week after Samsung, Huawei, the world's second phone maker in sales volume after the South Korean technology giant, plans to also unveil a 5G foldable smartphone during a press conference at MWC tomorrow.
Although technical details are scarce it will most likely be powered by the company's current flagship processor, the Kirin 980 used in the Mate 20 series, and a homegrown 5G modem, the Balong 5000, which is faster than Qualcomm's 5G modem (X50) that will equip most of this year's 5G smartphones.
The design of the Mate X was leaked on an advertising banner that was being set up at MWC today and reveals a single foldable display while the Samsung Galaxy Fold has two displays, a small one on the front and a large foldable one inside the unfolded device. The triple camera set up and the fingerprint scanner are hosted on a side frame which allows the display to have very thin bezels and no notch.
LG V50 ThinQ 5G and G8 ThinQ
The South Korean electronics company will be unveiling a slew of smartphones at MWC, including two midrange devices (Q60 and K50), and two flagship devices, the V50 ThinQ 5G, and the G8 ThinQ.
With the v50, LG might be one of the first smartphone makers to have a 5G capable phone on the market, neck in neck with Huawei and Samsung.
The design of both flagships is very similar—a small notch at the top, a sizeable "chin" at the bottom of the device and a fingerprint reader on the back—with the two main differences being the three rear-cameras for the V50 (versus two on the G8) and a vibrating display on the G8 that acts as its speaker.
Nokia 9 PureView
Nokia smartphones, which are made under license by HMD Global, have made a formidable comeback in the last two years, raising from the ashes to now being one of the world's top ten smartphone brands globally.
At MWC, HMD will unveil the Nokia 9 PureView with no less than five rear-cameras. It will be powered by last year's flagship Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm (845), include an in-display fingerprint reader and two large bezels on both the top and the bottom of the device, which is a bit of disappointment.
The Finnish startup will also unveil three budget phones (4.2, 3.2, 1 Plus), which are hardware updates of existing lines.
Nubia α
ZTE’s lifestyle brand is expected to unveil a foldable phone, the Nubia α, that you wear on the wrist, just like a wristwatch or a bracelet.
OnePlus 7 5G
The Chinese startup, which is known for selling flagship phones at the price of a midrange device, will be showing a prototype of its upcoming 5G phone that will be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 855 processor and X50 5G modem, the same "kit" that is used in 5G phones made by LG, Oppo and Samsung (U.S. version).
Not much is known yet on the phone's specifications but it looks like that OnePlus' 5G phone will have an all-screen design without a notch and that the selfie camera will either be popping up from inside the device—like what sister-company Vivo did with the Vivo Nex S—or include a second smaller display in the back, similar to the Nubia X.
Oppo
The Chinese manufacturer—part of the same electronics conglomerate BKK than Vivo and OnePlus—announced today that it will ship this spring (second quarter of 2019) a 5G phone powered by Qualcomm's X55 modem as well as another phone with a three rear-cameras including a 10X "lossless" telephoto lens, 48 megapixels main camera lens and a 120 degree ultra-wide lens.
Sony Xperia 1
In a desperate need of a revamp, the Japanese electronics giant will launch four new Xperia mobile phones at MWC, including the flagship Xperia 1, the mid-range Xperia 10 Plus and 10, and the lower-end Xperia L3.
Unfortunately, design-wise, these phones are disappointing with much larger bezels than its competitors and nothing much else to really differentiate from the crowded smartphone market, aside perhaps for the 4K HDR video recording capability in 21:9 format of the Xperia 1.
Xiaomi 5G
The Chinese company is expected to officially unveil a 5G version of its all-screen Mi Mix 3 smartphone which was on Qualcomm's booth at CES 2019 and has a sliding mechanism to pop-up the selfie camera from inside the device.
Xiaomi will also show off a prototype of its folding phone as well as the 6.4-inch Mi 9 that was launched in China last week and features the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, a small teardrop notch, an in-display fingerprint reader, three rear-cameras, super-fast charging.
ZTE Axon 5G
The Chinese telecom giant which released a foldable smartphone less than two years ago, the Axon M, will unveil a 5G phone using Qualcomm's chips which it hopes to commercialize in the first six months of 2019.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanba...-the-worlds-biggest-mobile-show/#20daff7b132e
