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MWC 2024

Mobile World Congress is traditionally one of the biggest phone and mobile events of the year. The Verge will be attending the show in person in Barcelona, where we’re expecting to see smartphones announced by Xiaomi and Honor, a new smartwatch from OnePlus, and a concept device from Lenovo. Inevitably, there’ll also be some surprises, especially with Xiaomi teasing the launch of an electric SUV.

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What if phones actually bent to our needs?

We’ve been busy shaping our habits and thinking around our phones. But what would it look like if they shaped themselves to better fit our lives?

Eufy’s new 360-degree 4K camera doesn’t need Wi-Fi or power outlets

It has the same $249.99 starting price of Eufy’s previous LTE-capable Starlight camera but offers so much more.

MWC 2024: all the phones, wearables, and gadgets announced in Barcelona

Europe’s big smartphone show is here, and big players like Xiaomi, OnePlus, HMD, Honor, and Lenovo have a new generation of devices to show off.

The Phone 2A makes a guest appearance at Nothing’s MWC event.

It’s not due to launch until March 5th, but Nothing couldn’t help teasing its first budget handset, yet again, in Barcelona.

As you can see, the light-up glyphs are back, but we’ll need a few more days before we get a better look at this device.


<em>Nothing Phone (2a) at MWC 2024</em>

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Nothing Phone (2a) at MWC 2024
Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge
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Intel plans to be inside 100 million AI PCs by next year.

Intel vice president David Feng said during Mobile World Congress that as part of the push to put AI into everything it builds, it will produce 40 million CPUs for AI PCs this year and 60 million in 2025, reports Nikkei Asia.

The “AI PC” concept includes Microsoft’s new CoPilot button plus Intel Core Ultra processors with built-in GPUs and neural processing units for AI models, which are now available as part of its vPro platform for business laptops.


The Humane AI Pin worked better than I expected — until it didn’t

The AI Pin would look pretty impressive if it wasn’t so self-serious.

Oppo just busted out AI smart glasses at MWC.

Oppo’s Air Glass 3 look like an ordinary pair of glasses, but it connects to Oppo smartphones to access the company’s AndesGPT LLM. Like other smart glasses, you tap the sides for controls and it can play music, display information, and take voice calls.

So far, it sounds similar to what Meta is trying to do with the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, where you can ask an AI assistant to deliver more context about the things you actually see. The catch is it won’t be available outside of China — and this is only a prototype in any case.


Render of the Oppo Air Glass 3
Image: Oppo
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Gemini’s photo generator ‘will be back in a few weeks.’

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, in a keynote during the Mobile World Congress, acknowledged the model applied a range of people for images “too bluntly.” Hassabis said Gemini’s photo generation feature, which was paused last week, is being fixed to offer a more narrow range of people for historical accuracy.


This is not the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

But it is the modem-RF chip that’s likely to be paired with Qualcomm’s next-gen processor in 2025’s big Android flagships. The Snapdragon X80 5G modem is an update to the X75 and supports six-carrier aggregation, 5G Advanced standards, and certain satellite-based non-terrestrial communications. And there’s a bunch of new AI optimization, because it’s 2024 and of course there is.


Rendering of Snapdragon X80 modem chipset.
Image: Qualcomm
Xiaomi’s SU7 electric car is here.

It’s sleek, blue, and runs Xiaomi’s Hyper OS to integrate with the company’s phones and other smart products. It’s loaded with cameras on the outside from what I can see, and can do zero to 100km/h in 2.78 seconds. The EV on display here at MWC is spinning around on a pedastal much, much slower than that.


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A phone that bends over backwards for you.

I got to check out Motorola’s concept phone with a bending display. Is it impractical? Yes. Is it cool as hell? Also yes.

I was allowed to put it on my own wrist with a special magnetic bracelet keeping it in place. Can you imagine just casually checking the time on your bendable slap bracelet phone in the middle of a meeting? The ultimate flex!


Photo of bending concept phone worn on the wrist showing a watchface.

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A short gif of Infinix’s color-changing charging E Ink phone concept.

Plug in Infinix’s E-Color Shift phone, and its E Ink back rapidly cycles between different colors, and only stops when you unplug it again. Infinix hopes to one day let you choose between different colors in software (you can see less flashy design options here), since the process is far from practical in its current form.


Gif of Infinix concept phone E-Ink display changing colors.
When plugged in, the rear of the concept phone cycles through a series of colors.
Video by Jon Porter / The Verge
Xiaomi’s new Watch S3 has a bezel you can swap as easily as a strap.

The bezels attach and detach with a simple twist, and you also get a choice of over 180 watch faces to further customize the watch’s look. The watch’s features include the ability to track winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, ice-skating, and curling, and there are also some Apple Watch-style one-handed gesture controls for good measure. It’s joined by a new Wear OS smartwatch, the Xiaomi Watch 2. Prices start at €149 for the S3, and €199 for the Watch 2.


Man holds removed bezel next to S3 smartwatch.

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With a simple twist, the Watch S3’s bezel can be removed and replaced. Its strap also has a quick-release system.
Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The future of phones depends on the future of apps

It’ll be hard to evolve today’s smartphone unless manufacturers can get an ecosystem of apps on board with their new ideas. Could AI offer a way forward?

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Xiaomi teases a new flagship smartphone for MWC.

As well as bringing its currently China-exclusive 14 smartphone to a global audience, Xiaomi is announcing a completely new device at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this week. CEO Lei Jun has teased the design of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra phone on X, and announced its telephoto camera specs. It’ll also be Xiaomi’s latest device to use a massive 1-inch-type sensor for its main camera.


This week on The Vergecast, we talked about TikTok’s AI filter, the Motorola Rizr, and Meta’s plans for VR.

It must be MWC, because every old mobile grievance was revisited, even as we celebrated what is surely our phone of the future, Motorola’s rollable Rizr concept.

We also dug into Alex Heath’s big scoop exposing Meta’s hardware roadmap, TikTok’s unsettling new filter, and talked a little about Elon Musk. Not too much.


Unrolling Lenovo’s latest laptop and phone concepts at MWC 2023.

Just when we were getting used to foldable phones, tablets, and laptops, these concept designs suggest rollable screens are in the near future, ready to extend the view by a few more inches when you need them to, without taking up more space in your pocket or bag.

Jon Porter is at Mobile World Congress 2023 this week and can show you Lenovo’s rollable screen laptop plus its Motorola-branded rollable phone.


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Green light.

This year’s Mobile World Congress event is in full swing, with news from Google (the new Keep widget seems useful), Nokia, and others.

You can stay tuned in to all of the updates with our event storystream.