Biggest Announcements: Mobile World Congress (MWC 2023)

The 2023 Mobile World Congress (MWC) has come and gone yet the memories remain. The technological gathering was held at the Fira de Barcelona convention centre in Barcelona from February 27 to March 2nd. This year’s technological gathering features various tech companies showcasing their latest inventions impacting the mobile industry at large before tens of thousands of attendees from over 200 countries of the world.

In terms of consumer tech, MWC is a show packed with smartphone announcements. Key players like Samsung and Sony don’t seem to be planning any significant announcements for the event, but brands like Honor, OnePlus, Huawei, and HMD’s Nokia made significant announcements which you need to find out about.

MWC has been less active in recent years, similar to many trade exhibitions you find around, and was entirely cancelled in 2020 as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. This year seems to be a little busier than last.

Google Keep’s new Android widget

First on the list of discoveries is Google’s new widget. With the new widget for Keep, Google’s notes and lists app, you can add a single interactive note to your home screen. It allows users to cross items off lists, which is useful for to-do or grocery lists.

Using the tags system, you can force one of Keep’s current widgets to display only a single note, but doing so is more difficult than simply choosing one to show on your home screen. Moreover, Keep’s current widgets lack the amount of interactivity that Google claims its new widget would have; attempting to tick off checkboxes simply launches the app rather than marking it as checked as the single note widget does.

The company noted on March 2nd that the widget will be available to most users within the next 15 days

Nokia G22 and repairability

HMD once made a big deal out of how repairable the upcoming Nokia G22 will be at MWC 2023. The company has a deal with iFixit to sell spare parts for the phone for five years after it is released. There will also be simple digital instructions for fixing common problems like a cracked screen, dead battery, or faulty charging port. The Nokia G22 is built with recycled materials and engineered to last longer, comes in 2 colours, the meteor and grey.

Nokia G22 delivers a giant 3-day battery (5050 mAh) life and is capable of 800 full charging cycles, meaning it will stay in good shape for longer, charging at 20W fast charging support. This device delivers on 3 signature security promises: a 3-year warranty, 3 years of monthly security updates, and 2 years of OS upgrades. So, users can do more of what they love, online or offline, with total peace of mind.

The Nokia G22 boost of 6.52-inch screen size, a resolution of HD+ (720 x 1200) and features a 90Hz refresh rate, Brightness of 500 nits (typ.), Sunlight brightness boost. As for the front camera: 8 MP, and the Rear camera:50 MP Main AF 5P lens, f/1.8 + 2 MP Depth + 2 MP Macro.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro and its bigger camera sensors

Xiaomi devices are fast becoming a mainstream gadget from a brand that’s become pretty popular in a lot of countries outside of the US. Although the 200-megapixel main camera on Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra attracted loads of media attention, Xiaomi’s 13 Pro perhaps has more intriguing camera hardware.

The smartphone received its international introduction at this year’s MWC after being introduced to the Chinese market in December. Although its 50-megapixel main camera sensor might not seem all that intriguing at first, the Sony IMX989 hardware’s compactness makes it unique. Xiaomi 13 Pro feels significant because it’s a regular-looking

The Xiaomi 13 Pro is far from the first smartphone to have a 1-inch-type sensor. Its 1-inch-type sensor may not actually mean that it is one-inch square but nonetheless indicates that it is significantly larger than the majority of other smartphone camera sensors.   Larger sensors typically result in larger pixels, and when all other factors are equal, this results in a camera that is better at capturing light. Larger sensors can also result in a narrower depth of field, making it significantly simpler to capture images with naturally fuzzy backgrounds. The Xiaomi 13 Pro is one smartphone that provides the advantages of strong camera hardware and software together.

The Realme GT3 and faster charging

The fast charging standards for Apple’s flagship iPhones have been 20 to 30 watts, but Android smartphone manufacturers have been raising the bar steadily. Realme is the most recent business to attempt to capture the fast-charging crown. At MWC 2023, Realme plans to introduce the 240W fast charging-capable Realme GT3 internationally. Just like the Xiaomi 13 Pro, this phone has previously been made available in China under the Realme GT Neo 5 brand.  According to Realme, the amount of power is sufficient to fully recharge the phone’s 4,600mAh battery in just nine and a half minutes.

According to Realme, even after 1,600 charging cycles, the phone’s battery will still be able to hold 80 per cent of its charge because of the 240W SuperVOOC charging technology and the safeguards it is fitted with. For example, Apple’s own support website states that its batteries are only rated to hold 80 per cent of their charge for merely 500 charging cycles, which translates to a relatively healthy four years or more of longevity if you charge a phone around once per day.

The Honor Magic VS and foldable competition

For years now, Samsung has been at the forefront of foldable in the Z Fold and Z Flip devices, with relatively little or no competition from Motorola or Huawei. A shift is happening, as 2023 emerges as the year international buyers finally begin to see a little more foldable competition. 

Oppo had the Find N2 Flip’s international launch just before MWC, and Honor revealed the price and an eventual international release for the Magic VS foldable at the expo. Even OnePlus has stated that it will launch a foldable in the second half of this year.

More devices mean would mean more competition in terms of price and functionality and we are here for all of it. Whether by providing a larger and more practical cover display than Samsung’s Z Flip 4 with the Find N2 Flip or a more robust hinge design with the Magic VS (which is rated for 400,000 folding cycles compared to 200,000 for Samsung’s Z Fold 4). Perhaps, these gadgets will force Samsung to compete with its own discoveries.

Motorola’s new Razr foldable

According to a CNBC report, Motorola will debut another Razr this year. The next-generation foldable would be released to the public “very soon,” says Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing, who also serves as the parent company of Motorola. Although he didn’t disclose much about the mobile device. 

The most recent version of the Motorola Razr was unveiled last year but is only sold in China and Europe. Images posted by dependable leaker Evan Blass, however, suggest that the new 2023 Razr might take things up a notch by adding a much larger outside display that virtually fills the device’s panel.

Yang disclosed that his team is “committed to the foldable space and dedicated to expanding the Razr franchise offerings soon.” The new Razr could launch as soon as June 1st of this year. However, we have no idea of what the exact size of the outer display who be, it’s most likely going to be bigger than the 2.7-inch AMOLED one on last year’s model.

OnePlus is launching a foldable later in 2023

The most recent company to join the MWC 2023 announcements is OnePlus. The company confirmed its plans to introduce a foldable phone in the second half of 2023 during a panel discussion at MWC. That’s about all the information we currently have, but it seems safe to assume that the smartphone will resemble one of the foldable already available on the market from Oppo, the parent company of OnePlus.

While companies like Apple and Google are yet to make up their minds about entering the foldable market, Oppo is currently on its way to unveiling a second cycle of folding phones, however for now they have largely been restricted to China. The Find N was a tablet-style foldable that was introduced in 2021 and featured an incredibly sophisticated design for a first-gen product. The Find N2 and Find N2 Flip were released by Oppo as a follow-up in late 2022. When the latter, a clamshell-shaped gadget in the style of Samsung’s Z Flip series, goes on sale in a few days, it will be Oppo’s first foldable to be made available in Europe.

It’s difficult to predict if OnePlus will opt to flip or fold for its upcoming device. What we are sure of is that it is going to be a “flagship phone that doesn’t settle because of its folding form, in terms of industrial design, mechanical technology, and other aspects.”

OnePlus’ new concept phone is the coolest yet

At MWC Barcelona 2023, the company also displayed the OnePlus 11 Concept device, which has luminous blue pipelines on its back to simulate the cooling liquid of the company’s “Active CryoFlux” cooling technology.

Clearly, it is intended to look flashy, but according to OnePlus, the cooling system has a significant and useful function. The method, according to the company, might improve gaming performance and (slightly) speed up charging times without the “size, weight, and noise” of a physically rotating fan, as we’ve seen from companies like Nubia or in smartphone cooling accessories from Razer or Asus.

A temperature decrease of 2.1 degrees Celsius (around 3.78 degrees Fahrenheit) while gaming, according to OnePlus, might lead to an improvement in the performance of three to four frames per second. Alternately, the Active CryoFlux technology may lower temperatures by 1.6 degrees Celsius (about 2.88 degrees Fahrenheit) while the device is charging, shortening the time needed to charge it by 30 to 45 seconds. Unfortunately, none of these performance benefits was on display with the OnePlus 11 Concept devices the company was showing off during its MWC demonstration.