Mobile World Congress 2017: the biggest news from MWC – The Verge

The headphone jack ain’t dead yet

2017-03-29T14:04:39-04:00

Huawei P10, LG G6, and Sony Xperia XZ Premium at MWC 2017. | Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

This article was originally posted during Mobile World Congress earlier this month. The trend it addresses, of smartphone manufacturers sticking with the traditional audio jack, is even more prominent today in the wake of Samsung's Galaxy S8 launch.

In 2016 Apple removed the headphone jack from its iPhone, and in 2017 it seemed the rest of the mobile industry would follow suit, leaving us with only a choice between a Lightning or USB-C dongle. But a cool thing is happening at Mobile World Congress this year: Android phone manufacturers are shrugging off the jack-less fad and are forging ahead with the traditional 3.5mm headphone output inta …

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Imagine a world where every Android phone has the Google Pixel’s camera

2017-03-03T09:17:34-05:00

Google Pixel and Pixel XL

I've made no secret of my deep and passionate love affair with the camera inside Google's Pixel. The phone itself is nothing special, but the pictures I take with it are a whole new level of awesome that I've never previously experienced with any mobile device. So spending the week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and exploring a whole fresh wave of Android smartphones, the only thing I could think was "if only this thing had the Pixel's camera."

Oppo, for example, has a gorgeous red R9s limited edition that I would gladly lust after if I knew its camera were as good as Google Pixel's. Huawei's P10 is a very nicely designed phone, but …

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5G: Super fast data, throttled by reality

2017-03-02T06:50:05-05:00

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, the concept of 5G feels almost like a cult. Everywhere you look, companies are talking about the "transformative power" of a technology that hasn't even been standardized yet. Industry reps preach about 5G's greatness; booths are dedicated to showcasing its miracles; and visitors attend talks with titles like "The Future of All Things and The Creation of Time." Mobile data has never felt so religious.

5G will be faster and more reliable - when it gets here

It would be easy to dismiss all this as hype, but that's not entirely fair: 5G will genuinely be transformative - when it finally gets here …

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Sony’s new flagship phone belongs in a museum

2017-03-01T12:08:44-05:00

Sony Xperia XZ Premium | Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

I've finally figured out Sony's mobile strategy. The proud Japanese company understands that its competitiveness in the mobile sector is over. It knows it will never again speak the same language as US carriers, and it's aware that European consumers have shifted their preference over to devices from Samsung, Apple, and a bevy of cheaper and better Android rivals. Ergo, Sony no longer gives a fuck and has decided to just go out in a blaze of glory. And that's how we arrive at the newly announced Xperia XZ Premium, a phone that won't be released for another four months and which was never designed to be used by mortals.

Start with the XZ Pre …

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Oppo’s 5x zoom camera is an ingenious prototype that actually works

2017-03-01T06:00:02-05:00

I find it surreal to think that a company can be one of the top five smartphone vendors in the world while selling the overwhelming majority of its phones within just one country. But that's Oppo and that's the grand scale of the Chinese mobile market. For Mobile World Congress 2017, Oppo decided to announce not a new phone, but a new camera technology called 5X Dual Camera Zoom. I got to try it out at the show, and I must say it's kind of awesome.

Oppo has taken the biggest challenge of smartphone cameras, which is their inability to provide optical zoom while keeping the device to a slim profile, and thought sideways about it. The new sys …

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Don’t expect Google to talk about a new Pixel laptop

2017-02-28T15:55:49-05:00

Update Mar 01st, 00:48 AM: Google reached out to The Verge to clarify remarks made to TechCrunch. "It's not 'no plans,' more precisely it's 'we don't have any plans to discuss at this time.'"

The Pixel laptop is no more. At Mobile World Congress, Google's senior vice president for hardware Rick Osterloh said the company will stop making Chromebooks under the Pixel name, which has recently become more synonymous with the company's flagship smartphone. According to TechCrunch, Osterloh said Google may still use the Pixel branding for future products that integrate Google's software with its own hardware, but that is unlikely to come in the f …

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Up close with Roborace’s beautiful self-driving racecar

2017-02-28T12:30:29-05:00

Self-driving racecars sounded ridiculous to me the first time I heard about the idea. Why not just televise CPU vs. CPU Gran Turismo races while we're at it? But at Mobile World Congress this week, Formula E boss Alejandro Agag and Roborace CEO Denis Sverdlov unveiled the Robocar with a compelling pitch: it's all about trust.

If we're ever to get to a point where all cars are electric and autonomous, demonstrating that robots can drive themselves around complex tracks at 200 mph without exploding would seem to be as good a way as any to convince the public at large that these machines can be safe and reliable. It'll also probably help if t …

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Ford wants to launch drones from self-driving vans to deliver all your crap

2017-02-28T11:18:59-05:00

Ford unveiled a new concept at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today: an electric self-driving delivery van that can launch a fleet of drones to pick up and drop off packages in hard-to-reach places. The automaker said the idea fits into its self-styled "City of Tomorrow," a high concept vision of the future involving autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing, and a bevy of other transportation buzz words.

"Autolivery," as the concept is called, is geared toward solving the last-mile challenge in delivery, specifically the last 15 meters between the delivery truck and the drop-off. The drones will come in handy when dealing with deliveries in de …

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Can the Huawei P10’s ‘Leica-style’ portraits beat the iPhone 7 Plus?

2017-02-28T11:03:14-05:00

At Huawei's Mobile World Congress event on Sunday, CEO Richard Yu couldn't stop saying one particular phrase when talking about the P10's camera: "Leica-style portraits." Huawei has put portrait modes into its cameras for a while, and started its Leica partnership last year, but with the P10 the company is making a concerted technical and promotional effort to push the feature.

Like the iPhone 7 Plus, the P10 uses a combination of software and a dual-camera array to simulate the shallow depth of field you typically need expensive gear to achieve. I find this technology fascinating, and it's clear that similar techniques are going to be a b …

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Somebody save Huawei from itself

2017-02-28T09:44:08-05:00

Huawei booth, MWC 2017 | Vlad Savov / The Verge

Over the past couple of years, few companies have made as much progress on the global stage of mobile technology as Huawei. Better known for providing networking infrastructure for most of its history, Huawei is quickly becoming a household name in the West, just as it's well known in its native China. But still, this old engineering giant has a few things to learn about the proper way to present its products.

Back at IFA in September, Huawei's Nova series launch featured a 20-minute selfie masterclass from a random Instagram user. It was peculiar, it was patronizing, and it was perplexing. It also made me completely forget about the Nova p …

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