MWC 2025: all the phones, gadgets, and commentary from Barcelona – The Verge

MWC 2025 was all about the odds and ends

2025-03-07T00:35:18-05:00

The phones may have been predictable, but there were still some oddities about.

Mobile World Congress shows us the best and wackiest new ideas in mobile tech every year, with a side of jamón and "Oh, shit, was that the king of Spain who just walked by?" It's a real trip. But this year's conference was a mix of unusually odd oddities, including phone camera concepts I swear we tried 15 years ago to screens you can bend every which way.

The phones themselves were predictable, and, often, predictably good. It was everything else in the margins that was weird: phones with weird back panels, things you put on your phone, or just really cool phone-adjacent screens.

Every trade show has a main character. A Most In Show. At C …

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The best stuff we’ve seen at MWC so far

2025-03-05T14:40:31-05:00

Mobile World Congress 2025 is well under way in Barcelona, Spain, and while there's still one day left, the mobile-focused show has already delivered lots of new laptops, smartphones, concepts, and innovative accessories.

Some of the biggest announcements were made over the weekend, so we want to make sure you didn't miss anything. Here are the best gadgets that have debuted at MWC 2025 so far, but there's still more to come. You can catch up on all of our coverage of the show right here.

Newnal AI phone

Undeterred by the failure of the Humane AI pin, the creators of the Newnal AI phone still believe AI has the potential to become a very …

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This little AI phone has some wild ideas

2026-02-09T11:12:05-05:00

Hi, me. It’s me.

It was just a year ago that I had my first demo of the Humane AI pin - which was also my last, as it turned out. But another AI gadget at this year's MWC is trying to take off where Humane crashed and burned, and in ways it's even weirder than the AI pin. It's a phone that captures tons of information about you, both past and present, and uses it to create your own AI avatar to act as a virtual assistant. It's part Rabbit R1, part Gemini Assistant, part science fiction. And oh yeah; there's some blockchain stuff too. I told you, it's wild.

The team behind Newnal AI is based in San Francisco and Korea, and established itself by creating a bl …

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What if your phone’s camera was much, much bigger?

2025-03-04T11:00:11-05:00

That’s a whole lot of lens.

The cameras on our phones won't stop getting bigger. Xiaomi's new 15 Ultra is dominated by an enormous ring of cameras on the back, Nothing has rethought its camera layout from scratch to fit a periscope into the Phone 3A Pro, and consistent rumors suggest that even Apple is going to strap a big ol' camera bar onto the back of its iPhone 17 Pro models later this year. But why stop there? What if you could get all of the heft and weight of a real camera and burden your phone with it? What if we could make your phone camera much, much bigger?

That's what both Xiaomi and Realme have attempted to do at this year's Mobile World Congress, with tw …

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Samsung heard you like weird screens so it brought some to MWC

2025-03-04T08:08:16-05:00

Why not, I guess?

For a phone show, there's an awful lot of cool non-phone stuff at Mobile World Congress this year. Take Lenovo's ThinkBook Flip concept, which answers the question: "What if your laptop unfolded, and then unfolded again?" Samsung's Display group has been apparently thinking along the same lines, because it has some interesting new folding concepts at MWC including a briefcase screen and a foldable gaming handheld, which I want, like, yesterday.

Samsung Display is, of course, a display manufacturer, so these concepts are just that. They're demonstrations of what its screens could maybe, possibly do in the hands of another manufacturer. But t …

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Nothing’s Phone 3A and 3A Pro use AI to organize all your stuff

2025-03-04T11:37:16-05:00

The Nothing Phone 3A (right) and 3A Pro (left) are just as bold as ever.

The Nothing 3A phones were just announced with a new take on the company's "make tech more fun again" ethos. These devices have improved hardware over the Phone 2A, updated cameras, and a new feature called the Essential Space to store and index your miscellaneous screenshots, voice memos, and photographs, all through a dedicated button. Starting at $379 for the 3A and $459 for the 3A Pro, they offer solid specs for their midrange prices - and a look at what Nothing has been working on for this AI-centric moment.

The 3A and 3A Pro are mainly differentiated by their cameras, which you'll notice just by glancing at the two devices. The 3A Pro …

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T-Mobile’s parent company is making an ‘AI Phone’ with Perplexity Assistant

2025-03-03T12:51:19-05:00

Deutsche Telekom is building a new Perplexity chatbot-powered "AI Phone," the companies announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona today. The new device will be revealed later this year and run "Magenta AI," which gives users access to Perplexity Assistant, Google Cloud AI, ElevenLabs, Picsart, and a suite of AI tools.

The AI phone concept was first revealed at MWC 2024 by Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile's parent company) as an "app-less" device primarily controlled by voice that can do things like book flights and make restaurant reservations. The capabilities are like those promised by "large action model" products, including the Ra …

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Infinix’s new concepts use solar power to charge your phone

2026-02-09T11:13:32-05:00

Honestly I’m into this back panel design even without the solar functionality.

Chinese phone brand Infinix is known to show off a flashy concept, and at this year's MWC the company is looking skyward for inspiration. It's showing a phone with an integrated solar panel on the back, as well as a solar charging phone case. They're both in the concept phase, but the demo units I saw at MWC were functional and the idea is plenty appealing.

Infinix calls this SolarEnergy-Reserving technology, and it uses perovskite solar cells like Anker's beach umbrella and cloak concept. These cells are thinner and cheaper to produce than traditional silicon solar cells. That's paired with a system that helps regulate voltage called Maxim …

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Lenovo’s new concept laptop can be charged by the sun

2026-02-09T11:11:56-05:00

The Lenovo Yoga Solar PC concept will let you work while touching grass. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto

Lenovo has announced a new concept laptop at Mobile World Congress that encourages you to work outside by reducing your dependence on power cables. The Yoga Solar PC is an early proof of concept device featuring a solar panel integrated into the laptop's lid. It can harness light from any source to boost its battery, but as with most solar-powered devices, you'll get the most power while working outside on a clear, sunny day.

The company hasn't announced any plans to put the Yoga Solar PC into production. However, its ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, featuring an expanding and rollable OLED display, initially debuted as a concept at Mobile World Congr …

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Lenovo’s ThinkPad X13 gets even lighter

2026-02-09T11:11:49-05:00

The ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 is very easy to hold in one hand.

Lenovo may have some cool new flippy-screened and solar-powered laptops it's showing off at Mobile World Congress this year, but it's also announcing the generational notebook updates you'll actually be able to buy within the coming months. Some of the new models include a redesigned and super lightweight ThinkPad X13 notebook, the first T-Series convertible 2-in-1 with the ThinkPad T14s, and a refreshed ThinkBook 16p workstation.

First, we have the newest 13.3-inch ThinkPad X13, now Gen 6, that sits as Lenovo's ultraportable slim business laptop. This time, Lenovo managed to reduce its weight even further from 2.25 pounds on the Gen 5 to j …

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