2017-02-24

Mobile World Congress kicks off next week in Barcelona. The world’s biggest mobile industry event will showcase some of the top companies in the market.

In addition to the latest developments and products in 5G technology and the Internet of Things, MWC is also the event where a large portion of smartphone manufacturers will unveil their latest devices. Here’s a look at some of the smartphones, wearables and tablets we can expect from this year’s MWC:

Smartphones

BlackBerry “Mercury”

The latest BlackBerry smartphone, codenamed “Mercury,” is set to launch at MWC. The Mercury has already made an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, but next week should see the unveiling of hardware details for the device.

The BlackBerry Mercury will be the first device produced solely under the TCL Corp. umbrella. BlackBerry Ltd. confirmed its departure from the smartphone hardware business in December and handed over the license to TCL.

Huawei and Honor

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. will unveil its flagship smartphone – the P10, at its MWC press conference on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Rumors about the P10 include a similar design as its predecessor, a front-facing fingerprint sensor as well as gold, blue and green color options. Other rumors suggest Huawei will also unveil a larger P10 Plus at the event.

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor will possibly unveil its Honor 8 Pro at MWC, which rumored features include a dual 12MP rear-facing camera, an 8MP front-facing camera, a 5.7-inch Quad HD display, 128GB of internal storage and 6GB of RAM.

LG G6

Thanks to plenty of leaked images and LG Electronics Inc. itself revealing plenty of details about the upcoming G6 there are unlikely to be any surprises with this launch.

The 5.7-inch G6 will have a nearly edge-to-edge 2,880 x 1,440 display. The new G6 will drop the modular design of its predecessor and will have an older Snapdragon 821 chip.

Moto G5

Lenovo Group Ltd.-owned Motorola will unveil its Moto G5 and G5 Plus at this year’s MWC.

The 5.2-inch G5 is rumored to have 64GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 12MP camera and 3,000mAh battery.

Nokia devices

HMD Global OY, the company behind the new Nokia smartphones, will be unveiling a variety of smartphones at MWC.

Rumors suggest these could be the budget Nokia 3 and Nokia 5, as well as the company’s possible flagship device – the Nokia 8. HMD is also rumored to unveil a refreshed version of the iconic Nokia 3310.

Nokia Corp.-owned Withings has tweeted that it has an “exciting keynote announcement” at MWC, which could possibly be a fitness-tracking wearable. Nokia announced its acquisition plans of health technology firm Withings in April last year.

Oppo

There aren’t many details of what Chinese manufacturer, Oppo Electronics Corp. will unveil at MWC, but according to its press invite the launch will possibly revolve around 5x camera technology.

Oppo showed significant growth last year and topped China’s smartphone market for 2016 with a 122 percent year-on-year increase in sales.

ZTE Gigabit phone

ZTE Corp. has announced that it will showcase the first gigabit LTE smartphone at MWC next week. The appropriately named ZTE Gigabit Phone will allow for 360-degree virtual reality, 4K video and instant cloud storage while on the go. The company is saving the unveiling of the rest of the features for MWC.

ZTE could also unveil its first Android smartwatch – the ZTE Quartz, which will include Android Wear 2.0.

Sony Xperia X successor

If the rumor mill is to be believed, Sony Corp. will unveil the successor to its Xperia X at MWC. Details about the device are unknown at this stage.

Alcatel

Alcatel (TCL & Alcatel Mobile Phones Ltd.) is rumored to unveil five different smartphones at MWC next week, with at least one of the devices having a modular design.

Tablets

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. won’t unveil the Galaxy S8 at MWC next week, you will have to wait until the rumored launch date of March 29 for that device, but is due to unveil its latest tablet – the Galaxy Tab S3.

The Galaxy Tab S3 is rumored to have a 9.6-inch 2,048 x 1,536 display, 4GB of RAM, S Pen stylus support and will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor.

Image: GSMA; Twitter

The post Mobile World Congress: New smartphones from Huawei, LG, Oppo, ZTE, more appeared first on SiliconANGLE.

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