The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 is set to kickstart on February 26 in Barcelona, Spain. Ahead of the official launches, we have seen several interesting announcements from smartphone makers. From the global debut of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra to Honor’s new foldable phone with a Porsche-inspired design, here are the top 5 things from Day Zero of MWC 2024.
Xiaomi 14 Series Goes Global
The Xiaomi 14 was the first smartphone in the world to feature the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, during its China launch in October 2023. Xiaomi has finally decided to take its latest flagship to the global market, with its Leica-powered cameras.
The highlight of the show was in fact the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Developed under the same Leica partnership, the device features four 50MP sensors which includes a 5x optical zoom lens. The company also unveiled the Xiaomi 14 Ultra Photography Kit as an add-on accessory. It features a 67mm filter adapter with multiple rings for a professional-grade camera setup. The kit also has an additional 1500mAh battery.
Xiaomi also unveiled its Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro with a 12.4-inch screen, having a 144Hz refresh rate and a 3K resolution. The tablet cuts no corners in productivity as it features the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and a massive 10,000mAh battery.
Apart from its new flagship smartphone and tablet, Xiaomi also launched the Watch 2, Watch S3, and the Smart Band 8 Pro. The Watch 2 runs on Google WearOS, while the other two smartwatches run on Xiaomi’s custom software and focus more on affordability.
HONOR’s Touch of Magic at MWC
HONOR has unveiled two new devices for the global markets, the HONOR Magic 6 Pro, and the HONOR Magic V2 RSR. In addition to having the best-in-class Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, the Magic 6 Pro comes with on-device AI. It is based on the LlaMa 2 model by Meta, which allows the device to generate text, reply to queries, and many other tasks locally on the phone itself.
The HONOR Magic 6 Pro features a unique 180MP telephoto camera with 2.5x optical zoom and OIS. The phone also has satellite connectivity.
The HONOR Magic V2 RSR is a foldable smartphone, whose design is inspired by Porsche, the luxury car maker. The device comes with a Flyline-like camera cutout for symmetry. HONOR says that its new foldable has a NanoCrystal shield, which improves the scratch resistance of the screen which is often a major complaint on folding devices.
Interestingly, HONOR will be launching the Magic 6 Pro and Magic V2 RSR in some European markets starting in March 2024. Although India is not on the list as of now, it’s good to see HONOR taking its top-end devices to the global markets.
Infinix’s AI Gaming Algorithm
Infinix has announced a new AI algorithm for gaming, that can optimize the resource consumption on smartphones to boost performance. It assigns demanding tasks to high-performance cores of the chipset in an efficient way, helping the phone to sustain peak performance over longer durations.
The company has also unveiled a new CoolMax cooling system, that uses a mini fan to lower temperatures of the phone. It can reduce the temperature by up to 10 degrees Celsius during gaming. Infinix has also achieved an AnTuTu score of 2,215,639 on the Dimensity 9300 chipset, which is one of the highest benchmark scores on a smartphone.
Inifninx has not announced a new smartphone at MWC yet. We might hear more details from the company in the upcoming days of the event.
HMD Global’s Barbie Fashion
While most smartphone brands use the MWC stage to announce their best-in-class products, HMD Global pulls a page from Nokia’s book this time. The company announced a new Barbie-theme for its existing flip phone, which is actually a feature phone instead of a foldable smartphone.
We are here to offer a digital companion that enhances your life.#LessScreenTime#HMD #MWC24 @larssilberbauer pic.twitter.com/4oL1eDvnss
— HMD (@HMDdevices) February 25, 2024
HMD Global says that the company will focus on bringing easy-to-repair phones in the upcoming months. HMD also confirmed that they will continue to develop Nokia smartphones, alongside their in-house lineup which they recently announced.
These were just the announcements before the actual commencement of MWC 2024 tomorrow. We will be covering all the latest and the best stuff straight from Barcelona, so stay tuned!
