Phones are going to get weird next week

With rare exceptions, phones are pretty boring these days. The good news is, a boatload of those rare exceptions are about to show up at once, courtesy of Mobile World Congress.

The tech industry’s biggest mobile show may not quite have the clout it once did, when the likes of Samsung, Sony, LG, and HTC showcased new flagships there each year, but it still attracts more phone launches than CES does two months earlier. It’s especially popular with the Chinese manufacturers who are still fighting for space in the global market, along with niche manufacturers who turn up with extra-durable “rugged” devices, or battery beasts that are more power bank than phone.

This year’s biggest event is expected to be Xiaomi’s launch on Saturday. Ever eclectic, it’s teased tablets, super-slim power banks, earbuds, and smart trackers among its MWC lineup, but all eyes will be on the Leitzphone. This collaboration between Xiaomi and Leica takes the former’s Xiaomi 17 Ultra — follow-up to one of the absolute best cameras in any phone last year — and slaps a rotating camera ring on the back, allowing you to physically scroll through the continuous optical zoom the phone’s telephoto provides. It’s a double whammy of novel camera hardware that may sit right on the edge of “gimmick” territory, but is at least a variation from the same old stuff.

Honor will be up next, with its event set for Sunday. The company has already revealed the MagicPad 4 — apparently the thinnest fully fledged tablet around — and teased its next-generation foldable phone, also expected to be the world’s thinnest. But much more exciting than either is what the company promises will be a proper look at its so-called Robot Phone, first teased late last year in a concept video and shown in static prototype form at CES last month.

From what we’ve seen, it’s certainly more phone than robot, but the gimbal-stabilized camera arm that unfolds out of the phone’s back is undeniably novel. It’s like a cross between a smartphone and a DJI Osmo Pocket, with teasers hinting at AI features and a cheery, WALL-E-esque sense of character. With Honor also teasing the reveal of its first foray into full humanoid robotics, expect it to lean hard on its robot credentials.

And those are just the big two. Expect to see more from Nothing, which is launching its Phone 4A series and a new pair of over-ear headphones at its own event on March 5th, but is almost certain to tease more details on both over the next few days. Tecno has promised a modular, magnetic concept smartphone with attachable lenses and action camera; Vivo has announced some sort of reveal of its camera-centric X300 Ultra flagship; and Lenovo, which simply loves to bring a weird and wacky concept device to the show, is teasing its own announcements.

And you can’t blame them, not least when Apple has waded in to promise its own week of announcements starting… Monday, the same day that MWC officially kicks off. In true Apple fashion, we don’t know for sure what’s coming, but affordable MacBooks and the midrange iPhone 17E have both been heavily tipped. When you’re competing with Apple for attention, playing it safe won’t get you very far.

I’m at least half a cynic when it comes to these outlandish hardware announcements. The ones that you can actually buy are often little more than gimmicks, and the ones you can’t usually feel like no more than marketing stunts. But in the past 10 days, we’ve had the Pixel 10A and Galaxy S26 in quick succession, both minimal upgrades that lean on fractional spec bumps and AI additions to justify their existence. I wouldn’t hold my breath for next week’s iPhone 17E to revolutionize much either. As Allison Johnson put it in her S26 Ultra preview this week, “hardware thrills are hard to get these days.” MWC has them in spades.