MWC 2017, Mobile World Congress 2017: Everything revealed so far..
MWC 2017 has kicked off and our highly experienced Android Authority team are on the ground in Barcelona right now covering all the essential announcements. We’ve broken down our roundup of everything that’s happened at MWC 2017 so far by manufacturer, which means you can hit the brands you like and skip the ones you don’t. We’ll be updating this post as new information comes to light.
What is MWC and when is it?
MWC stands for Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile electronics trade show, which is held in Barcelona each year. MWC 2017 starts Monday, February 27 and runs through to Thursday, March 2. However, most of the major mobile announcements happen on the two weekend press days prior to the official opening of the show.
LG at MWC 2017
LG G6
As was expected, LG announced the LG G6 at its press conference on Sunday. Based on poor sales of the LG G5, and corresponding LG Mobile financial woes, the company has gone back to the drawing board with the LG G6 and decided to ditch the modular design concept (a wise move).
Instead, the LG G6 keeps the design simple, with a glass and metal unibody construction (no removable battery this time), rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C port and headphone jack.
As for the specs, the LG G6 features a 5.7-inch QHD display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, Adreno 530 GPU and 4 GB of RAM. You’ll also find dual 13 MP cameras on the rear, a 5 MP wide-angle camera at the front, 3,300 mAh battery inside and support for microSD cards. For more the G6, check out our hands-on video above and the hands-on review at the link below.
Samsung at MWC 2017
Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 and Gear VR controller
At Samsung’s press conference, the South Korean manufacturer revealed the Galaxy Tab S3, as was teased on the company’s MWC invitation.
The stylus-bearing Galaxy Tab S3 arrives with a 9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 (QXGA) Super AMOLED display and is powered by a quad-core 2.15 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC with 4 GB of RAM. There’s a 13 MP camera on the back of the device, with a 5 MP front camera and you’ll also find a 6,000 mAh battery inside. In addition, it runs Android Marshmallow out of the box and supports microSD cards.
The tablet comes in one size and one size only, but Samsung is yet to reveal a price.
Meanwhile, Samsung also announced a controller which would arrive with the upcoming new version of its Gear VR headset. This would bring the unit close to Google’s Daydream View, which also comes with a one-handed remote.
As we’d previously heard, the Samsung Galaxy S8 was not at the show, however, Samsung did reveal that the flagship phone would be unveiled on March 29. As for the pair of folding smartphone prototypes rumored to be at the event — if they’re here, they’re for industry partners’ eyes only.
Huawei/Honor at MWC 2017
Huawei P10/P10 Plus
The big news from Huawei is the arrival of the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus flagships. Both models sport 64-bit octa-core Hisilicon Kirin 960 processors with Mali-G71 MP8 GPUs, but they differ in their screen resolution and sizes: the P10 has a 5.1-inch Full-HD display while the P10 Plus comes in at 5.5-inches with a QHD display.
Inside the P10 you’ll find 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of internal storage and a 3,200 mAh battery, while the P10 Plus has 4 GB and 6 GB RAM options, 64 GB or 128 GB of internal storage and a 3,750 mAh battery.
Front camera sensors are the same at 8 MP sensor with f/1.9 aperture, but the P10 Plus has the superior rear camera; a Leica Dual-Camera 2.0 Pro Edition with 12 and 20 MP sensors and f/1.8 aperture, while the P10’s has the regular edition with f/2.2 aperture.
The P10 and P10 Plus are running Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box with EMUI 5.1 and arrive with eight colors to choose from.
As far as pricing is concerned, the Huawei P10 will cost €649 (~$685) in Europe, while the P10 Plus will start at €699 (~$740) for 64 GB of storage and 4 GB of RAM model. You’ll pay €799 ($845) to get the P10 Plus with 128 GB of storage and 6 GB of RAM and the handsets will be available sometime in March.
Huawei announced the devices in 30 or so countries, including the UK and Australia, but not including the US or Canada (sorry, North America).
Huawei Watch 2
Huawei has also revealed the Huawei Watch 2 and Watch 2 Classic at MWC, arriving in March for €329 ($350). Both run Android Wear 2.0 and you can read more about those at the previous link.
We thought Huawei might have launched the rumored Huawei MediaPad T3 tablet at MWC also, as it has seen several recent leaks, but it seems like we’re going to have to wait a bit longer for an official announcement on that.
Honor announcement (Honor Magic/Honor V9): 8:00 PM (CET) Wednesday, March 3
As for Huawei’s sub-brand Honor, the Honor Magic was at CES recently and it’s a very nice looking phone, one we sincerely hope gets a global announcement, and the Honor V9 was just unveiled in China (aka the Honor 8 Pro in the US). Huawei has an Honor event planned for 8 PM on March 1, so it’ll either reveal the new 360-degree VR camera in partnership with Insta360 or announce new markets for the Honor Magic or Honor V9.
TCL/BlackBerry at MWC 2017
BlackBerry KEYone
BlackBerry revealed the KEYone at MWC 2017, the device previously known as the BlackBerry Mercury, which features a return for BlackBerry’s trademark physical keyboard setup.
It was designed by Chinese company TCL communications — like the DTEK 50 and 60 before it — and comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, Adreno 506 GPU and 3 GB of RAM in addition to a 4.5-inch Full-HD display. Other specs include a 3,505 mAh battery, 12 MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and 1.55 um pixel size, 8 MP front-facing shooter and USB Type-C connectivity.
TCL isn’t aiming to deliver the latest and greatest specs, rather, it’s pushing the security features of the device and the benefits of the keyboard, like the 52 shortcuts it allows for. The BlackBerry KEYone will be available for $549 in the US from April.
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