Best of MWC 2024, including color-changing and bendable phones
The best of MWC 2024, based in Barcelona, Spain, encompassed several categories, including phones, foldables, and laptops. Mixed-reality smart glasses made their mark, too, but only one caught our eye.
Curious about which technological marvels won our hearts? After stuffing our faces with delicious Spanish paella and tapas, here are the winners for best phone, best foldable, best laptop, and best smart glasses of MWC. For good measure, we'll throw in a "best concept" category: an unreleased idea that has groundbreaking potential.
Best of MWC 2024
Best laptop: Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra
Samsung's been killing it in the smartphone game. It's a worthy opponent for the Apple as it attempts to beat the iPhone with its swanky Galaxy S series phones (i.e., Galaxy S24 Ultra). Now, Apple has to worry about Samsung in another product category: laptops.
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If you're going to purchase a Samsung laptop, the Galaxy Book series is where it's at. The Galaxy Book 3 family made a splash in the laptop industry, particularly the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra. Now, Samsung has rolled out the new Galaxy Book 4 Ultra, which is stacked with powerful internals, including an Intel Core Ultra 7 or 9 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.
When we played around with the Galaxy Book 4 Ultra at MWC 2024, we were blown away by its zippy performance.
Best phone: Infinix's color-changing phone
Infinix's color-changing phone is one of the highlights of MWC 2024. Also showcased at CES 2024, this phone features E-Ink Prism technology that lets the chassis change colors while still maintaining high power efficiency.
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You can customize the colors, too, to your personal preference. This isn't available for purchase just yet. According to Engadget, Infinix still needs to iron out a few kinks regarding thermal performance and thickness. However, if it does ever come to market, you can't deny that a color-changing phone would be a cool, conversation-stimulating device.
Best foldable: Motorola's bendable device
Motorola's been working on the phone-you-wrap-around-your-wrist concept for quite some time — as far back as 2016. It's 2024 now and the mobile hardware company is continuing to perfect the bizarre, conceptual device.
Mashable's Stan Schroeder got to demo the bracelet-like phone at MWC 2024. He discovered that it uses a flexible pOLED display, allowing the device to bend and transform into different positions, including tent mode.
It's so eye-catching, the bendable device also landed on our MWC 2024 wildest tech list. Could this flexible phone beat the likes of the Galaxy Z Fold 5? Only time will tell.
Best smart glasses: XReal Air 2 Ultra
The XReal Air 2 Ultra smart glasses, which also impressed us at CES 2024, continues to lead the charge in the smart glasses space.
It's what the Apple Vision Pro secretly wants to be: it's sleek, slick and comfortable. Plus, it can be connected to almost any USB-C device with video output, whether it’s a Windows PC, a MacBook, or a PS5. Plug it in and watch your viewing pleasures expand into a gigantic virtual screen.
On top of that the XReal Air 2 Ultra smart glasses facilitate spatial computing and augmented reality (AR) à la Vision Pro and Quest 3 — Meta and Apple better watch out!
Best concept: Lenovo ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop
Lenovo's swanky transparent laptop is reminiscent of LG's transparent TV that made a splash at CES 2024. Like LG's panel, you can see through the screen of Lenovo's conceptual laptop. You may be wondering, "Why do I need this?" You don't. It's just another ostentatious, obnoxious way to flaunt your wealth.
Either way, you can't deny that the Lenovo ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop, packed with a striking 17.3-inch, miniLED screen, is one of the most eye-catching, futuristic designs of MWC 2024. One day, Lenovo's most popular laptops, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, could become obsolete for being too opaque.
UPDATE: Feb. 27, 2024, 3:09 p.m. EST The winner of the "best smartglasses" category was corrected to XReal Air 2 Ultra.
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Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
Kimberly Gedeon, at Mashable since 2023, is a tech explorer who enjoys doing deep dives into the most popular gadgets, from the latest iPhones to the most immersive VR headsets. She's drawn to strange, avant-garde, bizarre tech, whether it's a 3D laptop, a gaming rig that can transform into a briefcase, or smart glasses that can capture video. Her journalism career kicked off about a decade ago at MadameNoire where she covered tech and business before landing as a tech editor at Laptop Mag in 2020.
