What to Expect at MWC 2019

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PC Magazine

7 min readFeb 5, 2019

Mobile World Congress 2019 is going to be huge. Absolutely huge. Here’s what we expect to see at the big mobile-phone trade show from LG, Samsung, Microsoft, and more.

By Sascha Segan

It’s going to be a huge February for phone fans. Mobile World Congress, the gigantic mobile-phone industry trade show in Barcelona, runs Feb. 25–28 after press events on Feb. 23–24, and it’s going to be chock full of announcements.

So much will be going on, in fact, that Samsung moved its traditional MWC launch to just before the show on Feb. 20, presumably so it can show off the Galaxy S10 without the noise of all the other stuff happening that week.

We’re starting to get invitations to MWC press conferences and to hear rumors of what’s coming out at the show. Many of those rumors aren’t defined or reliable yet, and things could change at any time. But here’s what we know so far. We’ll add to this list as we hear more.

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon

It’s 5G time! We are desperately hoping to get 5G updates from as many carriers as possible at the show. AT&T launched a 5G hotspot on Dec. 21, but has been dead silent about its performance or 5G coverage. Sprint’s CEO, Michel Combes, is giving a presentation at the show, and we expect to hear from T-Mobile CEO John Legere as well. Can we get some launch dates for 5G phones? Is that too much to ask? I hope not.

Alcatel/BlackBerry

Alcatel and BlackBerry say they have things to show off, although they aren’t specifying what, and they may be running a suite of meetings rather than an actual launch event. At CES earlier this month, the company hinted about new BlackBerry products at MWC.

Will this be a Key3 or a full-touch device? We’re not sure, and none of the rumors we’ve seen seem reliable.

Huawei

Huawei is having an event on Feb. 24, where we expect to see the Huawei P30. For people outside the US, this will undoubtedly be the biggest mainstream release of the show. Huawei phones are essentially illegal here, but we’ll cover the launch because Huawei is such a massive player everywhere else.

TechRadar has a good rumor roundup on the Huawei P30. The phone will be nearly bezel-less, come in triple- and quad-cameras versions, and run the Kirin 980 processor we saw in the Huawei Mate 20.

At a press event on Jan. 24, Huawei said it would launch its first 5G phone at MWC. That will probably be a different model than the standard P30, and it may have a foldable screen, according to Huawei Device CEO Richard Yu.

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor will probably not have news at MWC, as it’s busy rolling out its View20 phone, announced on Jan. 22 in Paris.

LG

LG may have the biggest mainstream US announcement at MWC: its flagship G8 phone, which might be announced at the company’s event on Feb. 24.

Rumors are really shaky on this one. We’re pretty sure the G8 will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and multiple rear cameras, and we’re almost certain it will not have 5G. (LG’s first 5G phone will probably be a Sprint phone coming out around May.) This official LG video suggests whatever phone it launches will have a touchless gesture interface.

CNET claims LG will launch a phone with a case that has an additional screen, which may be a separate phone from the G8.

OnLeaks claims to have an image of the G8 that has been verified by Android Police editor David Ruddock. It also says the phone will have a “sound under display” technology that puts the speaker under the screen.

According to Android Police, LG also said it will announce its 5G phone on Feb. 24. This will presumably be the 5G phone we’ve previously heard about for Sprint, which is launching in the spring, and it’ll be a different model than the G8. Android Police says the 5G phone will have a large-ish 4,000mAh battery and a special cooling system, presumably to handle the stress of its Qualcomm X50 5G modem.

Microsoft

Microsoft has scheduled an event on Feb. 24, where CEO Satya Nadella is speaking, marking it as a major event. PR for the event is being run out of Microsoft’s mixed reality department, so we’re expecting to see a new version of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented-reality glasses. Neowin says HoloLens 2 will use a Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 chipset, but we’ve heard relatively little in terms of other details.

Motorola

Motorola just scheduled an event on Feb. 7 in Brazil, which journalists are saying will be for the midrange Moto G7 line; Hot Hardware has the photos and specs on that. That takes the G7 out of the running for Mobile World Congress. But what of this bizarro Motorola Razr, which could be a foldable $1,500 phone with a giant OLED display in the middle? That could be an MWC launch, and one we’ll be looking for.

Nokia

Nokia’s biggest deal at the show will probably be the fly-eyed Nokia 9 PureView, codenamed “Beholder” possibly after the famous Dungeons and Dragons monster with a lot of eyes. Rumors have this five-camera monster sporting last year’s Snapdragon 845 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, and running pure Android Pie. Nokia is also likely to spin out another retro phone at the show to follow the 3310 and 8110. How about the 6600?

Chinese phone maker Nubia impressed us at CES with its Red Magic Mars, a $400 gaming phone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. According to GizmoChina, Nubia will follow up with a wearable device with a flexible screen at MWC. The device may be similar to a previously announced wearable called the Nubia Alpha, which has phone calling capabilities.

OnePlus

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau will be speaking on stage at MWC on Tuesday, Feb. 26. We’re hoping to get more details on the 5G phone, which Lau said in December is coming to the EE carrier in the UK.

We don’t know much about the OnePlus 5G phone. Lau said in December that it may cost $200-$300 more than OnePlus’ standard range, that it will use a Snapdragon 855 processor and that it will only connect to 5G networks on the “sub-6” bands used in Europe, as opposed to the millimeter-wave bands used in the US. It also won’t be called the OnePlus 7, which will be a different phone that comes out later in the year.

Oppo

Popular Chinese smartphone brand Oppo is encouraging us to “get closer” at an “innovation event” on Feb. 23. The company said in a press release that it will “showcase” its new 10x lossless zoom technology at MWC 2019, which uses three cameras to achieve that level of zoom. GSMArena says the new zoom will be featured in phones called the Oppo F19 and F19 Pro.

Qualcomm needs to make a big announcement at MWC: the Snapdragon X55. Accidentally hinted at by D-Link when the networking company showed off a T-Mobile-compatible 5G home router, the X55 would be the next generation of Qualcomm’s 5G modem, able to handle low-band FDD networks. The chip is necessary for T-Mobile to have any phones at all which run on its upcoming nationwide 5G network, and for those phones to start appearing in the second half of 2019, we need to hear about the modem now-ish.

Samsung

Samsung is holding its “Unpacked” event on Feb. 20 in San Francisco, a few days before the show, when we think we’ll see the Galaxy S10 and the company’s new folding phone. (We have a full rundown of Galaxy S10 rumors here.) But there still may be a Samsung surprise at MWC. We’ve heard conflicting word about whether Samsung will hold back the US 5G version of its S10 phone for a Verizon event at MWC, and if it does, it’ll make big news.

A little background on that: Korean news sites have said the “Galaxy S10 X” will be Samsung’s first 5G phone and will come to Korea on March 29, with a 6.7-inch screen and a 5,000mAh battery. But Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have all said they’re going to carry Samsung’s initial 5G phone as well, and we saw a prototype of it on Verizon’s network at a Qualcomm event in December. The US 5G model could be the S10 X we’ve heard about for Korea, or another iteration.

Sony

Sony is holding an event on Feb. 25, which we know relatively little about. We’re anticipating hearing about the Xperia XZ4: according to PhoneArena, it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and perhaps an unusually long, narrow 21:9 screen. If the aspect ratio rumor is true, that’s going to be a very tall phone. The company also didn’t announce any of the phones it was expected to announce at CES, so we’re still waiting on the XA3 midranger.

I know we all want an XZ4 Compact, but I’m not convinced it exists.

Vivo

Vivo is not likely to do a big announcement at MWC 2019, as it’s announcing its Apex 2019 phone at a separate event on Jan. 24.

ZTE

Battered by a Trump administration ban in 2018, ZTE is trying to come back fresh in 2019, but the company is being extremely conservative about what and how it launches for the US market. The ZTE phones we’re most likely to see at MWC would be midrange European devices, probably in its Blade line. We’d really like to hear more about the company’s next Axon flagship, but it’s understandable that it’s feeling a bit of PTSD from its import-ban adventure at the moment.

Originally published at www.pcmag.com.