MWC 2022: Trends and Analysis
Getting Back to MWC IRL
Mobile World Congress happened in real life this year, and while the crowds were nowhere near as dense as a MWC in the Before Times, there were genuine crowds (the GSMA reported 61,000 attendees, which seems accurate from my experience). This compared favorably to CES 2022, which felt like a ghost show in places, partly due to its unfortunate timing immediately following the holiday season, which guarantees it will coincide with peak viral transmission, even before Covid-19 was the virus to worry about. With its bustling halls mostly full (Hall 8 was entirely shut off) MWC 2022 was more reminiscent of MWC’s a decade ago – well attended by exhibitors and attendees alike, but not horrifically overcrowded.
Covid protocols were strictly adhered to, with wandering green-vested minders ensuring mask compliance even outdoors (whether that makes sense from a medical perspective or not). Very few vendors pulled out of the show due to the pandemic, though many multinationals sent their European staff, with a smaller U.S. contingent if any. That was especially true for Chinese vendors, who had big launches (see below), but often had no executives attending from China at all. Spain does not accept China’s sinovaccine for entry into the country, and anyone returning to Hong Kong or China has to quarantine for up to three weeks.
As if Covid wasn’t enough, Russia’s inhumane invasion of Ukraine often overshadowed the announcements about new smartphones, mobile computing, 5G, and the metaverse. This was not a “normal” MWC.
And yet, it was good to be back, to get hands on with products, see old friends, and make new connections. Video conferencing is great, but it cannot replace trade shows.
MWC Exposes Different Approaches to Audience and Branding
Google’s alley of Android experiences was aimed directly at consumers, which may have made more sense at past MWCs where carriers sent huge contingents and mobile developers would come to see the latest developments. This year’s audience was much more focused on meetings and deal-making, and Google’s free water bottles and cookies were largely wasted. This type of intense consumer messaging is more suited to IFA, which (pre-Covid) attracted hundreds of thousands of Europeans to a combination trade show and tech festival.
Samsung’s main booth was large, but most of it was hidden away behind walls where an extensive demo area awaited registered press and analysts. The press experience opened with a three-wall projection of a custom song-and-dance number, and then proceeded through an IKEA-style maze of rooms for different products. It was impressive. Lockdowns and travel restrictions have made it harder for press to do their jobs; while I gravitated towards the new Galaxy Book 2 laptops, a lot of European and East Asian press were clustered around the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Samsung’s latest foldables have been out for a while, but they are still new and exciting if you haven’t gotten to see them earlier. Samsung Networks had another booth focused entirely on its telecom equipment; that wasn’t my focus at the show.
Huawei split the difference by taking over most of Hall 1 with a booth segmented between consumer-focused product and demo areas, and a giant, invitation-only section for telecom gear and 1:1 meetings.
Chinese handset vendors were out in force at MWC, but they had different approaches to brand-building. Poco, Xiaomi’s sub-brand for emerging markets, was co-located within Xiaomi’s larger booth. However, BBK’s various brands (ex: OPPO, Realme) each had their own booths reflecting their completely separate marketing organizations, even if R&D for things like fast charging are transparently shared across the group.
Branding can be even more confusing than that; Nokia’s booth was focused primarily on the network equipment it designs and sells, but tucked off to the side of its floor space was HMD, which has long run the Nokia handset business. HMD offers tablets, too, which have been selling out during the pandemic. However, the new laptops sitting right next to them, also branded, “Nokia” come from French company Off Global, whoever that is. If I’m confused, consumers trying to find information or support are going to be absolutely flummoxed.
Chinese Smartphones Moving Further Upmarket, Targeting Europe
Realme pretends to be a scrappy Indian startup, but it is actually one of the BBK brands, which collectively sells more phones than Samsung or Apple. This explains how a company best known in India for launching phones every few weeks in every 1000₹ (~$13) price band would be one of the first to get Qualcomm’s latest flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, a 2K LTPO OLED, and high-end 50 MP OIS cameras for Europe. Realme gave me a GT2 Pro review unit at the show; it’s very nice, and I’ll write more once I’ve had a chance to test if fully.
BBK’s OPPO has always had flagship products to go with more affordable options, and at MWC it launched the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro. In addition to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, OPPO is co-branding the camera with Hasselblad (thanks to consolidating OnePlus under the OPPO umbrella) and using its own MariSilicon NPU AI imaging subprocessor. OPPO also previewed 150w wired charging coming to a OnePlus phone in Q2.
Honor was originally Huawei’s semi-autonomous direct-to-consumer budget brand. While Honor’s distribution channel broadened over time, its products remained aimed at a price tier or two below Huawei’s own devices. With U.S. sanctions shutting down Huawei’s access to 5G modem technology and Google’s software, Huawei spun off Honor as its own company. Huawei continues to build smartphones under its own brand, but sales have plummeted: outside China, Google services are a consumer requirement, and inside China, consumers demand 5G. Chinese consumers are smarter than U.S. regulators, and they have figured out that Honor is Huawei’s direct replacement (though some software IP assets remain at Huawei, so Honor will have to prove itself in imaging and AI).
In the wake of the spinoff, Honor sales inside China have soared, and its products and pricing have risen to premium levels accordingly. At MWC 2022, Honor launched a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship with all the bells and whistles, and showed off its high end foldable. In addition to the latest silicon, the Honor Magic 4 has a 6.81” 120Hz OLED with HDR, over a billion colors, and 1000 nits of brightness. Honor claims that this is the industry’s first LTPO display with 1920Hz PWM dimming, which makes for a smoother viewing experience. Until I get hands on, I won’t know if that’s a meaningful distinction. The imaging hardware is impressive: a 50MP main camera, 50MP wide angle, and 64MP periscope telephoto around back; 12MP wide angle on the front along with a 3D depth sensor that does double duty for face unlock and portrait mode selfies. The Magic 4 Pro is the first smartphone to shoot video in IMAX Enhanced mode with dts-X is also onboard for audio playback. These are logos usually found on high end home theater gear, not phones. I’m skeptical that either one will dramatically change on-phone viewing, but when used as a source device for output to a larger display and multiple speakers, it’s possible that they will make a noticeable difference.
Motorola announced the Edge X30 in China at the end of last year, but used the runup to MWC to introduce the global (Edge P30 Pro) and North American (Edge Plus) variants. Like the other phones discussed here, all the new Edges are based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, feature 6.7” 144Hz OLEDs, and big batteries. Motorola is also offering an active stylus as an optional accessory, along with a case to hold it. If that sound suspiciously like Samsung’s S Pen for last year’s Galaxy S21 Ultra, that’s because it is. (Samsung has moved the S Pen on the Galaxy S22 Ultra inside the phone, making it a Galaxy Note in all but name.)
The exceptions to the moving-upmarket rule at MWC: Poco, HMD, and TCL.
Xiaomi seems content to let its budget brand, Poco, stick to mid-tier price points. At a glance, the new Poco X4 Pro seemingly has flagship specs (5G, a 6.67” 120Hz AMOLED, 108MP camera, 5000mAh battery) but Poco keeps the price down – way down to just €299 – by using a mid-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor. Poco also launched an even less expensive M4 Pro with a 6.43” 90Hz AMOLED and lower resolution camera sensors running on a MediaTek Helio G96 starting at €219.
TCL happily showed showed off new foldable/rollable concept devices that will never be produced (for economic and durability reasons alike), and kept its TCL 30 phone launches to the entry level and mid-tier. The U.S. variants of the TCL 30 line for T-Mobile and Verizon are already shipping. Techsponential has review units that arrived while we were out in Barcelona.
HMD tried to edge into flagship territory with the Nokia 9 Pureview at the last big live MWC in 2019, but it didn’t sell well, and the company has retreated to entry level and mid-tier phones. HMD believes that Nokia’s original brand identity around basic communication, durability, and value can be harnessed to differentiate inexpensive phones. At MWC it launched three new C series phones from €79 - €119, all with 4G. As such, the new models are tested heavily to ensure they survive rough treatment, have long battery life, and even these inexpensive models are supported for multiple years with security updates.
Laptops Were Everywhere At the Mobile Show
For a mobile show, there were an awful lot of new Windows PCs announced at Mobile World Congress.
Samsung is best known for its phones (and TVs, and memory chips, and…) but it is now investing seriously in its Galaxy Book laptop line. For MWC it announced the Galaxy Book2 Pro (13.3” or 15.6”), Galaxy Book2 360 convertible with S Pen (13.3”), and for those who want everything, the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 (13.3” and 15.6”). All five versions have Super AMOLED displays, 12th gen Intel Core processors, better webcams, and bi-directional noise cancelling microphones with AKG by Harman speakers and Dolby Atmos.
Lenovo launched nearly a dozen new laptops at CES with new Intel and AMD processors, more vertical screen space, and camera/microphone bars, but Lenovo wasn’t done. At MWC the company launched another dozen laptops, convertibles, Chromebooks, portable monitors, and more. Some of the new laptops at MWC were just a continuation of the CES theme (a ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 with the 12th gen Intel Core i9 H-series chip; IdeaPad Gaming laptops with 12th gen Intel or AMD Ryzen 6000 H-series processors). However, the most disruptive announcement is the new ThinkPad X13s, Lenovo’s first Arm-based Windows laptop. The ThinkPad X13s is important because it shows that Qualcomm is starting to gain ground with mainstream brands beyond Microsoft’s Surface Pro X. The ThinkPad X13s runs on a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, has integrated 5G and a claimed battery life of 28 hours. I look forward to testing the ThinkPad X13s to see if the connectivity and battery life are worth the tradeoff in performance (most Windows apps still run in emulation) and compatibility (there are still plenty of disk x86-specific apps and utilities).
Qualcomm also displaces MediaTek in Lenovo’s IdeaPad Duet 3 Chromebook which also features a Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, slightly larger 11” 2K display – and the extra real estate makes the corresponding keyboard cover much easier to type on. The Duet was a huge hit thanks to solid performance and a low price; unfortunately, the starting price on the new model jumps from $249 to $399. We will have to get time with a production unit to see if the price increase is justified.
There were also somewhat unremarkable laptops at MWC from Honor, Realme, Xiaomi, TCL, and Huawei. Huawei’s consumer hardware division is still building flagship phones and foldables, but with sales plummeting, it is entering any adjacent category where it can get components. At MWC Huawei didn’t launch any new phones, but it showed off an updated MateBook X Pro laptop with a larger 14.2” display. More interesting were the MatePad Paper, a color eReader that looks strikingly similar to TCL’s NXTPaper; the MateStation X, Huawei’s first strikingly attractive AIO PC; and even a printer. Most of these products will sell primarily in China, but we are definitely hoping to get hands on with the MatePad Paper.
5G is Maturing
As you might expect, MWC had plenty of 5G service and infrastructure announcements that collectively demonstrate how the standard is maturing for real world use cases beyond just faster downloads and geopolitical race hype.
T-Mobile announced T-IoT, an IoT initiative so deceptively simple that you might be forgiven if you miss how incredibly ambitious it is. This is a global IoT management platform that combines assets from T-Mobile USA and Deutsche Telekom with a single point of contact, SLAs, and unified pricing. This potentially enables a manufacturer to manage its entire supply chain around the world and facilities in multiple geographies with a single dashboard and one number to call for support. Obviously, the network interface won’t necessarily be all 5G today (T-IoT covers NB-IoT, LTE-M, and 5G), but launching IoT-as-a-Service is a proof point of mobile IoT maturity overall, and, assuming that T-Mobile can actually pull this off, reducing complexity should speed 5G IoT deployments.
Qualcomm had a long laundry list of announcements at MWC, but one that stood out was the Snapdragon X70 Modem-RF System. Qualcomm’s fifth generation solution includes everything from the modem to the antenna, has its own AI processor, and supports every commercial 5G band in the world. It should be shipping in products by “late 2022.” However, the standout feature is not some new exotic feature, faster downloads, or Release 16 software updates, but better reception. Qualcomm describes this in its press materials using fancy technical marketing words, but the bottom line is that the X70 will provide improved coverage. That’s refreshing.
HTC – yes, that HTC – built a private 5G network in a box. I set up a meeting at HTC’s booth to get hands-on with its latest VR headsets after two years of pandemic made demos difficult, and discovered Reign Core taking up the center spot. HTC was demonstrating heavy real time 5G video with a pair of remote controlled toy race cars thanks to its subsidiary, Reign Core. The highly customizable Intel O-RAN server and transmission system fits in a rolling suitcase and can be used with public or private frequencies depending on local regulations.
Metaverse is Still Mostly A Buzzword
HTC did have Vive VR headsets at the show, and I got to test out the Vive FLOW, which offers a basic VR experience, not just a glasses-based display. Vive was also the only vendor talking about metaverse at MWC to actually launch a metaverse. Viverse is intended to be an open virtual ecosystem that isn’t beholden to Meta or any other tech giant. It’s also extremely sparsely populated at the moment, with meeting and collaboration tools, VRChat, and some music and museum options. It wouldn’t be modern HTC without a crypto tie-in, and Vive Flow supports the WalletConnect for NFTs and digital assets. I am deeply skeptical about Vive’s ability to lead the market to a specific metaverse, let alone crypto management, but Vive is pushing the industry forward in one area that needs more attention: parental controls. Vive has pivoted most of its headsets to enterprise and the company does not have the market share of Meta or Sony, but the new Vive Guardian is a good first step in making VR safe for younger family members. We need more of this.
HP used MWC to launch ExtendXR, a new enterprise SAAS designed to manage AiO VR devices – provisioning, management, and analytics. This should help HP with large corporate VR training deployments, but, ironically, ExtendXR does not support HP’s own VR headsets, which are tethered to PCs.
I had the most fun in VR at MWC in Qualcomm’s booth, where wooorldXR was demonstrating its Google Earth -like service for planning vacations, virtual globetrotting, and acting out Godzilla fantasies. Good times.
Odds and Ends
Lenovo launched the Legion M600s Qi Wireless Gaming Mouse that can be connected via 2.4GHz Bluetooth or a wired connection and can be recharged on any Qi charging pad, which is just incredibly convenient. Mice don’t require charging all that often, but if you have a Qi mousepad – an accessory so cheap that I have a swag version – it is incredibly convenient. Why is this the first time I’ve seen Qi in a mouse?
Planet Computer was back at MWC showing off its Astro Slide smartphone again now that it is shipping. The Astro Slide has a MediaTek Dimensity 700 and a sliding/angled QWERTY keyboard, making it the only 5G QWERTY smartphone on the market. That keyboard is fully mechanical, and the company was showing off the ability to customize the keycaps with different languages.
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