What’s happening at MWC 2021

It seems there won’t be many consumer announcements at MWC 2021, but below you can see everything we know so far.

Samsung at MWC 2021
Samsung didn’t have a physical presence at MWC 2021, but it did use the event to reveal its new software for smartwatches.

The company revealed that future Galaxy Watch wearables will run One UI Watch – an interface that will be overlaid on the new version of Wear OS that Samsung helped Google build.

That means Galaxy watches will have access to Wear OS apps through the Play Store, including Google’s own apps.

The change will also apparently lead to apps starting up to 30% faster with smoother transitions, plus improvements to sensor readings for health and fitness services, and reduced battery drain when measuring your heart rate, among other things.

The company also revealed that its next Galaxy Watch (believed to be the Galaxy Watch 4) will be announced “this summer” (likely meaning July, August or September).

Lenovo at MWC 2021
The Chinese computing company Lenovo is at MWC 2021, and it has revealed a bunch of new gadgets in the mobile computing space.

Its new announcements include the Lenovo Yoga Tab 13, Yoga Tab 11, Tab M7, Tab M8 and Tab P11 Plus. Those last three are cheaper Android tablets, while the first two are more computing focused devices.

The company has also introduced a new product called the Lenovo Smart Clock 2, which is the company’s latest smart home device.

TCL at MWC 2021
TCL made its MWC announcements several days before the event officially kicked off, but it’s not unusual for companies to get the ball rolling early.

The most interesting of its announcements was the NXTWEAR G, a pair of smart glasses that you can connect to your phone to have videos displayed on them. But the effect is the equivalent of viewing the videos on a 140-inch screen.

They don’t have a battery, so need to be plugged into your phone, but that ensures they’re light and compact. They’re going on sale later this year for €599 (around $715 / £510 / AU$945).

The company also unveiled the Alcatel 1, a super-cheap Android 11 smartphone, costing just €59 (roughly $70, £50, AU$90), and launching in Europe in August. This has a 5-inch screen, so it’s compact too, but we don’t know much else about it yet.

And TCL additionally launched a 5G outdoor hub (to bring 5G to your home), and demoed its new Multi-Screen Collaboration feature, which lets you connect a TCL 20 Pro 5G to another device (such as a Windows 10 PC) and interact with it on your monitor.

What else could MWC 2021 bring?
Few official announcements have happened so far, and it doesn’t seem there’s much else scheduled in for a consumer audience. Here’s what we may see, but this is all based on speculation and rumors, so none of this is guaranteed.

Sony at MWC 2021
Sony often announces major phones at MWC. During the 2019 show for example it unveiled the flagship Sony Xperia 1, along with the mid-range Sony Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus.

This year the company has already announced the Sony Xperia 1 III, Xperia 5 III, and Xperia 10 III, so what does that leave for MWC?

Well, we’ve also seen leaks surrounding the Sony Xperia 1 III Compact and there’s also talk of a mystery ‘Ultra’ phone, so they’re also possibilities.

Regardless though, we’d think it’s likely that we’ll see something from Sony at MWC 2021. That said, the company has pulled out of the in-person event – but it may well still announce something online.

Huawei at MWC 2021
While Huawei didn’t launch any of its main flagships at MWC 2019, it did unveil the foldable Huawei Mate X, which was quite a big deal. It also often unveils new tablets and laptops during the event.

So while we probably won’t see the Huawei P50 or Huawei Mate 50 at MWC 2021, we might well see something from the company – perhaps including one or more foldables. The Huawei Mate X2 has already landed, but there’s rumors that Huawei has some affordable foldables on the way at some point this year.

Nokia at MWC 2021
Nokia often has a big presence at MWC, with flagships (such as the Nokia 9 PureView in 2019) and lower end phones both accounted for.

At the time of writing the company hasn’t yet launched the Nokia 10, so that’s overdue.

Leaks currently can’t agree on whether it will land in the first or second half of the year – if the latter then it might not arrive until after MWC, but the confusion could stem from MWC happening right in the middle of the year.

And if the Nokia 10 doesn’t land there, at the very least we’ll probably see some low-end or mid-range Nokia phones, such as the Nokia 8.4. It’s worth noting that Nokia has pulled out of attending MWC 2021 in person, but claims it will participate in the ‘virtual event’.

Everything else
While we’ve covered many of the likely highlights above, there will probably be all sorts of other things on show from all sorts of other companies.

At MWC 2019 we saw new phones from Alcatel, Xiaomi, ZTE, and more. Other likely candidates for MWC 2021 phone launches include Honor, Motorola, and Oppo. Plus, you can expect a variety of tablets and laptops, potentially alongside some smartwatches and fitness trackers – though notably there weren’t any at MWC 2019.

What we probably won’t see is anything by Apple or OnePlus, and while Google might unveil something it almost certainly won’t be a phone – at MWC 2019 the company just talked about Google Assistant improvements and Google Fi.

As with a number of other companies though, Google has said it won’t attend the physical event, but that still leaves it open to online announcements. Techradarechradar