MWC 2026 officially starts on March 2 and will continue until March 5, but announcements are coming even before it starts. We can always count on the annual tech event to bring plenty of new phones, laptops, and tablets, and we’re also expecting to see some robots and other gadgets too – as well as lots of AI news. Announcements aside, MWC is our chance to spend hands-on time with some of the most interesting new devices like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
We’ll be updating this story as the week progresses to keep you up to date on everything that catches our attention, so keep checking back here for the latest MWC news.
xiaomi x leica
Xiaomi kicked off this year’s MWC by announcing the global launch of its 17 Ultra smartphones, which first launched in China in December. It’s unclear if the phone will ever come to the US, but it is now becoming available in Europe. Xiaomi has again teamed up with Leica to create a photography-focused smartphone and the 17 Ultra sports a 1-inch 50-megapixel camera sensor with an AF/1.67 lens, a 200MP telephoto setup with a 1/1.4-inch sensor, and a 50MP ultrawide camera. There is also a manual zoom ring around the camera.
Check out our first impressions of what it’s like to shoot with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra. And there’s more to it than just the camera. The 17 Ultra features a 6.9-inch OLED 120Hz display with 3,500 nits of brightness and a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery. The price of Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at £1,299 (about $1,750).
Leica also announced a new phone made in partnership with Xiaomi at MWC. It looks a lot like Xiaomi’s 17 Ultra, but isn’t exactly the 17 Ultra.
Like the 17 Ultra, Xiaomi’s Leitzphone from Lenovo has a 1-inch camera sensor and physical controls for zoom and other settings, which use a mechanical ring around the camera unit. It has a Leica-designed intuitive camera interface, with the option to show only the essentials while hiding all modes and labels while shooting. It has a monochrome shooting mode and Leica filters.
The design and wallpaper have Coca-Cola branding scattered all over it, but it’s very similar to the 17 Ultra with similar specifications. Like the 17 Ultra, it has a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip and a 6.9-inch 120Hz display. Its price is €1,999 (about $2,362).
honor magicpad 4
Respect
Ahead of MWC, Honor announced what it claims is the world’s thinnest Android tablet: the 4.8mm thick MagicPad 4. We’re expecting to hear more about it at Honor’s press conference on Sunday, but so far we know it has a 12.3-inch 165Hz OLED display and weighs just 450 grams. It comes with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset. Honor says the thinness doesn’t count the camera bump. MagicPad 4 has a 13MP rear and 9MP front camera. It also has spatial audio with eight speakers.
Just as the display is slightly smaller than the previous MagicPad, the MagicPad 4 has a smaller 10,100 mAh battery. It comes with 66W fast charger. The MagicPad 4 will run on Honor’s MagicOS 10. We don’t know yet how much it will cost, but we’ll update with any new details after Honor’s press conference (where we’re also expected to see the company’s robot).
techno
We can always expect to see some wild phone concepts at MWC, and this year we’re starting with one from Tecno. The company unveiled a modular concept smartphone design that could be as thin as 4.9 mm in its base configuration. Based on the announcement there will be 10 modules to choose from, including various camera lenses, a gaming attachment, and a power bank, which rely on magnets to hold it all together – or modular magnetic interconnection technology, as Tecno is calling it.
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