Takeaways from the Mobile World Congress 2017

The Mobile World Congress which can be described as an annual gathering for technology enthusiasts has come and gone; taking place in Barcelona last week. The four day event did not disappoint techies, offering industry watchers and potential customers the thrills of new product announcements as well as innovations by different tech companies.

The Mobile World Congress is an annual trade show run by the GSMA. The location moves around Europe, but in recent years it has been held in Barcelona, Spain. It is usually the launch platform for many of the year’s big smartphones, but it has also given us a range of tablets, smartwatches and other connected devices in recent years.

Outside of the consumer sphere, it also draws in many of the industry heavyweights to talk about the future of mobile, like 5G, chipsets, VR and other technologies.

Old phones stage a comeback

HMD, the new maker of Nokia phones (at least the 3310 model), did its best to remind the mobile world the Nokia brand is still existing somewhere when it re-launched one of its best-selling models ever, the 3310. The device isn’t pretty, and it does barely anything, but neither of those attributes has stopped a wave of fascination (and the requisite backlash) over the “new” version of a phone that landed in our pockets 17 years ago. The Nokia lineup is just one refrain in a nostalgia theme that dominated Mobile World Congress.

Blackberry is another brand from the ‘bygone days’ which also made a grand re-entry into the mobile phone market at the MWC 2017. While BlackBerry has licensed its name and appearance to Chinese company TCL Communications, a result revealed during MWC is the new BlackBerry KeyOne.

The new KeyOne, which runs on Google’s Android operating system, features both the touch-response screen of a modern smartphone and a physical keyboard – similar to that of the firm’s most popular devices.

As well combing a 4.5-inch screen with the keyboard, the KeyOne features a 12-megapixel rear camera and quick charging technology which enables the phone to charge to 50% in around 36 minutes, BlackBerry says.

5G also took centre stage

5G — which stands for the fifth generation of wireless technology, promises a blazing connection that (expectedly) outperforms even the fastest home broadband connection, and is supposed to transform the way we live by connecting everything around. More importantly, 5G will unlock the potential of many other tech trends like virtual reality and self-driving cars.

Companies are showing off the hardware necessary to pull off those crazy speeds, but there are still tons of hurdles. The industry hasn’t come to an agreement on what 5G will actually look like, and there’s the issue of getting the necessary airwaves to power these new networks.

Other highlights included…

• Motorola, a unit of Lenovo, unveiled five upcoming Moto Mods, including one that turns your Moto Z into a game controller
• Protesters interrupted Samsung’s press conference to demand Samsung’s plans for millions of recalled Note 7 batteries
• Netflix CEO Reed Hastings vowed to kill buffering and one report described it as “it creeped us out”
• VR was everywhere at last year’s show, but this year saw more emphasis on content and less on hardware. Around the world at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, though, plenty of new VR gear was on display from the likes of Qualcomm, Microsoft and LG.