Technology News

It’s the last day of Mobile World Congress, which means everything is coming to an end in Barcelona. Here’s all the major news we saw announced at this year’s event.

MWC 2022 was packed with new and exciting products from some of our favorite brands including Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme and countless more. It wasn’t just smartphones either, but watches, tablets and laptops that were all on display at the show.

Read on to find all the new and incoming technologies that caught our eye at this week’s MWC.

When is MWC?

MWC started on 28 February and ended on March 3, 2022. The show took place in the same location where it has been cast since 2013: Fira Gran Via in the Spanish city of Barcelona.

Samsung at MWC 2022

Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360

As the highest profile Android manufacturer, you might have expected Samsung to be the star of the MWC. However, the brand unveiled its flagship Galaxy S22 series back in February, led by the Galaxy S22 Ultra.

However, that doesn’t mean we didn’t hear anything exciting from Samsung at the event, as the company was showing off two laptops at the event instead.

The Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 was introduced as the successor to the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360. The device is a thin and light 2-in-1 device with a new 12th generation Intel Core i5/i7 Evo processor, AMOLED display and S Pen support , up to 21 hours of battery life and Windows 11 out of the box. Check out our hands-on review for more information.

Samsung also launched the new Galaxy Book 2 Pro, this time with 12th Gen Intel Core chips and 5G on board. You can read about our experiences with the laptop in our hands-on test.

Sony at MWC 2022

Sony has not been represented at the MWC since 2019. An official statement on this is as follows:

“Sony Corporation has made the decision not to have its own booth at MWC 2022. As the world has largely shifted to digital and online opportunities, Sony Corporation will communicate in a way that can bring our exciting new products to a wider audience.”

Huawei at MWC 2022

Huawei MateBook E

Huawei announced a range of devices at the event, including the MateBook E 2-in-1 with OLED display, the incredibly powerful MateBook X Pro laptop, and Kindle competitor MatePad Paper eReader.

Read all about the new laptops and e-readers in our guide, or learn more about our experience with the MateBook E in our Windows 11 2-in-1 hands-on review.

OnePlus at MWC 2022

OnePlus 10 Pro

Some of the most anticipated phone launches in early 2022 are the OnePlus 10 and OnePlus 10 Pro.

The latter got its Chinese release on January 13, but promised a reveal “later in 2022” for customers in the US and Europe. At MWC, the brand announced that the 10 Pro will be available in North America, India and Europe by the end of March, meaning fans won’t have to wait much longer to get their paws on the flagship phone.

We got a chance to pick up the OnePlus 10 Pro at the event, which you can read all about in our first review.

Xiaomi at MWC 2022

Poco X4 Pro

The Xiaomi 12 flagship landed in China on December 28th with a great deal of excitement, but has yet to be officially launched in the West.

We had hoped that MWC would be the right place for such an unveiling, but the phone proved a disappointing absence from the event. Thankfully, we heard about the manufacturer’s sub-brand, Poco.

Poco introduced two phones at MWC this year – the Poco X4 Pro 5G and the Poco M4 Pro. Both devices offer a range of flagship features at budget-friendly prices, with the X4 Pro starting at €299 (around £248) and the M4 Pro starting at €219 (around £181).

You can read about our first experiences with the Poco X4 Pro in our hands-on test of the smartphone.

Motorola and Lenovo at MWC 2022

Motorola was reportedly “quietly preparing the third-gen Razr,” which gave us hope that we’d see the Motorola Razr 3 at the event. Unfortunately, the foldable hasn’t made an appearance, but we’ve seen new products from Moto’s parent company, Lenovo.

These include a wide range of ThinkPad and IdeaPad laptops, as well as the budget-friendly Tab M10 Plus tablet. You can read both in more detail in our respective guides.

Honor at MWC 2022

Honor Magic 4

Following the split from Huawei, Honor products are once again available with Google Mobile Services, and the brand recently triumphantly returned to our shores with the Honor 50.

A premium smartphone, the Honor Magic 4 series, was presented at this year’s MWC, led, of course, by the Honor Magic 4 Pro, which we were able to test at the event. The brand also introduced the new Watch GS 3 and the Earbuds 3 Pro.

Oppo at MWC 2022

Oppo Find X5 Pro

Some of the most exciting products presented at MWC 2022 were the Oppo Find X5 and Find X5 Pro.

Max Parker had the opportunity to spend time with the Pro, which you can read all about in our hands-on review linked above. This includes first-hand details on the new design, features like SUPERVOOC fast charging and the latest changes to the phone’s triple camera. Check out our comparison article to learn more about how it compares to the standard Find X5.

Oppo also announced its latest developments in fast charging at MWC this year, showing off 240W SUPERVOOC – a flash charge that can charge a 4500mAh battery to 50% in 3.5 minutes or 100% in just 9 minutes.

Launched alongside the 150W SUPERVOOC flash charge, which can charge a battery to 50% in 5 minutes and 100% in 15 minutes, with the added benefit of the Battery Health Engine. This allows the battery to operate at 80% capacity after up to 1600 charges, effectively doubling the battery life compared to the industry standard.

Rich at MWC 2022

Another brand with a flagship phone in development is Realme, and apparently this one is so special that it will be the brand’s first product to be labeled “Pro+”.

That likely means the Realme 9 Pro+ will have excellent camera and screen specs, but we’ll have to wait until its launch to find out for sure.

In the meantime, we had the chance to spend time with Realme’s first true flagship, the Realme GT2 Pro, which you can read all about in our hands-on review of the phone.

Realme also announced its latest advancement in fast charging technology with the new Ultra Dart Charging Architecture (UDCA), which can charge a phone to 50% in just 5 minutes.

Like Oppo’s fast charge technology, UDCA also offers battery protection, which means that the cell can still be charged to 80% after over 1000 charges.

Trustworthy recording

There’s no denying that in-person events like MWC have had a rough few years due to the Covid-19 pandemic and we’re still not out of the woods, as evidenced by the no-shows of the likes of Sony.

However, thanks in no small part to the delicious rumors gathered above, there is reason for optimism this year, and nothing excites me more than the possibility of a new generation of foldable phones from Huawei, Motorola and Honor. If form factor is really going to be the future of mobile technology then it is this burgeoning competition is exactly what we need to see.

Ray tracing is an ace up its sleeve for next-gen gaming consoles, but Sony won’t be resting on its laurels with one of the PS5 console’s most impressive graphical features.

Sony has received a patent for accelerated ray tracing, which takes some of the load off the graphics chip while reducing render time for shaded graphics. If you’re unfamiliar, ray tracing provides a more realistic reproduction of how light behaves in relation to reflections and shadows in video games.

This patent in question could eventually allow ray tracing to be turned on without sacrificing frame rate and highest resolution, allowing more top PS5 games to take advantage of the prominent feature throughout gameplay.

The patent (via The Gamer), granted to PS5 architect Mark Cerny, is titled “System and Method For Accelerated Ray Tracing and System And Method For Accelerated Ray Tracing With Asynchronous Operation And Ray Transformation.” It suggests that the load currently handled by the GPU could be offset by dedicated ray tracing unit (RTU) hardware, speeding things up.

Filed by PS5 architect and Knack creator Mark Cerny, the patent mentions “System And Method For Accelerated Ray Tracing” and “System And Method For Accelerated Ray Tracing With Asynchronous Operation And Ray Transformation.”#PS5 #PlayStation5 #playstation pic.twitter.com/yyjL8SMfRw

— Gaming updates and countdowns I 🎮 (@Onion00048) February 25, 2022

In typically intrusive language, the patent explains: “The RTU implements traversal logic to traverse the acceleration structure, including transforming rays as needed to account for variations in coordinate space between layers, stack management, and other tasks to offload the shader and communications.” Intersections to the shader, which then calculates whether the intersection hit a transparent or opaque part of the intersected object.

“Thus, one or more processing cores within the GPU perform accelerated ray tracing by offloading aspects of the processing to the RTU, which traverses the acceleration structure in which the 3D environment is rendered.”

Whether that would require a minor redesign of the PS5’s hardware to achieve the patent’s goals remains to be seen. It may be that this patent will come to life if Sony decides to release a PS5 Pro in the coming years.

Samsung has officially confirmed what we may have known for a number of years – the long-running Galaxy Note series is now dead, but in name only!

In an interview at MWC 2022, a Samsung executive said that although no more Galaxy Note phones will be launched in the future, the range will live on as an Ultra version within the Galaxy S series.

Commenting on Dailian (spied and translated by 9to5Google), Samsung’s Head of Mobile Experience, Roh Tae-moon said, “The Galaxy Note… will come out as ‘Ultra'”. The statement is short but clear: there will be no more Note phones, but you can still get all of their hallmarks through Samsung’s true flagship Ultra phones.

Our review of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra makes it clear that the phone is designed for longtime Galaxy Note fans and offers an S Pen that can be inserted into the handset. It also imports many of the UI features that Samsung developed primarily with the Note series.

Our own Max Parker said the phone is “basically more of a refinement of the last Galaxy Note phone than an evolution of the design I loved with the Galaxy S21 Ultra. If you appreciated the DNA of the Note line, you’ll love this one.”

Max wasn’t a fan as everything felt a bit too boxy for him, but there will be Note loyalists who will love the phone’s spiritual lineage, which is continued in the flagship Galaxy S series lineup. The Note could also live on through the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 4, which is said to also include the S Pen stylus that once differentiated the Note series from the pack.

The last actual device in the line was the Samsung Galaxy Note 20, which launched in 2020 and looked like a series was about to run out of steam. Are you happy that Samsung is keeping the spirit of the Galaxy Note alive? Let us know via @trustedreviews on Twitter.

HMD Global, the company behind the Nokia-branded Android phones, has announced two new smartphones that could conquer the budget phones in 2022.

Launched today at MWC 2022, the brand new Nokia C Series phones cost just £75 and £100 and could be very tempting for people looking for a second smartphone or wanting to replace their phone without breaking the bank.

Nokia C2 2

The £74.99 second-gen Nokia C2 lands in the UK in May, offering all-day battery life from the 2,400mAh cell and 5.7-inch HD display. It’s unknown what chipset the company is using, but you can get up to 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. There’s Android minus UI interference and quarterly security updates for two years.

The single-lens rear camera is only 5 megapixels while the selfie camera is only 2 megapixels, but at this price point you can’t expect much more. The second generation Nokia C2 will be available in dark blue and warm gray from May.

Nokia C21Plus

The Nokia C21 Plus (main image), on the other hand, significantly upgrades the data sheet by another twenty-five marks. It promises two days of battery life from the 4,000mAh cell while still offering a 6.5-inch HD Plus display. Nokia also says it’ll rock a metal body with an IP52 rating for decent production against the elements.

The Nokia C21 Plus also comes with a dual 13MP camera with panorama and portrait modes and a clean version of Android with no custom UI interference. There will also be quarterly security updates for two years. The phone is protected by a fingerprint sensor and face unlock.

Again, Nokia remains mother in terms of chipset, but it can be configured with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage.

It will be available in the UK from late April in Dark Cyan and Warm Gray colors and will cost from £99.99. Nokia is also launching some Nokia Comfort Earbuds and Nokia Clarity Earbuds today, prices for which are yet to be confirmed.

During its sweeping MWC announcements, Qualcomm has launched two new audio-centric processors that enable the wireless transmission of CD-quality 16-bit lossless audio for the best wireless headphones and more.

Announced at MWC 2022, the new chips promise to solve a major problem for the music streaming industry, which is launching high-resolution formats amid the relative incompatibility of high-quality audio transmission over Bluetooth.

The Qualcomm S3 Sound Platform and S5 Sound Platform provide support for 16-bit 44.1 kHz CD quality Bluetooth lossless audio and 24-bit 96 kHz high-resolution Bluetooth audio. The new additions to the Snapdragon Sound Platform also bring Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth 5.3 support and will greatly improve sound quality when listening through wireless headphones rocking the S3 and S5 chips.

The S3 and S5 sound platform chips, which will enable manufacturers to create more advanced earphones, speakers and headsets, can also connect to an unlimited number of Bluetooth hearing aids in secure environments.

“The Qualcomm S5 Sound Platform is designed to deliver studio master listening experiences, with seamless quality scaling to match the source file resolution,” the company writes on its website. “This includes CD-quality lossless audio with Snapdragon Sound, a first for wireless earbuds achieved with our systems-level approach.”

The company is also promising low latency of 68ms (25% less) as part of a new game mode that will allow gamers to “fully sync their audio experience with the action you’re seeing on-screen. These platforms also offer a wireless voice-back channel for in-game chats,” says Qualcomm. The new chips also promise developer stereo recording, 32kHz super wideband voice call quality and built-in adaptive ANC.

James Chapman, Qualcomm’s VP and GM for Voice, Music & Wearables, added: “In these tiny platforms, we’ve integrated our adaptive active noise cancellation into a dedicated block of hardware, and as a result bring substantial noise cancellation improvements to everything that’s in a.” earphones of the listener.”

Jabra, iQOO and Xiaomi have already announced that they will all launch hearing aids with the new chips at their core.

Amid the ongoing talk of an iPhone Fold, Apple could – quite literally – have bigger ambitions when it comes to flexible displays.

According to well-informed Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, Apple is investigating a 20-inch model that could be some sort of iPad and MacBook hybrid.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says the dual-screen device could include a virtual keyboard for use as a MacBook, or even a foldable display that plugs into a physical keyboard and acts as a monitor, so to speak. However, according to his sources, it could be the second option.

He told subscribers: “The company could use a foldable 20-inch screen connected to a physical keyboard, or just use one side of the display as a virtual keyboard. I was told that Apple was indeed investigating a dual-screen foldable MacBook/iPad hybrid that would take the second approach. It would trade in the physical keyboard and trackpad for a full touchscreen base.”

Gurman’s comments come after a similar report by DCSS analyst Ross Young, who suggested from the supply chain that Apple may be planning to launch such a hybrid between 2025 and 2027. His information indicated that Apple would develop a dual-use product that could even be used as a 4K monitor (or better) along with an external keyboard.

Apple researches all sorts of potential new products and features, and in fact files thousands of patents a year that may not see the light of day. This seems a bit out of balance with the company’s current product line. It has long refused to offer any sort of touchscreen Mac, and the prospect of such a large foldable device seems a few years away.

Meanwhile, work could continue on an iPhone Fold that could arrive as early as 2023, although a recent report suggests Apple has pushed back its plans to 2025.

MWC 2022 is underway and brings loads of exciting announcements from the mobile world. The latest comes from Oppo, which unveiled its blazing-fast 240W charging technology at the conference.

The new 240W SUPERVOOC Flash Charger is capable of charging a 4500mAh battery to 50% in 3.5 minutes and 100% in just 9 minutes.

You can see the charger in action in the video posted below on the brand’s Twitter page.

Oppo has also unveiled a 150W SUPERVOOC flash charge that can charge a 4500mAh battery to 50% in 5 minutes and 100% in 15 minutes.

While the 150W version is a bit slower than the 250W model, it also benefits from the new Battery Health Engine.

The technology, introduced on the Find X5 Pro last week, allows the battery to continue operating at 80% of its original capacity after up to 1600 charges. That’s double the industry standard of 800 cycles, effectively doubling battery life.

Finally, Oppo launched 5G CPE T2, a phone technology designed to convert 5G signals into super-fast Wi-Fi or LAN network connections. That means multiple devices can access stable WiFi through one 5G handset.

“Despite the many challenges we have faced over the past few years, the telecom industry has still thrived and we at OPPO have seen steady growth,” said Billy Zhan, Oppo VP of Overseas Sales and Service.

“Technologies like the 240W SUPERVOOC flash charge demonstrate our innovation leadership, while devices like the OPPO 5G CPE T2 highlight the new directions of our business. Through our new brand promise “Inspiration Ahead”, OPPO uses innovation and collaboration to solve challenges together with our partners and bring people around the world human-centric and inspiring technology experiences.”

The latest product from Bang & Olufsen celebrates the 50th anniversary of its Beogram 4000 series turntables, with the Danish brand launching 30 new, limited units of the Beosystem 72-22.

The launch of the system is part of the Recreated Classics initiative, a platform B&O created to redefine “long-lasting luxury through handcrafted, circular manufacturing” of historic design pieces.

The unit itself is a fully integrated music system featuring a replica version of the Beogram 4000 series turntable originally designed by Jacob Jensen in 1972, along with matching Beolab 18 stereo speakers and a Beoremote Halo remote control. Each component within the system is connected via a central hub packaged in a solid walnut gift box that can be repurposed for use as a turntable stand, record storage cabinet and Halo charging station. This is very much the “all” in an all-in-one system.

As you’d expect from Bang & Olufsen, the system has a sleek finish, a matching walnut color with a bead-blasted titanium-colored anodized aluminum finish (try saying that three times quickly).

When the turntable is not in use, the sound of vinyl is connected to the brand’s modern speakers, allowing audio content to be wirelessly streamed to the Beolab 18 stereo speakers via the hub.

The Beoremote remote control

Part of B&O’s goal with the Beosystem 72-22 and its Recreated Classics initiative as a whole is the company’s drive to overcome technological obsolescence and increase product longevity through circular design and remanufacturing; The new Beosystem is an example of fusing a 50 year old idea with modern technology to make it a more functional and sustainable product worth keeping for the next 50 years.

However, this system is neither cheap nor widespread. The Beosystem 72-22 is priced at $45,000 / CAD$60,000 and as you might have guessed from the pricing, they’re only available exclusively through Bang & Olufsen stores in North America and Canada. As there are only 30 Beosystem 72-22 to make, it becomes a collector’s item. So if you’ve got the deep pockets for it, you should (at least) grab one real quick.