BARCELONA—Mobile World Congress is the biggest mobile device trade show in the world. Around 100,000 people come to Spain every February to wheel and deal, to meet and greet, to handle the latest smartphones, and to find out what next year's technologies will be.
This year, we saw a slew of phones, tablets, and even laptops. While Samsung tried to crash the party by pre-announcing its Galaxy S8 event for March 29th, it didn't reduce the buzz on the show floor as LG, Huawei, and even BlackBerry announced their new flagships. After three days of pre-briefings and show floor wandering, we chose eight products that represent the best of what we saw. Here are our picks.
Best Phone
LG G6
LG's refined, well-built G6 was the elegant star of the show. LG stepped away from the modular concept of last year's G5 to deliver what consumers really want: something waterproof, with great battery life and deep colors on the biggest screen you can comfortably use with just one hand. As we've been using the G6 this week, its wide-angle camera has come in handy over and over again to capture show floor vistas. The G6 is a no-nonsense, broad spectrum hit that clearly stands above the other phones at the show.
Best Low-Cost Phone
Alcatel A5 LED
Alcatel's A5 LED is the most fun phone we've seen in years. In a world dominated by similar slabs, the A5's pulsing, customizable LED back can become a music visualizer or be themed to match your wardrobe. Even better, the back is replaceable with a big boom box speaker or add-on battery, bringing last year's modular concept down to affordable phones. Where most sub-$200 phones look and feel a little dull, the A5 LED is all personality and thrill.
Best Tablet
Samsung Galaxy Tab S3
The S Pen is back! Samsung enlivened its Galaxy Tab line by bringing in its Wacom pen technology, making it a true Android-powered alternative to Apple's iPad Pro lineup. The Tab S3 amps up entertainment with quad speakers and boosts its overall specs to current levels, but its best feature is the pen. Samsung's solid build quality and balance of creative and entertainment features make this the best Android tablet we've seen in a long while.
Best Wearable
Huawei Watch 2
Smartwatches are strugglers, but fitness trackers are doing well. Huawei shows an intelligent understanding of this trend with the Watch 2, which features continuous heart rate monitoring and special apps that help you design a customized training program. The Watch 2 is fully waterproof to the usual IP68 standard, and is running the latest Android Wear 2.0 with its standalone app store. It's a solid reintroduction for Google's Android-centric wearable line.
Best Laptop
Porsche Design Book One
We didn't expect to see a high-end Surface Book competitor at Mobile World Congress, but we were impressed with Porsche Design's first venture into laptops. Starting at $2,495, the Book One shows off Intel's best technology in a sleek, all-metal Porsche Design body, with a Kaby Lake Core i7 and all the right ports: Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, USB-A, and microSD. Its swiveling, detachable, super-high-res screen delivers more flexibility in more modes than any other laptop out there. Porsche Design doesn't do broad product lines, and if you're going to have one laptop, this is a great statement to make.
Best Accessory
Staedtler Noris Digital for Samsung Tablets
Most styli are round or slightly flattened pieces of plastic or metal. They have no soul. But Staedtler's new S Pen for Samsung's tablet line (and its Galaxy Note phones, if you have one) feels like a real pencil, with the classic hexagonal shape and waxy coating. The fine rubber tip has a better grip on the screen than plastic tips do, a little more like a traditional pencil's drag. It evokes analog feelings when you're creating digital art.
Best Home Technology
Samsung Home Modem for Verizon
Europeans at MWC (and T-Mobile's CTO) don't understand why we're so excited about this, but anyone who has only one, overpriced option for home broadband in the US will get why Samsung's nondescript box is so thrilling. Home broadband competition in the US is moribund, and cable companies rule the day. Verizon and AT&T's upcoming pre-5G rollouts are the best bet to shake up that industry, lowering prices and improving competition. Putting this box on your windowsill will be the key to that new world.
Best Concept
Motorola Moto Mod Concepts
Motorola keeps showing that its detachable Moto Mod idea isn't just a fad, and it has committed to releasing a bunch of Mods over the course of this year. Here at the show, we got some ideas of how broad the Moto Mod functionality could get. There's one which adds Amazon Alexa to your phone, a glass wireless charging back, LED interactive back covers, a gamepad, a printer, a multi-SIM mod, and even a mod that turns your phone into a robot. While few of these seem to be close to being sold soon, we want to see all of them on the market.