Mobile World Congress 2025: More Foldable Concepts, Plus Phones and Tablets You’ll Never Get to Use

Mobile World Congress, or MWC, has kicked off in Barcelona, Spain, with intriguing reveals across phones, laptops, and tablets. Samsung—specifically Samsung Display—showed off a few concept pieces that offer a glimpse at what’s to come from folding displays. Lenovo used the conference to announce a concept, too: its Yoga Solar PC, which runs on sunlight. TCL is still carrying the torch for its NXTPaper handheld displays. We also got to peek at the heavily rumored and almost-announced Nothing Phone 3(a) and Phone (3a) Pro with their cool, see-through, light-up chassis. Plus, new phones are coming from brands that no longer sell devices in the U.S. (cue our FOMO), while Qualcomm is touting faster 5G speeds coming your way.

Samsung flaunts its R&D

We love a show-off, particularly when it’s Samsung bursting through with whatever it’s hashing out behind the scenes in its research and development labs. Via CNET, we caught a look at one exciting concept device. It shows a Switch-like gaming console that folds the display into itself for more compact storage. Samsung also heavily flexed its display prowess with promises of a seamless OLED experience across the ecosystem. The idea is that no matter what Samsung-made screen you’re looking at, the colors all look the same. Also, these display panels get really bright at 5,000 nits. Don’t forget your indoor sunglasses.

Samsung packed all the concept devices on the plane to Spain. In addition to the folding displays, the company offered those in attendance a closer look at its Project Moohan Android XR headset. The demonstration let folks paw at the external battery and switch packs as needed, though it doesn’t seem anyone received a live demonstration quite yet. So far, the rumored expected launch date for the XR headset is April 2025.

Samsung’s updated A-series

Samsung’s economical smartphone set, the Galaxy A-series, also got a bump-up during the conference’s opening weekend. The Galaxy A56, A36, and A26 will all be heading for a global launch date soon enough, though the latter two devices will be the first to launch at the end of March. They’re all 120Hz screen smartphones with dialed-down Galaxy AI features called “Awesome Intelligence.” Fortunately, that includes Google’s Circle to Search.

Lenovo’s sun-powered concept laptop

Leave it to Lenovo to trot out more of its concept hardware whenever possible. The PC maker showed off a Yoga Solar PC concept, and its primary selling point is that it will last you a heck of a long time, as long as you have sunlight to draw power from. We saw it behind closed doors before Lenovo flew the device overseas for the show.

TCL trots out more Nxtpaper products

TCL, best known in the U.S. for its economically priced smart TVs, also makes smartphones and tablets. Over the past few years, the company has picked up some steam with its Nxtpaper technology, a colorful e-Ink-like experience that’s much easier on the eyes than your flagship’s bright OLED. The company announced a new tablet and three smartphones, including the sequel to last year’s TCL 50 XE. Only the TCL 60 XE Nxtpaper will be available in the U.S.-adjacent, launching in Canada first. It will cost about $230.

Nothing almost launched something

Nothing hasn’t announced anything yet, but we’ve been following the rumors circulating about the Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro. Despite sharing a name, the two phones look nothing alike. The Phone (3a) has a Pixel-like camera bar, while the Phone (3a) Pro adopts its looks from OnePlus and Oppo’s brood of smartphones. They’re both see-through, according to what we saw at 9to5Google. We should have more details on all the specifications inside this week, since Nothing is using the show to debut the phones.

Honor wants a comeback story

Honor is not a brand that we talk about in the U.S. I last covered it nine years ago, before the Great Big Ban of its devices and partner products. Honor is a subsidiary of Huawei, which has been doing fine in China the past few years despite no longer offering access to the Google Play Store on its devices.

At MWC 2025, Honor announced a new Android-compatible smartwatch, the Honor Watch 5 Ultra, plus a super-economical $250 tablet with a 10,100 mAh battery with the promise of multiple days on a single charge. Honor also revealed that it’s working to solidify collaborating development with Google and Qualcomm to concoct a so-called “intelligent ecosystem.” The idea is to spoof what Apple has but in Android land, while also being able to support software updates for as long as Google and Samsung have on their respective devices—up to six years for every new device. Honor publicly committed to hopping on the AI bandwagon with its own set of algorithms for camera performance.

Qualcomm’s new 5G chip

Qualcomm would like you to know that even though some of its collaborators—cough, Apple—are slowly moving away from featuring its chips and cellular modems, it’s got plenty to offer the rest of the smartphone world. The chip giant announced the X85 5G Modem-RF for Android devices at MWC 2025. If you’re paying for this kind of 5G speed, your future phone will be able to access up to 12.5 Gbps download speeds and maximum 3.7 Gbps uploads. The last generation’s chip topped out at 10 Gbps.