From the sci-fi future glimpsed through Lenovo’s transparent laptops to the smartphones you can wear around your wrist. The recently concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was filled with strange and quirky products that go beyond the traditional clamshell smartphone. Let’s take a closer look.
ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop Concept: Rotatable displays are a thing of the past. The buzzword of 2024 is “transparency.” Lenovo explains why. Lenovo attended his MWC conference with his one of his most sci-fi concept devices. The 17.3-inch ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop is the future. This is a laptop that allows you to look directly through the glass screen of the laptop. It features a bezel-less 17.3-inch MicroLED display with up to 55% transparency. This occurs when the pixel is set to black and turned off. The concept is under Lenovo’s Project Crystal and is likely a world first. Lenovo has no plans to turn this into a retail project, but it’s still a great idea.
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Motorola bendable smartphones: A concept cooler than reality. I’d like to see it, but it’s not something I’ll use right away. It’s Motorola’s curvy smartphone. The company, owned by Chinese tech giant Lenovo, unveiled a bendable smartphone at MWC that can be bent in various ways. It was mainly showcased as a smartphone that could be worn around the wrist. The information displayed will change depending on when and how you wrap your phone. When you wrap it around your wrist, apps appear on top, making them easier to read and use. This concept bendable smartphone comes with a 6.9-inch OLED screen.
The model shows a Motorola prototype with an adaptive display that was used as a bracelet during Mobile World Congress (MWC). (AFP)
Samsung Cling Band: Not to be outdone by Motorola, Samsung also came out with the Cling Band. A flexible smartphone that can be transformed into a wearable smartwatch. Again, this is a concept device and won’t be released for years. Samsung has long had ambitions to turn OLED into flexible, bendable screens. It’s like the slap bracelet of many people’s youth. Cling Band looks like a regular smartphone in candy bar mode. But once you slap it on your wrist, it curves to fit like any other bracelet, minus the giant screen.
Infinix and E-Color Shift: Infinix has brought many concept phones to CES and MWC over the years. Looking ahead to 2024, the company is developing a new prototype technology it calls E-Color Shift. The color of the back of your phone may change. It’s not something they haven’t shown before. The difference in 2024 is that there are more colors to choose from. Additionally, the back is divided into separate segments, each of which can be controlled independently. All this is possible thanks to E Ink Prism 3.
Mobile battery disguised as a smartphone: Just four years after Avenir Telecom introduced an 18,000mAh power bank with a built-in smartphone, the company is at it again with an even bigger product. Avenir Telecom has packed his 28,000mAh battery into the smartphone. This smartphone or power bank is sold under the Energizer brand. This device is called Hardcase P28K. The company says the smartphone can easily last more than a week with normal use. It has an IP69 rating and is sturdy. Talk time is a whopping 122 hours, and standby time is extended to up to 2,252 hours (approximately 94 days).
However, there is one major drawback. It’s its size. The hard case P28K is 27.8mm thick and weighs 570g. It’s more than three times thicker and heavier than the Apple iPhone 15.
A man uses the new Honor Magic 6 Pro smartphone during a presentation on the eve of Mobile World Congress (MWC). (AFP)
Magic 6 Pro eye tracking features: That’s right, people can now move cars using just their eyes. Honor came to his MWC with the Magic 6 Pro flagship smartphone. The smartphone had a trick hidden in it that no one expected. It has eye tracking capabilities and can perform various tasks. One of her things was moving a real car through an app with a remote control. The car starts moving just by looking at your smartphone. It’s really nice, even if it’s impractical. In the app he only has 4 commands. Engine start, engine stop, reverse, forward.
Although this isn’t a practical feature, Honor hopes it will help differentiate its smartphones from others.
ZTE’s glasses-free 3D tablet: In 2011, 3D-enabled mobile phones were all the rage. There was also an HTC Evo 3D that could not only capture 3D photos but also display them on the screen. It mainly gave people headaches and the whole epidemic went away. ZTE is back with the Nubia Pad 3D II, a glasses-free 3D tablet. The tablet utilizes an LCD lens and fast AI processing algorithms to generate 3D content on the screen, all without the need for special 3D glasses.
play doom On the lawn mower: This is really weird but yes you can now play the cult game doom With a lawnmower courtesy of Husqvarna. The company’s Nera robot lawn mower has enough processing power to play games. doom. Connect two lawn mowers to a server and play multiplayer doom.
Sahil Bhalla is a journalist based in Delhi. He posts @IMSahilBhalla.
Also read: MWC Barcelona: OnePlus Watch 2 turns heads