The 10 Best Products at MWC 2014

If you think there's nothing exciting left to invent in mobile tech, you haven't seen anything yet. And the biggest things are happening at MWC 2014. Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile industry exhibition, takes place each year in Barcelona, Spain, and plays host to more than 70,000 visitors from 200+ countries.

We spent the first part of this week hitting the show floor and in behind-the-scenes meetings, learning everything there is to know about the upcoming year for the wireless industry. Fortunately, it turns out there's much more going on in mobile devices than incremental spec increases and dubious software add-ons.

From online privacy and OLED displays to wearables and tactile touch displays, there's plenty of innovation at MWC. So with that, here are the 10 best products we've seen at the show this year. We're still waiting for prices and release dates for a lot of these products, and a few may not even make it to the U.S. market. But every one of these products is significant in some possibly game-changing way. We can't wait to test them all out in our labs.

 

Best Phones

Yotaphone
The dual-screen Yotaphone debuted at CES last year, but this second-generation version warrants a much closer look. The new Yotaphone features a 5-inch 1080p AMOLED screen on one side, and a 4.7-inch, 960-by-540 E Ink display on the other. The E Ink display is now fully capacitive touch-enabled; you can use it to browse the Web or text in addition to reading ebooks. A 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and Android 4.4 KitKat round out the specs. The retail version will launch globally for €499; no word yet on a U.S. version, but we're certainly intrigued.

Blackphone
If you're sick of hearing about privacy violations, malware, and NSA spying, the SGP Technologies Blackphone could be your next phone. It's a distinctive, $629 unlocked handset that puts security first and foremost—including your texts, phone calls, and local storage, thanks to the custom-built PrivateOS built on top of Android, plus third-party services and built-in tools for managing app permissions and Wi-Fi connection protection. It also packs a 2GHz quad-core CPU, a 4.7-inch IPS panel, 2GB RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and an 8-megapixel camera. No guarantees on actual protection from the NSA, though—especially with regard to email, which is out of Blackphone's hands entirely. Nonetheless, it's available for pre-order now and ships in June.

Samsung Galaxy S5
Samsung obviously wasn't going to ride on the Galaxy S4's popularity for more than a year, and the long-awaited Galaxy S5 delivers. It features a blistering 2.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8974 processor, a slightly larger 5.1-inch display with adaptive color and contrast depending on ambient lighting, a fingerprint sensor, and a revamped 16-megapixel camera that emphasizes simplicity and autofocus speed. (For more, read The Most Intriguing Samsung Galaxy S5 Features.) Samsung also tones down the custom TouchWiz UI a bit, which is even more welcome news. We can't wait to get our hands on review models; look for the Galaxy S5 to begin landing in the U.S. in April, on all the major carriers.

Best Tablets

Sony Z2 tablet
Sony's new Z2 tablet is super-slim and yet still waterproof, measuring just 0.25 inches thick. It features a 10.1-inch display and a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with an Adreno 330 GPU. Sony said the Z2 charges 75 percent faster than competing devices, and its 6000mAh lithium polymer battery delivers 10 hours of video playback. You get 8.1 and 2.2-megapixel cameras on the back and front, respectively. The Z2 also comes with OfficeSuite Pro 7 for slicing and dicing Microsoft Office files, while a companion Bluetooth keyboard and tablet cover stand converts the Z2 into a laptop. The Z2 is landing sometime in March; pricing hasn't been announced.

Huawei Mediapad X1
The Huawei Mediapad X1 was quite the attention-grabber at MWC, and justly so. It's a super-slim, 7-inch Android tablet with a tiny 0.12-inch bezel; it weighs just 8.4 ounces, which is several ounces under the Nexus 7 and iPad mini. Even so, it packs a giant 5000mAh battery for up to five days of regular usage. Under the hood is a 1.6GHz Hisilicon Kirin920 SoC with a Mali450GPU and 2GB RAM, plus support for 16 mobile data bands, and even a built-in earpiece and mic for voice calls. A tablet game-changer from Huawei? Don't count the company out.

Best Laptop

HP Pavilion X360
Convertibles have practically taken over the PC laptop market these days, but HP may really have something special with the sleek Pavilion X360. It's a red, black, and silver clamshell laptop with an 11.6-inch touch screen that flips all the way around to become a slate tablet. That's nothing new by itself, but $399.99 for a Bay Trail Intel Pentium N3520 processor, 4GB RAM, a 500GB hard disk, and Windows 8.1 certainly is. The X360 is also just 0.86 inches thick and weighs a scant three pounds. In fact, you can use the X360 in four modes: Laptop, Stand, Tent, and Tablet. Soft touch surfaces, standard Beats Audio, and 4G LTE options round out the package. The Pavilion X360 lands at retail today in the U.S.

Best Wearables

Samsung Gear Fit
Sure, the Tizen-powered Galaxy Gear 2 looks to be a welcome (and much needed) improvement over Samsung's first smartwatch. But it's the Gear Fit (pictured, left) that really got our attention. It's a kind of miniature curved band that sits over your wrist like a bracelet, with an OLED touch display, Android notifications, a water-resistant body, a heart-rate sensor, and three days of continuous battery life. The Gear Fit drops the rest of the Galaxy Gear's gimmicks, like phone calls and the built-in camera. But in this space, that's looking to be a good thing—just ask Pebble fans. Samsung has yet to unveil a price, which for the Gear Fit will be the make-or-break factor. We're hoping for $149.

Huawei TalkBand B1
Huawei's getting into the fitness gadget game with the TalkBand B1, a combination wrist-worn activity tracker and Bluetooth headset that lets you answer phone calls. It also has an OLED display, sleep-tracking capability, and an IP57-rated body for water and dust resistance, plus seven hours of continuous talk time—which puts it in the above-average category for Bluetooth headsets, if it measures up in testing. Huawei also promises eventual Android and iOS compatibility, although it will only work with Huawei devices at launch. Still, the TalkBand B1 is a novel idea; we look forward to testing this one.

Sony SmartBand SWR10
Sony's been making wearables for a while, even before the SmartWatch and SmartWatch 2 hit the market. But the Sony SmartBand SWR10 is the company's most compelling one yet. It combines an activity tracker, sleep tracker, and what Sony calls a life-logging companion inside. The idea is to log not just physical activity but social activity as well. To cite a few examples, it connects to your PlayStation account and tracks achievements; you can create "life bookmarks" with photos, GPS location, social media updates, music, and videos; and it also syncs with Sony's LifeLog Android app on Xperia smartphones. Look for the SmartBand soon for €99.

Best Concept

Fujitsu 'Tactile Sensation' Screen
We've already heard of flexible OLED screens that bend and contort, but what if you could actually feel the texture of displayed objects? That's what Fujitsu Laboratories has cooked up with a prototype tablet on display at MWC this week. The touch screen can convey bumpiness, roughness, or slipperiness using haptic sensory technology. For years now, smartphones have had haptic feedback, which vibrates the screen slightly whenever you touch it. In this case, Fujitsu's display employs ultrasonic vibrations, which vary the friction between the screen and your finger by creating a high-pressure layer of air and modeling a floating effect. Cycling between high and low friction creates a bumpy texture. Fujitsu is aiming for 2015 to bring it to market; we can't wait.