Three mobile phones protagonists of MWC 2026

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) has never been a phone fair. It is a telecommunications event: the congress attendees who fill the halls of Fira de Gran Via come to talk about networks, radio spectrum, mergers, and infrastructure, not phones. These are just the photogenic part of a congress where the global connectivity industry tries to agree on who pays, who wins, and who rules. This year, on the 20th anniversary of the MWC in Barcelona, the big themes are repeated: satellite connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI) applied to networks, the deployment of 5G Advanced, and consolidation among European operators: Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, and Vodafone will jointly present the first pan-European federated edge computing infrastructure of the internet cloud. I will talk about them in my daily MWC chronicles in ARA. Despite this, phones will once again capture media attention. And this year, for the first time in a while, there are reasons to pay attention.

Samsung's anti-peeping screen

Samsung has presented the Galaxy S26 series on the eve of the congress, at an event held last Wednesday in San Francisco. The central model is, as always, the Ultra: the big, the expensive (from €1,499), the one with the integrated stylus. Months of leaks had revealed practically everything there would be – the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, the camera system with a 200-megapixel main sensor, intensive integration of AI features – and the final result confirms what was expected: a solid and coherent evolution, without any conceptual leap that forces a fundamental rethink.

But there is a novelty that does attract attention: the Privacy Display screen, with integrated anti-peeping function. There are already privacy filters for mobile phones, but until now they have been passive solutions: adhesive films that block lateral viewing of the screen and which, as a side effect, reduce brightness and image quality at all angles, including the front. Now Samsung has done something different. The Privacy Display of the S26 Ultra is an active technology, integrated into the AMOLED panel, which controls how each pixel emits light and restricts it to the side angles without degrading the frontal experience when it is not activated.

The trick is that the user can configure the phone so that the screen is opaque from the sides only in situations that require it: when entering the PIN or password, when opening the banking app, when reading a message on a crowded train carriage. Outside of these contexts, the screen works exactly like any other. And when activated, it can do so gradually: there is a partial mode, which limits the visibility of notifications, and a maximum protection mode, which completely darkens side views.

In terms of AI, the Galaxy S26 advances along the path initiated with the S25: Galaxy AI now adds Perplexity as a third agent, alongside the already existing Google Gemini and Samsung's own Bixby. The integration allows delegating multi-step tasks – booking a taxi, managing reminders, searching for contextual information – without leaving the thread of the conversation. It would be good news if it weren't for a condition that repeats year after year: the most advanced Galaxy AI functions, such as filtering incoming calls and simultaneous conversation translation, still do not have Catalan among the available languages. The company assures me they are working on it, but for now, AI is not a purchase argument for any of the S26 for Catalan-speaking consumers.

The new range is not limited to the Ultra. There is also the entry-level Galaxy S26 model (6.3 inches, from €999) and the Galaxy S26+ (6.7 inches, from €1,249). These two cost €90 more than their 2025 predecessors, a price increase that Samsung attributes to the shortage of memory chips generated by the growing demand for AI.

Honor's robot phone

If the Galaxy S26 Ultra is a refinement of the known format, the Honor Robot Phone is something else entirely. Honor – which was Huawei's young and affordable sub-brand until US sanctions forced its separation in November 2020, and which has since grown to enter, according to Counterpoint Research, the select club of the eight brands with more than 200 million active devices worldwide – brings to MWC 2026 the most curious mobile we've seen lately.

The main camera of the Robot Phone is mounted at the end of a robotic arm that deploys from the back of the phone. This arm extends, orients itself on three axes, can point in directions that a conventional camera cannot, moves autonomously thanks to the AI model integrated into the device, and retracts when not in use. In October 2025 we saw it in a synthetic video; at CES in January, the physical device could be touched but the mechanism did not yet work; now Honor has released the first videos of the robotic arm in real operation: 360-degree rotation, autonomous tracking of a moving subject, real-time change of tilt angle... and it seems to work. It will be presented this Sunday in Barcelona.

Honor assures that the Robot Phone is a commercial product that will go on sale in the summer, with a price yet to be determined. Fang Fei, product director, says it is not "a conceptual phone made for fun", but an exploration of the limits of the smartphone format. But all manufacturers say this when they present a prototype they don't quite know if it will sell.

Honor highlights the possibilities in photography and video: selfies from impossible angles, active stabilization without the need for an external gimbal, automatic subject tracking. However, another use that the brand does not mention is obvious: monitoring the environment. A camera that moves and informs you of what is happening around you while you don't have the phone in your hand is, for all intents and purposes, a pocket personal surveillance camera. As practical as it is unsettling.

Apple counter-programs the MWC

The third protagonist phone of this mobile week will not be in Barcelona, where Apple is always present but never exhibits. The brand has scheduled simultaneous presentations for Wednesday the 4th, in the middle of the MWC, in New York, London, and Shanghai. It's no coincidence: Apple deliberately schedules its announcements to capture headlines without having to pay for a stand or share space with the competition, while the global tech press is concentrated in Barcelona. Among other innovations, it is expected to present the iPhone 17e, the renewal of the basic model which accounts for a significant proportion of sales: a 6.1-inch phone with a 48-megapixel camera, A19 processor, magnetic wireless charging, and a starting price similar to the current model (€709). A renewal without surprises. However, the new Siri, powered by Google's Gemini AI, will not be there yet.