At MWC 2026 in Barcelona, the main focus was on devices with built-in artificial intelligence. The Chinese brand HONOR presented the concept of a "robot phone" with built-in gimbals and an AI engine that physically tilts, turns and reacts to its surroundings.
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy S26 flagships were equipped with on-device AI agents capable of autonomously performing tasks across several apps at once. Tecno showed two models: the Pova Neon with ionized neon gas for lighting, and a version with an E-Ink screen on the back cover that changes color to match photos of clothing.
Vivo announced the X300 Ultra with a 200-megapixel telephoto camera, an updated extender and a professional cage. This is the first model in the Ultra series that the company plans to sell outside China. Lenovo demonstrated the Yoga Book Pro 3D — a laptop with two screens that displays three-dimensional images without glasses and is controlled by hand gestures.
Qualcomm presented the Snapdragon Wear Elite chip for smartwatches, AI pins, pendants and glasses. The processor delivers a fivefold increase in single-core CPU performance, a sevenfold speedup in app launch times and 30 % greater battery life compared with the previous generation. The chip supports billion-parameter AI models on the device thanks to a dedicated NPU.
OPPO and MediaTek showed on-device translation and portrait enhancement features on the Dimensity 9500 platform, as well as a preview of the Omni multimodal model, which processes voice, video and text locally without the cloud. Tecno also unveiled a magnetic modular system that allows batteries, cameras and lenses to be added to a thin smartphone base.
Many of the announcements remain concepts without exact prices or release dates. Specific battery specifications and full comparisons with predecessors have not yet been disclosed. Buyers should wait for independent tests before choosing between these devices and the current 2025 flagships.
