Best of MWC 2024: Smart rings, AR glasses, and see-though screens

OnePlus Watch 2 has two operating systems

The original OnePlus Watch was pretty uninspiring and received a mixed reception when it launched a couple of years ago. Now, the OnePlus Watch 2 takes things to a much more exciting level because it features two operating systems you can switch between.

The idea is simple: for basic tasks, you default to the simple RTOS, while for more complex tasks, you enter Google’s Wear OS4. To get a better idea of how this works in practice, check out our OnePlus Watch 2 Hands-on Preview.

Now, off to the futuristic stuff.

Xreal Air 2 Ultra AR glasses

The Xreal Air 2 Ultra glasses look rather cool

Xreal is a known player on the AR scene (we tested the Air 2 a couple of months ago), but at MWC, the company brought its latest prototype, the Xreal Air 2 Ultra. What’s so different, you might ask? Spatial computing! Yes, the thing Apple boasts about with the Vision Pro. The only difference is that the Air 2 Ultra is priced at $699.

Okay, the experience might not be on the level of the Vision Pro, but still, the glasses offer three levels of pass-through via electrochromic dimming, 120Hz OLED displays, and 3D mapping, and the glasses are featherweight at just 80 grams. You can check out our Xreal Air 2 Ultra hands-on preview for a deep dive.

Motorola Adaptive Display

For those of you who want to wear their smartphone on the wrist

Last year, Motorola showed a cool rollable concept called the Moto Rizr. At this year’s MWC, things got even crazier with a proof-of-concept called the Motorola Adaptive Display. Basically, it’s a smartphone that you can wrap around your wrist.We saw the concept in action with our own eyes, and even though it looks a bit strange and bulky, it could accelerate the adoption of smart gadgets with flexible screens (we’ve been waiting for those for ages, remember the Nubia Alpha bracelet?)

Now, this is only a concept at this point, and Motorola now has a couple of those tucked safely inside some super-secret lab, but fingers crossed we see more of the Rize and this Adaptive Display tech in the future. Check out the whole preview here.

We saw the Galaxy Ring (but literally, no hands-on)

The Galaxy Ring looks pretty… from a distance

It would’ve been oddly satisfying to take the recently announced Galaxy Ring for a spin, but it wasn’t meant to be. We saw the device under glass and talked to the representatives on site, but sadly, no hands-on (it was more like “hands off” these rings!). We’re not sure if the Galaxy Ring is actually ready for its debut, but it’s all the hype these days.Smart rings are not a completely new idea, most of you guys are probably well aware of the Oura ring, but Samsung will try to make these gadgets mainstream. There was another take on that technology at the MWC from a company called HiFuture, and you can buy one of their rings if you want to get a taste, but you’ll have to wait a bit for the Galaxy Ring to arrive and kickstart the adoption.

Lenovo showed a transparent screen laptop

Lenovo Crystal concept laptop

Remember the Xperia Pureness? It was a strange phone with a transparent screen, and it launched 15 years ago. Now, the technology seems to have picked up pace and developed to the point where we could have a transparent laptop.

The concept is awe-inspiring, but the actual applications of such technology are a bit out there. Do we need smartphones with see-through screens? Probably not. But maybe in the future we could be able to turn our windows into smart interactive consoles without blocking all the light, and that’s an interesting prospect, at least.

Xiaomi showed its SU7 Max car

Xiaomi SU7 Max

We’ve been hearing about the Xiaomi car for the past couple of months, and there it was, in all its glory. The sleek and stylish SU7 Max. Some say it resembles a Tesla, but for me, it reminds me of a Porsche Taycan.

This vehicle marks a very important point in history, where the tech and automotive industries start to meet and mingle. We’ve heard about the Sony and Honda partnership before, but to see the marriage of these two worlds in person is astonishing. The car can go from 0 to 60 in less than 3 seconds, and the base model will go on sale for as little as $40,000. Take that, Elon Musk!

Itching for a bigger battery? How about a 28 000 mAh smartphone?

Our batteries are stuck in the past, and it’s a constant struggle to get a full day on a flagship smartphone. Well, if you’re willing to do some physical exercises on a daily basis, you can get a 28 000 mAh P28K smartphone made by Energizer. This thing weighs 570 grams, so it’s like doing biceps curls every time you take a call. But currently, that’s the price for having a week of battery life.There were other big-battery rugged phones around the expo, and for some people, this approach might work. We’re much more excited about solid state batteries, though. Let’s bring this tech to smartphones already!

Bonus: The Nothing Phone (2a) is real!

The Nothing Phone (2a) has a very distinct design

Carl Pei‘s new brainchild is called the Nothing Phone (2a), and it has been hyped like crazy in the past couple of weeks. We had the chance to see the phone (but not touch it), so we have a pretty good idea of its design… and nothing more. This model is supposed to be a more budget-friendly version of Nothing’s regular phones (Google Pixel A-series anyone?), so we shouldn’t expect a powerhouse.

The phone is on its way to our test lab, so stay tuned for a full review pretty soon. The full official reveal of the model will happen on March 5.

Final Thoughts

The Doogee flip phone is one of many

MWC has always been a huge and wild place for tech, and it’s hard to even physically visit all the stands, as there are hundreds of them. We tried our best to give you a glimpse of the most interesting and important things at the fair.A few closing thoughts. There were lots and lots of Galaxy Z Flip inspired phones, so expect more and more companies to come up with their own flip phone models. AR glasses are also on the rise, but we’re not sure if the Vision Pro has something to do with that.

One big company I can’t mention also shared off the record that its AR concept glasses aren’t completely dead and there’s a team working on them, so exciting times ahead! And of course, almost every big tech company is either utilizing or working on its own AI at the moment, as the OpenAI foundation seems to have opened the software Pandora box. So there’s no going back from that.