Liquid-Cooled Concepts and 10-Minute Charging: The Best Phones of MWC 2023

The world’s biggest mobile phone show took over Barcelona this week and wowed us with new handsets. These are the top phones we saw at Mobile World Congress.

The world’s biggest trade show dedicated to mobile devices and services has rebounded from the Covid era in fine form, with about 80,000 people descending on Catalonia to bring Mobile World Congress to life. Thousands of exhibitors from hundreds of countries were on hand to talk shop as phone makers rolled out countless new devices.

We saw big and small phones, bending and folding phones, phones you can self-service…Dr. Seuss could practically write a book about all the different new handsets.

This list, however, focuses on the best of the bunch.

Best Concept

Motorola Rollable

Motorola won us over with its rollable smartphone concept, which has a flexible OLED display that rolls around the bottom edge. The screen measures 5 inches diagonally when it’s closed and extends to 6.5 inches when it’s open. The idea here is that you get a smaller device for your pocket that can still provide a lot of screen real estate when you need it. What’s neat is that the screen still lights up on the rear when folded; it functions as a secondary display for notifications, the clock, and so on. We’re impressed by how the user interface adjusts automatically as the screen opens and closes. Motorola didn’t say anything about bringing the phone to market, but it’s a swell idea.