Technologies

Best Phones of MWC 2026

Explore all the incredible handsets we saw at Mobile World Congress, from Xiaomi, Honor, Motorola and more.

At MWC 2026, we have — surprising nobody — seen a ton of phones.

This year’s Mobile World Congress is particularly plentiful with phones packing unique features appealing to different mobile fans, like Honor’s Robot Phone, which is part handset and part camera gimbal. While Xiaomi predictably unveiled another premium device, its photographic capabilities are next-level. Motorola finally revealed its book-style foldable. The brands may be expected, but the phones aren’t.

This year’s MWC comes with its own set of challenging circumstances. The Samsung Galaxy S26 phones have arrived just before the show to set the stage for this year’s premium Android phones, and they’ve come with a $100 price hike for their basic and Galaxy S26 Plus models. This could be the result of the RAM shortage, which is expected to pressure phonemakers to raise prices on many phones. How they choose to balance new features and affordability could be the biggest hurdle of 2026 for the phone industry.

Amid all that uncertainty, manufacturers have still graced the biggest phone show of the year to debut their new handsets. Here are all the best phones we’ve seen at MWC.

Xiaomi’s Leitzphone

We’ve seen the Leica name attached to phones for years, but Xiaomi’s Leica Leitzphone takes phone-and-camera-company partnerships to the next level. There’s a laundry list of great photo-centric features: Leica’s famous high-quality Summilux lenses, the new Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor image sensor to enable better dynamic range and moving elements in the telephoto lens that allow it to gracefully transition from 75- to 100-millimeter focal lengths. Plus, a large mechanical lens ring on the back of the phone that serves as a customizable control for zoom, exposure, or other settings.

Best of all, as CNET Editor at Large Andrew Lanxon noted in his review, the Leitzphone has the exact same color profiles that you’ll find on Leica’s actual cameras and film — and the photos he took look like they came from a pro camera, not a phone. In short, Lanxon wrote, the Leitzphone is so advanced it earns our Editors’ Choice award, and competitors like Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 Ultra need to catch up.

Honor Magic V6

The Honor Magic V6 is a foldable that seems, at least at early glance, to have largely mitigated one of the persisting problems of flexible displays: the crease over the fold line is pretty much gone. This alone would make the Magic V6 attractive for cutting-edge phone fans, but it has other pristine touches — it’s only 4.1mm thick, is one of the first foldables to be IP68 and IP69 water and dust resistant (meaning it should survive spilt drinks and dust), has a 6,600-mAh battery (larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s 4,400-mAh one) and has a triple-rear camera array with specs that seem better than any rival: a 50-megapixel main, 64-megapixel telephoto and 50-megapixel ultrawide.

For all those refinements, expect to pay up. While the Honor Magic V6 doesn’t have an official price yet (and won’t be sold in the US), its predecessor, the Honor Magic V5, was £1,699 (which converts to around $2,285).

Motorola Razr Fold

After years of sticking with clamshell-style small foldables in the Razr series, Motorola is finally bringing a larger book-style foldable to take on its rival Samsung and its Galaxy Z Fold 7. Motorola is continuing to distinguish its handsets with alternative materials and textures like a wooden finish on the Razr Ultra, and the new Motorola Razr Fold has a «silk» textured back that adds a touch of luxury.

Motorola’s new book-style foldable has a triple-rear camera system (50-megapixel sensors with a trio of lenses: wide-angle, telephoto and ultrawide) as well as some specs advantages over Samsung’s big folding phone. The Razr Fold has a 6,000-mAh battery and 80-watt wired and 50-watt wireless charging, which easily outstrips the 4,400-mAh capacity of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and its paltry 25-watt wired and 15-watt wireless charging.

Honor Robot Phone

We first got a teasing look at the Honor phone with a discrete camera on the end of a robot arm (think one of those DJI pocket-size cameras on a gimbal) during CES 2026, but finally got to see it properly at MWC 2026 just a couple of months later. With its separate, stabilized camera, the Honor Robot Phone lives up to its name, capturing footage that could be far higher quality than that from standard phone cameras at the end of our (shaky human) arms. When it’s not in use, the Honor phone’s gimbaled arm folds back in and tucks into a notch in the back of the phone. It’s a neat return to, and even an expansion upon, the neat pop-up phone cameras from yesteryear, stabilized with all the best modern mobile photography tech.

ZTE Nubia Neo 5 GT

The ZTE Nubia Neo 5 GT brings features from premium gaming phones down to a handset that’s half the price. At around 450 euros (about $525), the Neo 5 GT has several perks inherited from the around $1,000 RedMagic 11 Pro: touch-sensitive shoulder triggers, a neat rear design and, neatest of all, an internal fan that combines with a thermal-absorbing sheet to lower the phone’s internal temperature by 4 degrees Celsius, ZTE says.

The Nubia Neo 5 line is part of ZTE’s efforts to make phones for mobile gamers who don’t have deep pockets. The other devices in the lineup are neat enough, with the around 350 euros (about $405) Neo 5 Max boasting a colossal 7.5-inch display, but it’s the Neo 5 GT that consolidates the best gaming features (and style) in far more affordable handsets.

Tecno Modular Phone Concept

It’s only a phone if you don’t want it to be anything else. Chinese phone-maker Tecno revealed a new concept phone with modules that snap on the back. The base 4.6mm phone is incredibly thin, even slimmer than the Samsung Galaxy Edge and iPhone Air, which gives plenty of room to stack on extras like a 200-megapixel zoom camera. Considering you can pull off the lens from the housing, it’s possible Tecno is envisioning even more lenses that can be attached.

Not into photography? Other modules you can clip to the back include an external speaker, charger, wallet and additional phone-style cameras. It brings to mind the Moto Z phone from 2016, but advancements in slimming down smartphones make the Tecno concept even more appealing. Then again, it follows in the footsteps of other prospective mobile photo attachment ideas, like Xiaomi’s external camera unit from last year, that haven’t progressed to market-ready products — but we phone photographers can dream.

Honorable mentions: The Samsung Galaxy S26 and the Apple iPhone 17E

While Samsung and Apple weren’t at MWC 2026, they seemingly still wanted to be in on the fun, conveniently releasing smartphones just before and during the show, respectively. They aren’t part of the conference, but they deserve mention anyway.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 is the company’s latest and greatest flagship, with a slightly bigger 4,300-mAh battery and more AI features than its predecessor, but it feels largely the same as the Galaxy S25 before it. But this time around, it’s $100 pricier, starting at $900, and it’s unclear whether that’s due to last year’s tariffs or this year’s RAM shortage — though the base configuration does bump storage to 256GB. Still, with the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, a slightly larger 6.3-inch screen, a still-slim 7.2mm thickness and more AI tricks, the Galaxy S26 is the Android phone to beat for other flagships coming later this year.

The iPhone 17E is now the most affordable phone in Apple’s lineup. Despite keeping the same $599 price as its predecessor, the iPhone 16E, the new handset has double the storage at 256GB and comes with support for MagSafe charging and accessories (many critics didn’t like that the 16E didn’t have it). It once again cuts some corners to achieve a lower price than the iPhone 17 released last fall, with a quad-core (rather than a five-core) GPU, only a single 48-megapixel rear camera, no Center Stage feature on its selfie camera, no Dynamic Island, no Camera Control button and no always-on display. But its 6.1-inch screen is more scratch-resistant on the 17E than on its predecessor, which is something.

Technologies

McDonald’s KPop Demon Hunter Meals Include Bright Purple Nugget Sauce

The Derpy McFlurry mixes popping boba pearls and berry sauce into a soft-serve dessert.

McDonald’s has seen success with themed combo meals, including its holiday Grinch Meal. Now, the fast-food chain is capitalizing on Netflix’s Oscar-winning animated film, KPop Demon Hunters, with new upcoming menu items and both a breakfast meal and a lunch/dinner offering. Let’s hope you like the color purple.

The HUNTR/X Meal, named for the K-pop girl group in the movie, is a 10-piece chicken McNuggets meal that includes a medium drink and three special menu items.

Ramyeon McShaker fries come with a small bag of soy, garlic, sesame and spice seasoning, along with regular McDonald’s french fries. You sprinkle the seasoning into the provided bag, dump in the fries, shake it all up and eat.

The meal includes two new sauces for the fries and nuggets. Hunter sauce is a sweet chili sauce mixing notes of chili, garlic and pepper. But my favorite item on this new menu is Demon sauce, a bold mustard sauce with some heat and a bold purple color. There’s just not enough dark purple food out there.

There’s also a new dessert, the Derpy McFlurry, which blends creamy vanilla soft serve with berry-flavored popping boba pearls, served with a swirl of wild berry sauce. McDonald’s named it for the supernatural feline, Derpy Tiger, from the movie.

If breakfast is your bag, the new morning meal is the Saja Boys Breakfast Meal, named for the movie’s boy band.

It includes a Spicy Saja McMuffin sandwich, which is a sausage McMuffin with egg and a spicy Saja sauce, hash browns and a small drink.

Both meals come with a photocard for one of the bands and a Derpy card. The Derpy card includes a QR code you can scan to unlock online content about the film.

The full KPop Demon Hunters menu should be available at participating McDonald’s beginning March 31.

The McDonald’s Grinch meal (and its accompanying patterned socks) sold out quickly, so KPop Demon Hunters fans may want to mark their calendars and nab a meal when they are released.

Technologies

Melania Trump Escorted by Talking Humanoid Robot at White House Tech Summit

The first lady shared the spotlight with the robot to promote the use of artificial intelligence in education.

An unexpected guest escorted Melania Trump at the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit on Wednesday: a Figure 03 humanoid robot.

During the event, the first lady pitched a future where AI-powered humanoid robots — presented as an idealized educator named «Plato» — provide students with personalized and instant access to human knowledge, including philosophy and art.

The Figure 03 robot is made by Silicon Valley-based robotics company Figure AI, which introduced its third-generation humanoid robot in October last year. The Figure 03 robot costs around $25,000, according to Forbes.

Figure 03 was designed for people to use in their homes, with demo videos showing it folding laundry, lifting eggs from a carton, using a washing machine and delivering drinks to its owners lounging by the pool. It was also shown in corporate use cases as a receptionist and a package deliverer. Using a proprietary AI engine called Helix, it can autonomously perform these tasks and respond to your voice commands.

The humanoid was seen walking slowly down the red carpet at the tech summit and then delivering opening remarks.

«I’m grateful to be part of this historic movement to empower children with technology and education,» the Figure 03 humanoid robot said. It then said «welcome» in various languages.

The first lady later said that AI-powered humanoid robots could exist in children’s homes as an aid to their education to «boost analytic skills and problem solving and adopt in real time to a student’s pace, prior knowledge and even emotional state.»

The two-day summit is hosting leaders from 45 nations and 28 technology organizations, and is intended to «empower children through education and technology,» according to a White House statement. Guests included representatives from tech giants such as Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and AI data analytics company Palantir.

The summit is part of the first lady’s Be Best: Fostering the Future initiative, which aims to help children learn using advanced technology. It was introduced in 2018 as an awareness campaign aimed at combating cyberbullying and helping children affected by the opioid crisis.

US Education Secretary Linda McMahon spoke about AI being one of the Department of Education’s main priorities on the first day of the summit.

«If we’re able to scale these resources effectively by investing in AI infrastructure and training, we can offer expert instructions across countless fields, to hire volumes of people at a fraction of the cost,» McMahon said Tuesday at a round table meeting.

According to McMahon, the Department of Education has already dedicated millions of dollars in grants to support the use of AI in schools.

The event follows criticism of the Trump administration’s 2025 executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. While the Department of Education hasn’t been officially abolished, it has undergone significant policy changes, funding cuts and workforce reductions.

The introduction of a humanoid robot at the summit sparked significant backlash among many who are wary of the technology’s role in the classroom. Critics took to social media to voice concerns that these machines could eventually replace teachers, stripping the education system of essential human connection, and leading to increased layoffs and cost-cutting.

On one Huffington Post Instagram post featuring the robot, commenters expressed deep skepticism, with one user sarcastically noting, «Nice, getting rid of educators in favor of a robot,» while another flatly rejected the concept, stating, «No, I don’t want to imagine a world with emotionless robots educating our children.»

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

Nintendo Dropped a Switch 2 Update With a New Mode You’ll Want to Turn On Immediately

This new feature is one of the best yet.

A new firmware update hit the Nintendo Switch 2 last week. Among the multitude of small changes is a new feature that will give Switch 1 games a notable upgrade.

Version 22.0.0 for the Switch 2 went live on March 16 and is available for download to the console. The big new feature in the update was Handheld Mode Boost, which will give Switch 1 games a visual upgrade when played on the Switch 2 in handheld mode.

[Nintendo Switch 2 System Update]
Version 22.0.0 adds «Handheld Mode Boost». This will make Switch 1 games think that they are in TV mode even when in handheld.
Games can run at higher resolutions in TV mode, taking better advantage of the Switch 2’s 1080p screen. pic.twitter.com/aXOKWosFAw

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) March 17, 2026

What does Handheld Mode Boost do?

Even though the Switch 2 supports backward compatibility with almost all Switch 1 games, there was an issue. The Switch 2 has a higher resolution screen: 1080p versus the older hardware’s 720p. When playing a Switch 1 game on a Switch 2 in handheld mode, the graphics looked blurry and jagged.

When enabled, Handheld Mode Boost makes a Switch 1 game act as if it’s docked, so it displays 1080p at 60 frames per second. This will give the visuals an immediate upgrade.

How do you enable Handheld Mode Boost?

Handheld Mode Boost has to be turned on to see the effect, and it takes a few steps:

Select Systems Settings from the Home menu
Select System
Select Nintendo Switch Software Handling
Enable Handheld Mode Boost

Is there a downside to enabling Handheld Mode Boost?

A user on Reddit tested the mode to see how it affects the Switch 2’s battery life. The test used Doom Eternal for the Switch 1 with and without Handheld Mode Boost. The test showed that the battery life decreased from 5 hours, 5 minutes to 3 hours, 43 minutes. That’s a 27% drop and should be taken into account when using Handheld Mode Boost.

How do I upgrade my Nintendo Switch 2?

If you have Software Auto-Updates enabled on your Switch 2, a pop-up window should come up whenever you start a game. If not, head to System Settings and choose to update the console from the menu.

What other features were added in version 22.0.0?

Handheld Mode Boost was the main star of the new firmware update, but there were a slew of other changes.

Changed the on-screen text and animations when you load a virtual game card in the HOME Menu.

Added the ability to save notes about friends on your Friend List. The note content is not displayed to friends.

Added the ability to invite friends to GameChat rooms you’re participating in. Some friends may not be able to be invited, such as supervised accounts.

Friends who haven’t finished GameChat’s initial setup can now be invited to GameChat. Some friends may not be able to be invited, such as supervised accounts or those who haven’t used a Nintendo Switch 2.

Added the ability to rewind 10 seconds/advance 10 seconds with the ZL and ZR Buttons when watching a full-screen video in News or Nintendo eShop.

Added the option to add the following data to «Automatic Uploads» from Album.

Text-to-Speech, under Accessibility, can now read the text in Album and during first-time setup.

Added the ability to see the breakdown of storage capacity by data type for the system memory and microSD Express card.

Added the ability to perform an audio test when «Linear PCM 5.1 Surround» is selected for TV Sound in Audio.

When Airplane Mode is activated, the previously set preferences for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC while in airplane mode will be saved and applied.

Added the ability to individually enable or disable Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC during Airplane Mode from the Quick Settings.

Added the ability to see a notification in the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device application when the Parental Controls PIN is input successfully on the console. This can also be set up to be a push notification to your smart device.

General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.