What We Learned About Your Next Smartphone at MWC 2015
BARCELONA, Spain –– How many phones are on display here at the Mobile World Congress, the year’s biggest exhibition of smartphones? I’m not cruel enough to make an intern count for me, but I know that it’s a very big number.
The most important smartphones of the year (that don’t start with a lowercase ‘i’) are released here and basically every non-Cupertino-based smartphone maker uses this annual event to show off their latest handsets. Taken as a whole, MWC provides major hints about what smartphone manufacturers are emphasizing in their products, and what customers can expect in their future purchases.
After taking in four days of product introductions, marketing pitches, smartphone demos, and flan, the Yahoo Tech team has put together this cheat sheet of important and surprising features emerging on the newest phones.
This is what you can expect from your smartphone in 2015 and beyond:
1. You’ll definitely be able to pay with it
The iPhone, of course, is now a bona fide credit card replacing machine, storing card information and enabling contactless payments at select stores. Now Samsung has jumped into the game in a much bigger way: Its recently introduced Galaxy S6 comes with Samsung Pay, a new payment app that works wherever credit cards are accepted. It features technology that is able to mimic the swipe of the credit card, no special device installation necessary. It will work at about 90 percent of retailers in the U.S., according to Samsung, versus about 10 percent for Apple Pay.
Elsewhere, a Google executive announced a forthcoming revamp of its Android-based payment system called Android Pay, which should make its way to many smartphones and Android apps by the end of the year. Whether you actually input your credit card into your smartphone is up to you, but the option will certainly be there.
2. The camera on the front will take great selfies
(Photo: WSJ. The ZTE’s front camera is so good that it can unlock your phone by scanning your eyes)
Smartphone makers have definitely taken notice of the Selfie phenomenon. Both HTC and Samsung made a point to tout the brilliance of their front-facing cameras at their phone unveilings this year; every other smartphone maker here, from Sony to Huawei to LG, is also showing off improved selfie cameras.
The front-facing camera used to be an afterthought, an add-on, a nice-to-have feature. Now it is essential, and phone makers are devoting serious resources to improving it. Better invest in some good face wash, because your selfies are going high-def and soon.
3. It won’t be made with plastic
(Photo: WSJ)
The Galaxy S6, at long last, is made from glass and metal, ending a longstanding complaint among tech geeks about how cheap the plastic backs of Samsung devices felt. That phone now looks and feels premium, and walking around, it’s striking just how high-quality other phones feel, too. Chinese phone makers from Huawei to Xiaomi to Lenovo all impressed with substantial and well-designed devices, and Sony and LG now both make beautiful and premium phones. The Age of Plastic in high-end smartphones is officially over.
A question: What material will Apple use to distinguish its phones now?
4. Watch out for wireless charging
After years of near hits and promises, wireless charging might just hit the mainstream this year. Samsung made a big deal about the wireless charging capabilities of its Galaxy S6; it will be able to charge on both the Qi and Powermat standards, which currently split device makers.
Whether the Galaxy S6 will be large or successful enough to convince other smartphone makers –– like, I don’t know, Apple –– to outfit their own devices with wireless charging capabilities remains to be seen. But the world’s most popular Android phone can now wirelessly charge without a case. And the world’s largest furniture maker, IKEA, is now selling furniture that can wirelessly charge devices. Could this be the year that “cord cutting” starts to refer to energizing our gadgets?
5. More curved screens are coming
(Photo: The curvy LG G Flex 2. Via CNET)
Maybe not to your next smartphone, but definitely to your local smartphone store. As curved screens become cheaper and more reliable to produce, more smartphone makers are going to include them on their devices. Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge, for example, features a curved screen, as did recently unveiled mid-range devices from LG. A Chinese smartphone company called ZOPO was showing off a cheaper curved screen phone called the ZOPO TOUCH, and even BlackBerry, that stalwart of traditionally boring devices, teased a curved phone for later this year.
6. You might just buy a selfie stick for it
(Photo: Reuters)
God knows they’ll be available. These selfie-taking accessories may have seemed like a joke or sign of the apocalypse when you first heard about them, but they have slowly entrenched themselves in both international and American culture. Selfie sticks were all over the show floor, both in the booths of exhibitors and in the hands of attendees and journalists. LG even tweaked one of its phones for cleaner selfie stick integration.
The selfie stick has moved beyond fad and into legitimate cultural artifact territory. Also: They’re pretty cheap and fun! Try one, no one’s judging you.
7. It will probably run Android or iOS
There are plenty of alternatives to the dominant Android and iPhone operating systems here, though none of them appear ready to compete in a meaningful way. Windows Phone feels like an afterthought for Microsoft, which seems more focused on a successful Windows 10 launch. BlackBerry appears more eager to get its security apps on Android and iOS than it does to its own, devoting much of a 90-minute press conference to just that; it also unveiled 4 new phones, none of them world-beaters. Competing operating systems from Firefox and Ubuntu may one day grow into worldwide players; 2015 is probably not their year.
That leaves the iPhone and companies like Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony, and more, all of whose best-selling phones run Android. If you’re buying a smartphone this year, it will likely come from one of those two groups. And, hey, great news: most Selfie Sticks work with both.
