MWC 2026: Goodbye boring phones, hello extreme foldables and robots that follow you home

Last week, Barcelona was once again the centre of the tech universe. And no, I'm not talking about the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament – that’s a whole other thing. We're here for the Mobile World Congress. For those who wandered in searching for "Moco" (maybe a dodgy voice-to-text error), there are no seasonal viruses here – just the antidote to tech boredom. MWC 2026 has wrapped up with one clear message: innovation has gone from incremental to radical.

I've been covering this show since the days of MWC22, back when we were still dealing with restrictions and masks. That felt like a transition event, full of promises. But this year was all about action. Walking through the halls at Gran Via was like peeking into a showroom from 2030. And it wasn't just about the phones – and trust me, there were some wild ones – but the way brands are totally redefining what a "mobile device" actually is.

From book-style foldables to consoles that bend

You'd have to be blind to miss it: the foldable form factor is no longer a novelty; it's the main battleground. If a few years ago everyone was copying Samsung's clamshell design, now the competition is all about who dares the most. And Lenovo took the prize for the risk-taker. Their new foldable gaming handheld concept is absolutely insane: a portable console that, when you unfold it, becomes a nearly 9-inch screen without taking up more pocket space. Kids who grew up with a Game Boy are losing their minds, and honestly, so am I.

• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold (Gen 3): The beast of foldables for productivity. A 16-inch OLED screen that folds into a book-like format. Perfect for taking your office anywhere without sacrificing that geek chic aesthetic.
• Honor Magic V3: Thinner, lighter, faster. Honor gets that design matters, but so does durability. This year they've integrated a liquid titanium hinge that promises to outlast many modern relationships.
• Xiaomi Mix Fold 4: Xiaomi's bet on an under-display camera for the inner screen. Yeah, you can still kind of see where the pixels are, but for video calls, it's incredibly smooth.

When your phone follows you around like a puppy

But the absolute showstopper, the thing that really got people talking at the Port Vell bars, was Honor's prototype that some are already calling the robot phone. It's not a totally new concept, but the execution is mind-blowing. Picture a phone with a small robotic module attached (or integrated) that lets it scoot across a table, follow you with its camera as you walk, or even physically interact with small objects. They're calling it the "AI Companion" internally, but on the show floor, the nickname Moco (sticky, like glue) was doing the rounds. And look, it's not just a toy: the autonomous movement processing opens the door to medical uses (delivering the phone to a bedridden patient) or security (having your phone film you from a different angle while you talk).

This brings us to the real core of MWC 2026: AI has stopped being just an app and has become the operating system. Phones don't just wait for your commands anymore; they watch, they learn, and they act. Assistants that negotiate appointments for you, real-time generative photo editing (no cloud needed), and simultaneous translations that barely use any battery. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and the new MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chips are built for this – running massive language models directly on the device.

So, what does this mean for us in New Zealand?

As an analyst living and working here, I always wonder what piece of this pie we get. And the answer is: a decent slice, if we play our cards right. Barcelona isn't just the host; it's a hub for deep tech startups. This year, I saw more American and Asian investors at 4YFN (the parallel entrepreneurship event) than ever before. They're hunting for talent in computer vision, soft robotics, and embedded software. Local heroes like Spark and One NZ have a massive opportunity here: edge computing combined with these autonomous devices demands ultra-fast, low-latency networks. 5G is no longer enough; there's serious talk about trialling 6G in controlled environments by 2028.

It's also time for our local developers to jump on board. Designing experiences for a screen that folds or a device that moves by itself needs a whole new language. Flat apps are dead. What's coming is spatial and tangible computing. And believe me, it's not science fiction; I touched it at the Xiaomi stand and watched it run on Android.

My prediction for next year

If MWC22 was the comeback, and is the year foldable and robotic madness went mainstream, then next year will be the year the physical port finally disappears. I saw prototypes for long-range ultrasonic charging and data transfers hitting 100 Gbps using infrared light. When that hits the mainstream, we'll all wonder why we put up with cables for so long.

Lastly, a quick note for anyone who got lost: if you were looking for Mountain West Conference basketball scores, sorry, we're only talking tech here. But if you're keen to see how a phone can become your new best mate (or your go-to console), the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has proven once again that the future, as crazy as it sometimes seems, is already here. And it comes with a foldable screen and wheels.