Mobile World Congress 2018 (or MWC) is always guaranteed to provide you with some of the coolest (and weirdest) gadgets of the year.
2018 was of course no exception with Samsung unveiling its Galaxy S9 smartphone. Yet in addition to being the home of the flagship smartphone this year’s MWC produced some truly weird products, most notable of which was Nokia’s ‘banana’ phone.
To help cut through all the dry press releases we’ve rounded up the most exciting (and bizarre) products unveiled at the tech conference in Barcelona.
Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+
The Samsung Galaxy S9 may look similar to last year’s device but there are some major new features. For the Bitmoji lovers it can now turn your face into a giant 3D animated emoji which you can then send over WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
It also has a brand-new camera which features the world’s first dual-aperture system on a smartphone. Simply put that means the Galaxy S9 can now let in more light than just about any other smartphone around, resulting in sharper, brighter photos even in the dark.
Selfieccino
This is a real thing. We’re not sure why but it is. Using the latest food printing technology an inventor has created a machine that will let you upload a selfie of yourself (or anyone) and then it will print a full-colour version of that image on top of your favourite coffee of choice.
Now it should be noted that the black and white selfieccino does already exist, however this is inspiring gadget takes things to the next level by upgrading your coffee to glorious coffee.
The less said about this the better.
Nokia 8110
Known rather affectionately as the ‘banana phone’ at MWC, Nokia’s 8110 rekindles our nostalgic love for one of Nokia’s most well-known designs: the ‘slider’ phone.
Running Nokia’s own software, the 8110 is a ‘feature phone’ which means it’s not a smartphone. That being said it does have 4G, can work as a WiFi hotspot and comes with days of battery life.
Vivo Apex Concept Phone
The Vivo Apex concept phone may be just that, a concept, but it represents what will arguably be the next big breakthrough in smartphone design.
You see in addition to being one of the first truly bezel-less smartphones around it’s also one of the first to contain a fingerprint scanner actually built into the display itself.
The technology involved is pretty remarkable and while Vivo are being reasonably tight-lipped about it we do know that it works by placing the equivalent of a large camera sensor under the display. The display then lights up which in turn allows the sensor to capture the fingerprint.
This is something that was rumoured to appear on the iPhone X but instead the company opted for its FaceID technology.
Huawei Matebook X Pro
As screens get larger and bezels get smaller, something has to give. For the iPhone X it was the infamous notch at the top. For Huawei, it’s something else entirely.
Rather than sacrifice the screen on their stunning new laptop, the company decided to move the webcam completely. Where to? Well it’s now hidden underneath one of the keys on the keyboard. You simply press it in and it pops up.
There’s just one problem though, it’s fixed and fixed at perhaps the worst possible angle for every human that doesn’t have the jawline of a Greek statue. Whoops.