Five smartphones to look out for at MWC 2017

The world’s biggest smartphone show, Mobile World Congress, also known as MWC 2017, starts on 26 February in Barcelona, Spain. Organised by GSM Association, the five-day event provides a platform for big and small phonemakers to show off the phones which they intend to launch over the next few months. Like every year, the phonemakers have been dropping hints about their new phones through video teasers and photos.

Here are some of the key smartphones which are expected to be showcased at this year’s MWC.

Nokia 6

The Nokia brand will be making a comeback at this year’s MWC with the Nokia 6 and a couple of other phones. Though the phone will be bearing the Nokia name, it is designed, manufactured and sold by a Chinese company HMD Global. The Nokia 6 will run on Android 6.0 with a typical Chinese phone interface over it. It offers a 5.5-inch full HD display and runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor with 4GB RAM.

Moto G5

Lenovo is reportedly going to unveil the fifth generation Moto G smartphones at the MWC. There will be two variants, but with different screen sizes. According to the images releases by Lenovo, the new Moto G phones are going to have a full metal finish with a unibody design. they will also have a fingerprint sensor on the front panel and a single camera with dual tone flash on the back panel. The small screen variant is likely to run on Snapdragon 430 and the bigger one in Snapdragon 625. Given Moto’s penchant for making new Android available to users at the earliest, we won’t be surprised to see Android Nougat on the new phones.

Honor 9

According to a TEEMA (Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association) report, Huawei is planning to unveil the successor of Honor 8 at this year’s MWC. It may be called the Honor 9 or the Honor 8 Pro. The phone is likely to have a bigger 5.7-inch quad HD screen and will be driven by Honor’s own Kirin chipset with at least 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The phone will have a similar dual camera module with two 12-megapixel cameras as its predecessor.

Blackberry Mercury

Blackberry has been dropping hints and teasers about a new phone with a physical keyboard and metal chassis ever since CES (Consumer Electronics Show 2017) last month. Dubbed as Blackberry Mercury, the new smartphone will be made and distributed by Chinese company TCL. However, the phone is believed to have been designed in-house by Blackberry and not by TCL. The phone comes with a 4.5-inch display and will be running Android Nougat out of the box. Though Blackberry hasn’t disclosed anything on the innards, a benchmark report suggests the Mercury will be driven by Qualcomm Snapdragon 625.

LG G6

The South Korean company is likely to update its G series line-up this year. The next in line, the G6, can be the first smartphone to launch with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor. LG is also likely to give the modular design mechanism a miss. The photos released by the company suggest the new phone will have an edge-to-edge display with very thin bezels and the volume and power button will be on the side panel.