Best tech of MWC 2024 revealed: Six top new gadgets to look out for

The annual Mobile World Congress technology trade show took place this week in sunny Barcelona, and Express.co.uk’s tech editors were on the ground to see all the latest new smartphones, wearables, and other shiny new gadgets coming to UK stores soon.

In 2024, MWC has given us the expected premium Android phones, but it has also been a showcase for some futuristic new tech, along with some head-turning accessories.

We’ve handed out awards to our six favourite things at the show – here’s the best tech of MWC 2024.

We love smartwatches for their health tracking and allowing us to look at our phone a little less, but the worst thing about them is having to charge them every night. Thankfully, the new £299 OnePlus Watch 2 claims to have 100 hours of battery life – and after testing it we can confirm that holds true.

Thanks to ingenious tech that uses two different chipsets to handle tasks, the watch can save hours of power by using a more efficient processor when the powerful one isn’t needed. If you turn on a few extra features the battery goes down by a day or two, but the watch genuinely can last four days and then some – without sacrificing the Google Play Store, so you can download loads of Android apps to it.

Xiaomi has been selling phones in the UK for several years but it doesn’t always offer its top-end best model. Luckily that has changed, and the impressive new Xiaomi 14 Ultra is coming to these shores.

The phone is built around its camera, which has a 1-inch main sensor – this dramatically improves image quality and natural blur, bringing smartphone photography even closer to what you can achieve on a pricey DSLR camera. Add in premium design in black or white vegan leather and you have what looks to be one of the most interesting phones in ages.

If you’re more of an iPhone person over Android but also miss the days of having a physical keyboard on your phone, you might well want to fork out £109 to add one to your iPhone 14 Pro or 15 Pro. New UK-based company Clicks Technology has just released this keyboard case for your Apple device simply called Clicks for iPhone.

It’s a case you slip your phone into to give it a BlackBerry-style keyboard, leaving you more space on the screen to view content, scroll apps, and type documents. It makes your phone quite a lot longer but we’ve tried it out and it works very well. There’s no battery as the case works via the Lightning or USB-C port, and there’s no software to download – just plug and play.

Samsung teased its new Galaxy Ring wearable at the launch of the Galaxy S24 series in January, but the firm went big and showed it off for the first time at MWC. Smart rings are becoming more popular thanks to successful products such as the Oura Ring – small, subtle rings with a few sensors to track your heart rate, sleep patterns, and other wellness metrics.

They are smaller than smartwatches, last longer on a charge, and get rid of the screen you might not want to wear on your wrist to track your health. The fact a company as large as Samsung is entering the market is validation for Oura and other companies, but they’ll be worried that the Galaxy Ring will run – ahem – rings around them. Samsung is yet to announce a launch date or price.

Where the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy have flat sides and flat screens, Honor has decided to give its latest high-end smartphone as many curved edges as possible. The Honor Magic 6 Pro, which Express.co.uk has been testing after its launch at MWC, is a beautiful piece of tech in either vegan leather green or a stealthy black.

While the company was keen to tout the phone’s new AI features, more interesting is the excellent bright display, 3D face unlock that beats most other Android phones, and a 180MP telephoto camera lens that is capable of some great arty shots. Add to that super fast charging and you’ve got a great newAndroid option going into 2024.

You can buy all the products we have given awards to this year apart from this one. Lenovo decided to create and show off a futuristic laptop that is a proof of concept with a fully transparent display. Express.co.uk got to see it in the flesh and it is certainly very impressive, running full Windows 11 on a panel you peer straight through.

The bottom half can display a keyboard when needed, or melt away to become a drawing tablet for artists with the result reflected on the top screen. Lenovo says it’s just to show what can be done with cutting edge tech, and so while you can’t buy this slice of Minority Report-esque kit, it might signal what’s to come in the next few years.