These are the five hottest new phones from MWC 2017
Nokia 3310
Around £40
nokia.com
This unexpected reboot of Nokia’s iconic late 90s handset blew the minds of every 30-something year old at MWC. Made by HMD (the Finnish startup that bought the rights to the Nokia name) this homage to the 3310 roughly mimics the original design while making a few concessions to modernisation. The 2.4-inch screen has a defiantly retro 240 x 320 resolution to work with, while a modest 2MP camera has been added to the phone’s rear. Touted to cost around £40, expect the 3310 to become the burner phone of choice for London’s most wistfully nostalgic drug dealers.
Blackberry KeyOne
$549
blackberrymobile.com
With Nokia now confidently strutting about the place like it’s still 1998, it’s the turn of the festering corpse of Blackberry to offer up something from their mobile mausoleum. The Blackberry KeyOne brings back the famed physical keyboard, which now doubles as a trackpad and cleverly hides a fingerprint sensor. Aiming to corner the dwindling market of people who couldn’t quite manage the transition to on-screen typing, and are also very paranoid, the Blackberry KeyOne also comes with a slew of top-level security features.
Huawei P10
€649
huawei.com/uk
The new flagship from Chinese giant (not literally) Huawei, the P10 makes some incremental improvements over the two-year-old P9 – though perhaps not enough to convince anybody to upgrade. A few cosmetic changes have been made, most notably the relocated fingerprint sensor now situated on the phone’s front, around where you’d expect the home button to be. The all-metal unibody design also comes with some special “dazzling” finishes, designed to make the handset stand out from afar like some alluring metallic nymph. There’s a larger Plus model too, with a vibrant UHD screen that puts the regular size version to shame.
LG G6
£TBA
lg.com/uk
The modular design of last year’s LG G5 meant you could, in theory, replace the phone’s battery pack with beefier speakers, a new camera or other enhancements. In practice, the phone never took off, the modular parts were deemed silly and never materialised. So, in the time-honoured tradition of giving up, the newly announced LG G6 abandons the idea of a modular phone completely, and instead refocuses the company’s efforts on creating an extremely good phone that stays in one piece. The bezel has been all but eliminated too, creating a phone that looks like it’s entirely made of screen.
Nokia 6
$315
nokia.com
Perhaps the real reason for the new 3310’s existence is to draw attention back towards the languishing Nokia brand, as alongside the retro-phone, Finnish newcomer HMD is launching three new modern Nokia handsets. They’re a set of mid-range, low-price devices, unlikely to set the world ablaze but decent quality. The Nokia 6 is the most powerful of the bunch, with a 5.5-inch, 1080p screen and beefy specs for the cost. Made from a single block of aluminium, it’s a nice object to hold, and likely a dry run for a yet-to-be-announced high-end Nokia flagship.