Hasta La Gadget!

“Morons, I’ve got morons on my team,” he said of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, quoting a line from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

TCL seems to love showing off eye-catching prototypes at shows, and today it’s doing the same for MWC 2022. Alongside an array of new phones and tablets, the company just debuted a concept device tentatively called the “Ultra Flex” — a phone with a 360-degree rotating hinge and a flexible display that bends along with it. That means this thing can fold in on itself as well as out towards the world.

This is a technically challenging proposition, since the screen has to undergo much more flexing than those that only bend one way. The strip that’s right above the hinge, in particular, would probably suffer the most stress.

In fact, it’s so prone to breaking that the unit we saw at our hands-on in New York never did turn on. Its 8-inch, 2,480 x 1,860 PLP AMOLED screen remained disappointingly dark, though TCL reps did show us photos of it working earlier that day. For now, we can only take their word for it.

TCL

The display wasn’t the only engineering challenge for this prototype: The 360-degree hinge also needed some finessing. Each time I folded and unfolded the device, most of the movement was smooth until the screen’s halves were close to touching. That’s when it made unsettling noises and felt like crunching cereal under a membrane. TCL has not shared any specifics on how the hinge and display work, either, keeping those details confidential for now. It’s clear that this prototype is nowhere close to being a real product.

Why would we even want a device that can fold both ways? TCL reps said it would offer the benefits of both inward-folding devices like the Galaxy Z Fold as well as those that bend outwards like Huawei’s first Mate X foldable. Having a panel you could fold outwards could offer a preview for your camera subjects to see how they look while you frame them up, for example, or let you present slides to someone facing you. Given that Huawei has since adopted Samsung’s approach instead of sticking with an outside-facing flexible screen, it appears that style of foldable might not be very feasible.

Still, I liked the Ultra Flex prototype’s matte blue finish and the mock quad-camera array on the back. The pliable, corrugated backing for the hinge also added an interesting touch to the design, and a slot on the bottom left indicates potential for the inclusion of an onboard stylus.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

We also got to see the company’s “Fold n’ Roll” concept device in person for the first time since it was unveiled in April last year. This is a foldable 6.7-inch phone that uses a motorized mechanism that, at the push of a button, unfurls more of its screen to make an 8.8-inch 2,880 x 2,160 canvas. Like the Ultra Flex, this prototype felt janky, and getting the device to roll out its screen was like asking a dog to sit. Sometimes it worked as expected, sometimes pushing the button did nothing and sometimes the mechanism would whir away but the screen would struggle to move.

At least on this device the screen was working… Ish. For the first half of the demo session, the Fold n’ Roll was stuck on the lock screen, and didn’t respond to any touches or swipes. By some miracle, it eventually unlocked and revealed the Android home screen, but still refused to register any taps. I launched a grand total of zero apps on this prototype, helplessly watching it do nothing as I jabbed at the screen. It reminded me of the panel on Motorola’s Razr — both felt like they were slightly detached from the rest of the components below, like a piece of tape stuck to itself and no longer adhering to the rest of the roll.

The only thing it did was actually recognize when the additional bit of screen had finished rolling in or out, and change its aspect ratio and size to fill up and match the new widths. At this point I was so happy something worked that I was probably too impressed by a feature that should be expected, rather than a bonus.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Were these prototypes buggy as hell? Yes. Was I intrigued by them regardless? Also yes. We all love being distracted by interesting new form factors and product types, especially as non-foldable smartphone hardware matures and stagnates. As foldables continue to pique our interest and actually become better over the years, who knows what other shapes they might evolve into?

TCL hasn’t said if these prototypes are worth pursuing and turning into actual products, but the company has promised that it plans to launch a foldable phone that costs hundreds less than the competition. Though that has yet to happen, we did see a canceled product last year codenamed Chicago. It’s very similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3, though with a different external screen and camera setup, as well as a slightly more textured finish. I was impressed how nice this looked in person, and the hinge felt less resistant than the Z Flip 3’s. Until TCL starts selling these for real, though, all of its prototypes and concepts remain aspirational. I get that there are global supply issues potentially in the way, but at this point it feels like TCL has teased us for too long.

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022 right here!

Huawei’s top laptop series has gone through a few iterations, but the company has made some notable upgrades to its 2022 MateBook X Pro, without losing what we’ve liked from these laptops over the last few years. Yes, it’s still slim, yes it’s still understated. Yes, we don’t know if it’ll ever appear in the US.

The 2022 model will land with 11th gen Intel U series processors (a spokesperson added that 12th-gen MateBooks would arrive later this year), and a bigger screen. Huawei has expanded the screen up to 14.2 inches from the 13.9 inches of its predecessor, while simultaneously making the body even slimmer. Above the 3,120 x 2,080 display, there’s a HD micro camera – fortunately Huawei hasn’t moved it back to the peek-a-boo webcam keyboard button.

This is also Huawei’s first laptop to support the P3 color gamut and over 1 billion colors and reaches refresh rates of 90Hz too. And for those into touch displays, there’s 10-point multitouch compatibility too. 

Inside the new wedge design, there are now triple air intakes, up from a single intake last year, including one built into the keyboard. Huawei says this results in 60 percent more airflow through the device. And it might be put to use. The new MateBook X Pro has a new ‘performance mode’ — accessed through a keyboard shortcut. Huawei says this boosts the CPU’s thermal design power (TDP) to 30W for a “performance uplift”. 

The MateBook X Pro comes with a 90W SuperCharge function that can give 3 hours of use on just a 15-minute charge. (And this all comes from a tiny 180-gram charger that looks more like a phone charger.) 

Plug a phone into one of the four USB-C ports and you’ll get up to 50 watts of charge, too. Huawei has also upgraded the sound in its latest laptop, with six speakers dotted around the MateBook X Pro. That’s a lot. There are also four mics dotted around the perimeter to improve audio recording and conference calls. 

These are the big changes, but a lot is staying the same. There’s still a large trackpad (with some new “free touch” gestures, including one for swiftly scrobbling through video), a chiclet keyboard and Huawei’s Mobile App engine (for running Huawei’s mobile… apps on your laptop). 

Huawei

Alongside a new e-ink device, Huawei is also launching a new OLED hybrid PC. The 2-in-1 MateBook E comes with two keyboard options — alas likely to be sold separately or bundled with the PC, depending on region.

Alone, the 12.6-inch MateBook E weighs just over 700 grams (1.5 pounds) and is a slender 7.99mm thick. It will run on 11th-gen Intel Core processors with Intel’s embedded Iris X graphics. Huawei’s second-generation stylus will also work with the hybrid — the first time it’s been compatible with the MateBook series — supporting 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and 2ms responsiveness. A magnetic keyboard folio, seen above, will allow you to adjust the view of the 2-in-1 while working, while a new Glide keyboard peripheral, adds an extra USB port to the device and will, according to Huawei, allow you to hold it in one hand. For spreadsheets on the go? 

The company is holding onto other details – including, crucially, price – for its big MWC reveal. We’ll update this story when it’s streamed this weekend. 

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022 right here!

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