All the other phones launched at MWC 2022
Carrie Marshall provides a rundown of all the other phone releases from the show that will make it to UK shores
Nokia C2 2nd Edition
From £75. Available
May 2022
This sequel to the C2 delivers a solid spec for an extremely low price: it has a 5.7in HD display, a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP selfie shooter. It comes with 1GB or 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, expandable to 256GB.
It’s not going to give Honor or Samsung any sleepless nights, but at £75 this looks an incredibly good deal for a quality 4G smartphone.
Nokia C21 Plus
£100. Available April 2022
With a price of only £100, the Nokia C21 Plus is bound to win some fans. Costing £25 more than the C2 2nd Edition, the spec is significantly better: a 6.5in HD+ display, twin rear cameras (13MP with 2MP depth) and a 5MP front camera, 2GB, 3GB or 4GB of RAM, and
32GB or 64GB of storage expandable to 256GB. There’s also a fingerprint scanner for fast unlocking and a toughened glass front to accompany its IP52 rating.
Realme GT 2/ Realme GT 2 Pro
GT 2, from £499. Available now
GT Pro, £699. Available now
The Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro are both impressive phones, but it’s the flagship Pro that catches the eye. £699 buys 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, along with a 6.7in 120Hz AMOLED display with a 1,440 x 3,216 resolution. On the back you’ll find a triple-camera assembly with a 50MP main camera capable of 8K video recording alongside a 50MP ultrawide camera with a 150° field of view and an unusual yet impressive 40x microscope lens.
The GT2 essentially trims back on all fronts – 6.6in 1,080 x 2,400 panel, Snapdragon 888, 8MP ultrawide camera – but subsequently wins for value.
Realme GT Neo 3
No price or availability The successor to 2021’s Realme GT Neo 2, a solid budget phone, looks to be another… solid budget phone. Its most attractive feature is incredibly quick charging thanks to its 150W charging support, which will take your phone from zero to 50% in just five minutes. It’s powered by MediaTek’s new Dimensity 8100 SoC ( see opposite), but Realme is keeping quiet about the rest of the specs so far, as the release is still a few months away.
TCL 30 series
No price or availability
TCL is better known for its displays than its phones, but the firm hopes to change that with the launch of five smartphones in 2022. Admittedly, very similar phones. The TCL 30, 30 Plus and 30 5G all feature a plain 60Hz 6.7in FHD+ display, while the TCL 30 E and 30 SE use a 6.5in HD+ display. All five models feature a 50MP main camera, 2MP macro and 2MP depth cameras, but their frontfacing cameras increase in size as you go up the range – likewise the speed of their MediaTek chipsets. It’s unlikely that all such models will ship in every territory; instead, we expect TCL to pick specific versions based on what’s most likely to sell in each market.
Xiaomi Poco X4 Pro 5G
From €299.
Available imminently The Poco X4 Pro 5G is Poco’s first phone with a 108MP camera, and it also includes a 120Hz AMOLED display, 67W fast charging and an impressively low price of around £250. There’s a 5,000mAh battery, an 8MP ultrawide camera, a 16MP selfie shooter and up to 8GB of RAM with 256GB of storage, although that storage pushes the price to around £290.
If you’re wondering which corner has been cut to get the price so low, it’s the processor: the power here comes from a Snapdragon 695, which isn’t the speediest. Nevertheless, it’s a lot of phone for the money.
ZTE Blade V40 series
ZTE has more Blades than Gillette, and its latest models are confusing and impressive in roughly equal measure. The emphasis is very much on battery life and budget pricing here: if you’re looking for blistering performance or – ahem – cutting-edge features then these are not the phones for you. But if you want a big display that won’t run out of puff when you’re streaming TV or movies, the Blades are good value.
The official flagship is the flagship ZTE Blade V40 5G, whose specs are still largely secret. We also like the sound of the ZTE Blade V40 Pro, which has a 6.7in OLED and a 5,100mAh battery with 65W charging.
But we’re most intrigued by the 6.7in ZTE Blade V40 Vita, as this packs a 6,000mAh battery for, we would hope, two-day battery life. All four models are due in April, but we await prices.