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 Apple has advised its retail store employees to expect a "major rush" of customers this week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
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 MWC 2026 officially gets underway on March 2 and will continue through March 5, but the announcements are already coming ahead of its start. We can always count on the annual tech event to bring tons of new phones, laptops and tablets, and we're expecting to see some robots and other gadgets too — plus plenty of AI news, of course. In addition to the announcements, MWC is our chance to get hands-on time with some of the most interesting new devices, like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and Honor's Robot Phone.
Engadget's Mat Smith is on the ground in Barcelona, and we'll be updating this story as the week goes on to keep you in the loop on everything that caught our attention. Keep checking back here for the latest MWC news.
Honor The Robot Phone. (Image by Mat Smith for Engadget)Honor teased its Robot Phone this past fall and we just finally got a proper look at it at MW
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Honor launched the Magic V5 in August 2025 and yet its successor is being announced just seven months later. Speak to Honor's representatives, and you can imply that it's racing to push the envelope against both its real competition (Samsung) and its anticipated one (Apple). With so little time between launches, you'll be unsurprised to learn that little has changed. The only other real reason this device has been pushed out so swiftly is because it'll help Honor retain the title of making the world's thinnest foldable. I'll leave you to decide if you think that's a valid enough reason to release a whole new smartphone so soon.
Last year, just one of the four Magic V5 colorways measured in at 8.8mm folded and 4.1mm open while the rest clocked in at 9mm and 4.2mm respectively. This year Honor is marking its own homework with a similarly generous spirit, with the white version of the Magic V6 measuring 8.75mm folded and 4.0mm open. The black, gold and red colorways will have to settle for the indignity of measuring 9mm folded and 4.1mm open. Now, I appreciate the engineering savvy necessary to make a device this slim, but this push for more thinness needs to stop. Last year's Magic V5 crossed the millimeters-wide rubicon from slender to dainty, to the point where, while holding it, I was worried about how durable it was. After all, foldables are regularly put through mechanical stresses that regular phones never have to deal with in normal duty.
Honor says the phone is well built to withstand the rigors of normal life, including a scratch-resistant display cover. The screen is impact-resistant, there's a far stronger hinge and it's rated for IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance. Claims that, I'm sure, will be tested to its limits by sceptical review
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Apple is taking a different approach with its latest event, as new product announcements could happen all week long.
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 Apple CEO Tim Cook was among a handful of top tech executives who attended a classified CIA briefing warning that China could attack Taiwan by 2027, according to a sweeping investigative report by The New York Times ($).
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