MWC 2018 | Our thoughts on MWC 2018: Budget-phone buzz, flagships fall flat

Only a few years ago, HMD Global was a relatively unknown player in the smartphone market that primarily produced low-end Android phones. However, since purchasing the rights to the Nokia name, HMD has been breathing new life into a brand that was once the juggernaut of the mobile phone world. Front and center is the Nokia 8 Sirroco, a flagship-class phone that will be a part of Google's Android One program. While the Nokia 8 is specced out like a 2017 flagship (Snapdragon 835, 6 GB of RAM, 16:9 1440p display), its inclusion in Android One should keep the phone ticking for at least the next three years thanks to the guaranteed support from Google. The device drew early criticism because of its boxy design; the chassis doesn't fit well in the hand, and the phone may be hard to handle for most users. The price tag also reflects its flagship status: the Nokia 8 is expected to retail for €749 before taxes.

The Nokia 7 Plus is HMD's offering for the mid-range market. Despite its middle-of-the-road internals (Snapdragon 660, 4 GM RAM, 5.5-inch FHD+ 2:1 display), its design closely resembles that of the Nokia 8. The 7 Plus also features a Zeiss-branded dual-camera setup around back which couples some of the same optical features as its bigger brother. The Nokia 7 Plus is sure to be a major player in the mid-range world.

In addition to the aforementioned Nokia 1, HMD is bringing another budget device to market. The Nokia 8110 4G, however, is leaning on nostalgia as a selling point more than anything. The deice is a feature phone with rudimentary apps (Facebook, email, etc.) and is modeled to look like the "banana phone" of the late 90s (you know, the phone used by Neo in The Matrix). The 8110 4G will run €79 (excl. VAT) this May.

Of course with the amount of press coverage surrounding the event, MWC is a time to show off the latest and greatest, even if it's not quite ready for commercial release. Vivo took full advantage of this in order to show off their APEX concept phone, a device with a staggering 98% screen-to-body ratio. This all-screen phone was possible thanks to a combination of a flexible OLED panel, Vivo's in-screen fingerprint reader, and some other technical wizardry. The phone is just a concept, and Vivo hasn't stated whether or not the device will ever go on sale, but there are rumors circulating this week that Vivo may indeed release the phone in the near future.

AI debuted in a big way as well, and Qualcomm is leading the charge with their Snapdragon 700 series SoCs. It seems like every phone had some kind of AI feature, and most of it revolved around imaging. The LG V30 ThinQ, for example, uses some AI software to help users snapshots more easily and attempt to predict settings that they will like. At this point, AI still seems a bit of a gimmick. There has yet to be a "must have" implementation of AI, but keep in mind that the technology is still in its infancy.

The expandable storage market got a shot in the arm from two major players. SanDisk introduced a 400 GB MicroSD card that was dubbed the "world's fastest UHS-I MicroSD card." With read and write speeds in the 160 MB/s and 90 MB/s range, respectively, the card should be a boon for mobile phone videographers. Western Digital showed off a jaw-dropping proof-of-concept PCIe interface for SD cards. Through the drive, WD was able to achieve reads of 880 MB/s and sequential writes of 430 MB/s. While this is only a proof-of-concept and won't be available for purchase anytime soon, it could be a mark of things to come for stills and video cameras and eventually smartphones (if MicroSD expansion doesn't go the way of the headphone jack).

There may soon be a third player to challenge the dominance of Apple and Google. Jolla, the organization behind Sailfish OS, took the sheet off the latest iteration of their alternative mobile OS. Simply called Sailfish 3, the operating system brings performance improvements and compatibility with a collection of Android apps. Sailfish 3 also supports 4G LTE, VoLTE, fingerprint readers, and mobile VPNs.

Lastly, Huawei brought an interesting device to show, but it wasn't a phone. Rather, the new Huawei MateBook X Pro is a 13.9-inch ultrabook with incredibly thin bezels (which Huawei claims are the thinnest in the world). The most interesting feature of the device may be the placement of the webcam, which pops up from a dedicated button above the number row. While this placement keeps the webcam out of the way and the bezels thin, the resultant viewing angle is far less than ideal. We'll get a review of the MateBook X Pro when the device launches this summer.