Mobile World Congress is taking place in Barcelona this week, offering manufacturers an opportunity to show off new gear without needing to hold their own splashy event. So far, we've learned about some new laptops and phones, as well as upcoming AI updates to Android. Here's a look at everything announced at Mobile World Congress that caught our eye. We'll update this story throughout the week. Among the bigger-name manufacturers, Lenovo has arguably had the busiest MWC so far.

Mobile World Congress 2025 has officially kicked off in Barcelona. Google is on the ground previewing two AI features that will begin rolling out to Android devices starting later this month. The first is Live Video, which Google first showed at I/O 2024 last May. The tool takes advantage of Gemini's multi-modal capabilities to allow users to show the chatbot what their phone's camera sees. As you can see from the demo Google shared, Gemini is able to answer a question about mid-century modern decor and offer a suggestion when it comes how to apply that knowledge to pottery.

Under the new Trump administration, the ability to access medically factual information on abortions online is more difficult and risky than ever. Among other pages, the administration has taken down reproductiverights.gov, a 2022 Biden administration website aimed at increasing public awareness around reproductive health services. The withdrawal of funding from the World Health Organization, which launched an app with up-to-date, evidence-based information on comprehensive abortion care for healthcare providers, further threatens digital access to accurate medical information not just in the U.S. but across the globe. Furthermore, a report by reproductive rights organization If/When/How cites an increase in recent years of criminalization using surveillance data from menstrual cycle-tracking apps, cell phone location, and reverse keyword searches, a trend that will likely increase in coming years. "It is absolutely unconscionable that we live in a country where people are increasingly worried about seeking factual health information," the national director of product innovation at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Ambreen Molitor, tells Mashable. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect your privacy when seeking care or information online.

I've tested many tablets, but few have made such a huge difference as the TCL Nxtpaper technology. So I was glad to learn that a new version of one of my favorite tablets, the TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus, is coming to the market. TCL is launching the new tablet as the next generation of the company's Nxtpaper 4.0 display; however, one of the biggest changes is that this will be TCL's first AI-powered tablet. The 11.5-inch device will feature various AI functionalities woven into apps, including Text Assist, Writing Assist, Google's Circle to Search, and many more. Also: What to expect at MWC 2025: Best phones I'm anticipating from Xiaomi, Honor, Samsung, more The TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus will also use AI to create transcriptions and summaries for Voice Memos and real-time translations for videos while offering a Smart Translator feature for voice, text, and images.

MWC 2025, or the Mobile World Conference, has officially kicked off in Barcelona. It's an annual conference where tech companies come together to showcase upcoming mobile devices. Lenovo has joined the festivities by unveiling a slew of new laptops, from lightweight machines like the convertible ThinkPad T14s to powerful workhorses such as the Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition. In addition to these computers, the company showed off some very interesting prototypes. It's unknown if the concept hardware will ever be made into official products, but it provides interesting insight into what may be coming in the not-so-distant future.

Lenovo has announced new laptops with generative AI features for this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), including the Yoga Pro 9i Aura edition. Lenovo's Aura edition branding is the result of a partnership with Intel to create a set of "distinct software, hardware and AI features" that make "computing a more personalized, productive, and protected experience." The Yoga Pro 9i Aura edition is powered by the Intel Core Ultra processor and ships with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, which is the company's most affordable model in the RTX 50 series. It has a 16-inch 3.2K PureSight Pro display with a double layer of OLED pixels that increases its overall brightness to 1600nits peak, as well as boosts its power efficiency. The display also supports 100 percent sRGB, P3 and Adobe RGB color gamut that provide true-to-life color accuracy.

At the Mobile World Congress 2025, Honor announced a series of new hardware, but that was arguably the least important thing. Instead, the focus on software, especially AI applications that may just strike a chord with users, stole the show. Also: What to expect at MWC 2025: Best phones I'm anticipating from Xiaomi, Honor, Samsung, more At the event, Honor announced what it calls "Alpha Plan," an initiative to transition the smartphone brand into an AI device ecosystem company. This is accompanied by an extended software support promise, matching that of Samsung and Google, and three new IoT launches. With Alpha Plan, Honor says it'll invest 10 billion over the next five years for a "renewed focus on open collaboration."

The keyword for the iPhone 16e seems to be "compromise." In this episode, Devindra chats with Cherlynn about her iPhone 16e review and try to figure out who this phone is actually for. Also, they dive into Amazon's Alexa event, where we finally learned more about the company's AI-powered voice assistant. Alexa seems useful, but can we trust it? Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Framework unveils a cheap 2-in-1 laptop and a…modular desktop? Devindra: This week, it's the iPhone 16e, which Cherlynn has reviewed. We're going to get her full thoughts on that thing. And also, Amazon held an AI event this week. We expected a lot of devices, but they spent 75 minutes talking about Alexa plus, which is the AI powered Alexa. Cherlynn: we expected a lot of devices. Cherlynn: one, at least one it's been a while. Devindra: Mr. Panos Panay was there, the father of the service and no devices, just him talking about AI. Cherlynn: Oh, and stay tuned at the end of this episode. Uh, I, we included an interview that I did with, um, the vice president of Alexa to talk more about the new Alexa plus. Devindra: Anyway, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcaster of choice, leave us a review on iTunes and drop us an email at podcast@engadget.com. You can also join us on our live [00:01:00] stream on Thursday mornings, typically around 11 a. m. Um, you'll see our faces. Sometimes we'll do Q& A and show off devices as well. This week, uh, Sherilyn has the iPhone 16e, which is the least, um, impressive thing to show off. It's just like, Hey, you have an iPhone from 10 years ago, five, a while ago, Devindra: last, was there a single camera back iPhone? Cherlynn: Oh God, before that was 11. So, you know, it's like a flashback. So let's talk about this thing, Sherlynn. And I checked out your review. First of all, you gave it a really, um, I think serviceable score. Your title is what's your acceptable compromise. And really when we were talking about it last week, it really was like compromise seemed like the key word. The thing we kept coming back to was like just one camera, no mag safe, no fast wireless charging. What are your overall thoughts on this thing? Cherlynn: I mean, so that headline is like all thanks to our EIC, Aaron [00:02:00]Souppouris, because I was like, where, where do I go from here? How do I, so, so he's right. It is like, instead of what's in your wallet, it's like, what are you willing to take out your wallet? I'll tell you the story. So yesterday I was at the Amazon devices and services event where there were no devices and A bunch of other reporters had gathered and we were all like, you know, the, like, review's going up soon, right?

Anyone who has rode the New York City subway can tell you that it has a lot of problems, from strange noises to flammable debris on the tracks. Now, as is the solution for everything these days, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is testing how AI could improve the repair process with the help of six Google Pixel phones. In this case, the Google Pixel phones rode on four different subway cars between last September and January. The experiment, conducted in partnership with Google Public Sector, used the phone's accelerometers, magnetometers and microphones to pick up on any worrisome noises. This data was thn sent to cloud-based systems that generated predictive insights using machine learning algorithms.

In Tuesday's newsletter, I laid out how to watch (and what to expect from) Amazon's Alexa press event. But aside from unveiling what Alexa will be capable of, there was no silly hardware and no upgraded Echos, but lots of demos. We learned Alexa will be included with an Amazon Prime subscription, and the company will also offer the enhanced digital assistant separately, for 20 per month. Meanwhile, Apple's new entry-level iPhone, the 16e, launches online and in stores today. The 599 phone is arguably 100 too expensive, but it packs a processor that can deliver Apple Intelligence to the masses.