The new Leica Leitzphone by Xiaomi, Honor’s ultra-thin MagicPad 4 and more

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.

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.

Xiaomi x Leica

Xiaomi kicked off MWC this year by announcing the global launch of its 17 Ultra smartphone, which debuted first in China back in December. It’s unclear if the phone will ever come to the US, but it’s now rolling out in Europe. Xiaomi teamed up again with Leica to make a photography-focused smartphone, and the 17 Ultra sports a 1-inch 50-megapixel camera sensor with a f/1.67 lens, a telephoto setup with a 200MP 1/1.4-inch sensor, and a 50MP ultrawide camera. There’s also a manual zoom ring around the camera.

Check out our hands on for our first impressions of what it’s like shooting with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra. And there’s more to it than just the camera. The 17 Ultra has a 6.9-inch OLED 120 Hz display that peaks at 3,500 nits of brightness, and a 6000mAh silicon-carbon battery. The Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at £1,299 (roughly $1,750).

Leica also announced a new phone made in partnership with Xiaomi at MWC. It looks a whole lot like Xiaomi’s 17 Ultra, but isn’t the 17 Ultra, exactly.

Like the 17 Ultra, Leica’s Leitzphone by Xiaomi has a 1-inch camera sensor and physical controls for zoom and other settings, using a mechanical ring around the camera unit. It features a Leica-designed intuitive camera interface with the option to show just the essentials when you’re shooting, hiding all the modes and labels. There’s a monochrome shooting mode and Leica filters.

The Leica branding is splashed all over it in design and wallpapers, but it’s otherwise pretty similar to the 17 Ultra, with the same specs. Like the 17 Ultra, it has a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip and a 6.9-inch 120Hz display. This one’s priced at €1,999 (roughly $2,362).

In addition to the 17 Ultra, Xiaomi announced two new tablets at MWC this year: the Xiaomi Pad 8 and Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but they’re lightweight and thin, with both being 5.75mm thick and weighing 485g, and have a 9200mAh battery. The Pro model is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, while the regular Pad 8 uses the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset.

Xiaomi also unveiled a new 5000mAh powerbank, the UltraThin Magnetic Power Bank 5000 15W. The 6mm thick power bank comes in three colors with an aluminum alloy shell: orange, silver and charcoal gray. Along with that, the company introduced the Xiaomi Tag, its own take on the Bluetooth item tracker. The Xiaomi Tag has a built-in hanging loop so it can be attached directly to a keyring, and the company says it will work with both Apple Find My and Google’s Find Hub for Android.

Honor MagicPad 4

Ahead of MWC, Honor announced what it claims is the thinnest Android tablet in the world: the 4.8mm thick MagicPad 4. We’re expecting to hear more about this at Honor’s press conference on Sunday, but so far we know it features a 12.3-inch 165Hz OLED display and weighs just 450g. It comes with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset. The thinness doesn’t count the camera bump, Honor notes. The MagicPad 4 has 13MP rear and 9MP front cameras. It also boasts spatial audio, with eight speakers.

Just as the display is slightly smaller than the previous MagicPad, the MagicPad 4 has a smaller battery at 10100 mAh. It comes with a 66W fast charger. The MagicPad 4 will run Honor’s MagicOS 10. We don’t yet know how much it will cost, but we’ll update this after Honor’s press conference (where we’re also expecting to see the company’s robot) with any new details.

Tecno

We can always expect to see some wild phone concepts at MWC, and this year we’re starting with one from Tecno. The company unveiled a modular concept smartphone design that can be as thin as 4.9mm in its base configuration. There’d be 10 modules to choose from based on the announcement, including various camera lenses, a gaming attachment and a power bank, relying on magnets to keep it all together — or Modular Magnetic Interconnection Technology, as Tecno is calling it.