ARM-powered notebooks, Wi-Fi 7 and super fast charging: Highlights from MWC 2022

Note: This feature was first published on 12 March 2022.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 came and went with tons of exciting new products paraded across the convention. Although the GSM Association’s annual Barcelona event no longer acts the stage for grand phone unveils for the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG, we were still treated to big announcements in both the mobile and notebook space. 

We've put together announcements that were the most exciting for us -- each signifies a big movement in the consumer technology industry. Let's begin with with some product announcements.

Lenovo ThinkPad X13s

Lenovo was one of the major players in this year’s MWC. Some of their releases were to be expected, such as the refreshes of its IdeaPad Gaming and Think (both Book and Pad) notebooks. One of their more exciting announcements, however, was its ThinkPad X13s notebook.

This new device is the first product to be powered by Qualcomm’s 5nm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, a new processor first unveiled at the 2021 Qualcomm Tech Summit. Though ARM-powered notebooks have yet to capture a wide market share to compete with Intel and AMD processors, it seems Lenovo is still willing to take a chance with it.

Being armed with an ARM processor brings about benefits such as astounding battery life for a laptop (Lenovo touts up to 28 hours of non-stop screen time). The device also has both Wi-Fi 6E and 5G connectivity, all in a package that weighs 1.06kg. While 5G connectivity for Snapdragon 8cx processors isn’t new (with the Gen 2 having that functionality as well), it’s still quite an edge over notebooks powered by more conventional CPUs.

Read more about the ThinkPad X13s in our article of it here.

Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro and Pro 360

Moving onto a more standard flavour of notebooks, Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Book2 Pro series, successors to the original Galaxy Book Pro. The release comes in two types: the regular Galaxy Book2 Pro, and the flexible Book2 Pro 360, the 2-in-1 of the Galaxy Book Pro family. Both notebooks will come in 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch configurations.

Being sequels, the Book2 Pro notebooks present hardware refreshes to further polish the Galaxy Book experience. They are powered by 12th-gen Intel Core CPUs, along with Intel Iris Xe graphics. Like its predecessors, the Book2 Pros are Intel Evo certified, with the standard Book2 Pro coming with an Intel Arc graphics option for its 15.6-inch version.

Aside from that, the Galaxy Book2 Pros are integrated into Samsung’s app ecosystem, in addition to running on Windows 11. This includes Recent Apps, which displays some of the recently-used apps on your Galaxy smartphone on the laptop’s taskbar, as well as Samsung Multi Control, which allows for keyboard and trackpad use on a Galaxy Tab S8 tablet, as well as cross-device copy-and-paste.

Read more about the Galaxy Book2 Pro notebooks in our coverage of it here.

Huawei, Oppo and Honor releases

Despite facing trade pressure from the U.S., Huawei also made its presence known at MWC 2022 with a slew of gadgets. These include new devices that come under the company's new Smart Office label, centred around a smart tech-oriented office life: 

• A refreshed MateBook X Pro with a 3120 x 2080 display
• New MatePad E 2-in-1 and MatePad tablets
• MateStation X all-in-one PC 
• MatePad Paper e-ink reader and tablet

In addition, Huawei also unveiled the Super Device concept, an umbrella term for a number of features that form an ecosystem around Huawei products. Features in Super Device centres around Huawei devices -- for example a MateBook laptop that works seamlessly with a Huawei phone or tablet as an external storage device, as well as using Huawei tablets as display extensions of your MateBook.

You can find our article on the MateBook X Pro, MatePad tablets and MateStation X here, while you can read about the MatePad Paper here. As for Huawei's Super Device, you can read more about it here.

Oppo also took the opportunity to unveil its Find X5 and Find X5 Pro smartphones ahead of the trade show. The phones, successors to the previous Find X3 series, present some new hardware, including MariSilicon X, a dedicated neural processing unit for better AI performance in image processing. In addition, the Find X5 Pro is also getting an upgrade to a flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, while the standard Find X5 is powered by a Snapdragon 888.

Read more about the Find X5 series in our coverage of it here.

Honor also took the stage at MWC to announce its new flagship phones powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chips, the Magic4 series. The Magic4 Pro, in particular, sees the inclusion of Qualcomm's 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2, its second-generation ultrasonic fingerprint sensor.

You can find our article on the Magic4 series here.

Besides product releases, there were also new developments for the technology powering our everyday devices.

Qualcomm FastConnect 7800

Time flies. It seems as though the hype train for Wi-Fi 6 took off recently. In a blink of an eye, the next standard in wireless connectivity, Wi-Fi 7, is already reaching consumers in the form of Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800, the world's first (and by extension Qualcomm’s first) commercial Wi-Fi 7 product.

For context, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Qualcomm’s current flagship mobile SoC, currently runs a FastConnect 6900, offering up to Wi-Fi 6 and 6E support.

Wi-Fi 7(or 802.11be) promises some new advancements over Wi-Fi 6, including the usage of a 320MHz channel along with a maximum bandwidth of up to 40Gbps, as stated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (or IEEE). While Qualcomm doesn’t promote those kinds of speeds, it does say that the FastConnect 7800 can deliver up to 5.8Gbps through the simultaneous usage of both 5GHz and 6GHz bands.

The FastConnect 7800 also comes with support for Bluetooth 5.3, along with Intelligent Dual Bluetooth, on top of 16-bit 44.1kHz audio support. Commercial availability is slated to start in the second half of the year, so there’s a chance that the 7800 (or a derivative of it) could end up in consumers’ hands by next year.

Read more about the Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 here.

MediaTek Dimensity 1300, 8000 and 8100

MediaTek has some new System-on-Chips (SoCs) as well: the Dimensity 8000 and 8100. These 5nm octa-core chips bring with them support for Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E, and are also 5G-enabled. The 8000 series chips play the "little brother" role to current flagship chipsets like Dimensity 9000, according to MediaTek.

The 8000 and 8100 also come equipped with MediaTek's HyperEngine 5.0, which, coupled with the Mali-G610 MC6 GPU, promises better power efficiency and higher frame rates. Additional technologies include a five gigapixel per second image signal processor (ISP) and MediaTek's 5G Open Resource Architecture, which allows device makers using Dimensity 5G SoCs to tune things like the chip's AI image processing and Bluetooth connectivity.

MediaTek also announced a 6nm Dimensity 1300, succeeding the Dimensity 1200 with a focus on what MediaTek calls "everyday smartphone experiences". 

Phones with the Dimensity 8000, 8100, and 1300 are slated to release sometime in Q1 of this year. Meanwhile, you can read more about the new chips in our article here.

Oppo SuperVOOC and Realme UDCA

MWC 2022 also revealed some potential game-changers when it comes to smartphone charging technology. Unfortunately, some are proprietary technologies for now. 

First up is Oppo’s 150W and 240W SuperVOOC charging. For reference, Oppo’s current record is 125W. In an age where brands like Apple and Google are still shipping 30W power bricks, these are certainly some big numbers.

Oppo touts being able to charge a 4,500mAh battery from 1% to 100% in 15 minutes, while utilising a Battery Health Engine that runs concurrently with a customised battery management chip to preserve battery health. The company claimed the tech lets batteries keep up to 80% of its original capacity after 1,600 charge cycles.

Oppo said that 150W SuperVOOC charging will be available in a OnePlus smartphone to be released in Q2 of this year. For its 240W SuperVOOC flash charge, Oppo boasted being able to charge a 4,500mAh battery to 100% in 9 minutes. 

With high voltages at stake, Oppo applied certain safety measures to SuperVOOC flash charge -- in the form of five safety protection measures, alongside a customised chip that controls voltage, current and temperature, a chip that monitors external damage to the battery, as well as 13 temperature sensors on the phone.

Similarly, Realme unveiled its UltraDart Charging Architecture (UDCA), which allows charging between 100W and 200W. Realme boasted being able to charge to 50% in under five minutes, with temperature control to ensure that the battery is kept below 43°C.

Like 150W SuperVOOC, Realme also considered battery health in the charging equation with its Ultra Battery Protection ensuring 80% battery capacity in 1,000 charge cycles.

Like SuperVOOC, Realme is promising UDCA’s release to the public, through the soon-to-be-released Realme GT Neo3.

You can read more about Oppo's new charging technologies . As for Realme's UDCA, you can find our article on it here.

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