Mobile World Congress, the annual trade show dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry, has returned to Barcelona. While not the first year of MWC since the pandemic started (it is now officially called MWC, maybe because Mobile World Congress sounds about as exciting as a legislative body), 2023 was the first with the truly bustling halls we remember from 2019 and before.
What was announced there? True, manufacturers have got into the habit of revealing their top devices at their own events—but there was still plenty of new tech to tout at MWC 2023. Here are some of the highlights.
Lenovo ThinkPads Get a Rethink
Photographs: ANDREW WILLIAMS
Proving that “mobile” doesn’t have to mean mobile phone, Lenovo announced a bunch of refreshes of its brilliant, if reassuringly expensive, ThinkPad lines at MWC 2023.
The ThinkPad X13 Gen 4 gets new-generation Intel Core I-series processors and, as senior product manager Matej Misturik explained, one of the heats vents has been moved to the rear. This stops the laptop from overheating if the underside is blocked.
Lighter weight and an OLED panel bring a little 2023 gloss to one of the most respected business laptop lines.
Want more obvious gloss? Lenovo Thinkpad Z13 Gen 2 line flips the order of priorities, as a high-end ultraportable with ThinkPad elements. At first glance, not much has changed here bar the use of 7000-series AMD processors.
However, Sensel tells us its haptic touchpads replace those of the rather vague-feeling Thinkpad Z13 Gen 1. “Lenovo wasn’t happy with their solution, for a variety of reasons, so we were able to slot in for Gen 2,” says Sensel’s Mark Rosenberg. “You want a crisp click feel that fires and then dampens very quickly, to more closely emulate a mechanical button—otherwise it feels and sounds buzzy, which isn’t pleasant.”
