OPINION: Mobile World Congress and Apple vied for the tech headlines this week. One was front page news, the other was tomorrow’s chip paper.
Mobile World Congress was a barnstorming event this year, despite the absence of some of the mobile world’s biggest players. Here’s our MWC 2025 Best in Show.
Xiaomi revealed a huge contender for camera phone of the year with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, while plenty of other brilliant camera concepts showed off a true innovative spirit. Speaking of innovation, Lenovo arrived at MWC with a solar-powered laptop that’ll give you an extra hour of juice by getting outside for 20 minutes. The TCL Nxtpaper 11 tablet was a huge hit with our attendee in Barcelona too.
Away from the show floor, there were rumours that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 will move closer to display perfection, while Google revealed some of its most exciting AI tools are ready to rock. Plus, if Gen AI is your thing, Google is preparing for a complete search overhaul. Meanwhile, you can also rent a PS5 in the UK for less than the cost of Netflix.
Apple also attempted to share the spotlight by launching some product updates. There was a new Mac Studio running the M3 Ultra – its most powerful M-Series chip yet, the iPad Air M3 and one more product we’ll get to in a minute.
Believe it or not, in this bumper week of tech news, the winners and losers are still to be revealed…
Winner: Nothing Phone (3a)
Looking for a great phone at an affordable price with the fewest compromises? Nothing to see here. Cheap pun aside, the Nothing Phone (3a) is that phone. Revealed this week at MWC 2025, the phone costs just £329 and combines solid battery life with a strong design aesthetic, a great display and excellent software with coherent widgets.
Nothing has been a fixture in the best mid-range smartphones for a while now, but the Nothing Phone 3a might just own the category. Our reviewer has completed his tests and the verdict is pretty conclusive: “If you don’t want to spend a lot on a phone, of all the phones on the market – it’s the Nothing Phone 3a I’d recommend, pretty much without any hesitation.”
He praised the fun element too. When the market feels so stagnant right now, Nothing’s little software touches and interesting design choices bring a bit of excitement. So bravo, Nothing.
Considering Apple has been criticised for abandoning the mid-range with its £600 iPhone 16e (over the £449 iPhone SE 3), it’s great to see a smartphone company look out for consumers who want the best possible value for money.
Loser: iPad 11
This iPad has lineage dating all the way back to the original iPad in 2010. So perhaps it’s apt that the latest iteration feels rooted in Apple’s past rather than its future.
On paper, the iPad 11 it’s a decent upgrade. There’s more base storage and a chip that’s a couple of generations newer, all for the same low-ish price.
However, there’s a huge artificially intelligent elephant in the room. The iPad 11 won’t support any of the Apple Intelligence features that have been part of iPadOS 18, that’ll be part of future iPadOS 18 updates and will likely underpin iPadOS 19, 20 and beyond.
If you buy this iPad you’ll need to be comfortable in the knowledge that it’s going to miss out on so many of the major software features Apple has planned for years to come. You’ll still get iPadOS updates (probably five or six year’s worth) but without the Apple Intelligence features, they’re going to feel less and less significant.
Apple could have used the M1 chip and still been able to offer these features. It could have offered the A17 Pro chip within the iPhone 15 Pro and still been able to offer these features.
That might have pushed the price too high and, after the company has been deeply criticised for abandoning the customers shopping at more affordable ends of the market in recent weeks, perhaps we shouldn’t be too critical.
However, I don’t think an iPad release has ever felt this outdated on day one. If you’re looking for the best iPad at a good price, I’m keeping my eyes out for a bargain on the iPad Air with M2, considering it’s not even a year old yet and has just been replaced as well.
