Best Phones of MWC 2026

The top handsets of Mobile World Congress, from Xiaomi, Honor, Motorola and more. At MWC 2026, we have -- surprising nobody -- seen a ton of phones.This year's Mobile World Congress is particularly rich with phones serving different purposes and demographics, like Honor's Robot Phone, which is part handset and part camera gimbal. While Xiaomi predictably unveiled another premium device, its photographic capabilities are next-level. Honor unveiled a foldable…without a crease. The brands may be expected, but the phones aren't.This year's MWC comes with its own set of challenging circumstances. The Samsung Galaxy S26 phones have arrived just before the show to set the stage for this year's premium Android phones, and they've come with a $100 price hike for their basic and Galaxy S26 Plus models. This could be the result of the RAM shortage, which is expected to pressure phonemakers to raise prices on many phones. How they choose to balance new features and affordability could be the biggest hurdle of 2026 for the phone industry.Amid all that uncertainty, manufacturers have still graced the biggest phone show of the year to debut their new handsets. Here are all the best phones we've seen at MWC. The Xiaomi Leitzphone. Andrew Lanxon/CNETXiaomi's Leitzphone We've seen the Leica name attached to phones for years, but Xiaomi's Leica Leitzphone takes phone-and-camera-company partnerships to the next level. There's a laundry list of great photo-centric features: Leica's famous high-quality Summilux lenses, the new Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor image sensor to enable better dynamic range and moving elements in the telephoto lens that allow it to gracefully transition from 75- to 100-millimeter focal lengths. Plus, a large mechanical lens ring on the back of the phone that serves as a customizable control for zoom, exposure, or other settings.Best of all, as CNET Editor at Large Andrew Lanxon noted in his review, the Leitzphone has the exact same color profiles that you'll find on Leica's actual cameras and film -- and the photos he took look like they came from a pro camera, not a phone. In short, Lanxon wrote, the Leitzphone is so advanced it earns our Editors' Choice award, and competitors like Samsung's new Galaxy S26 Ultra need to catch up.  The Honor Magic V6's 7.95 inch inner display looks bright and bold. Andrew Lanxon/CNETHonor Magic V6The Honor Magic V6 is a foldable that seems, at least at early glance, to have largely mitigated one of the persisting problems of flexible displays: the crease over the fold line is pretty much gone. This alone would make the Magic V6 attractive for cutting-edge phone fans, but it has other pristine touches -- it's only 4.1mm thick, is one of the first foldables to be IP68 and IP69 water and dust resistant (meaning it should survive spilt drinks and dust), has a 6,600-mAh battery (larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 7's 4,400-mAh one) and has a triple-rear camera array with specs that seem better than any rival: a 50-megapixel main, 64-megapixel telephoto and 50-megapixel ultrawide.For all those refinements, expect to pay up. While the Honor Magic V6 doesn't have an official price yet (and won't be sold in the US), its predecessor, the Honor Magic V5, was £1,699 (which converts to around $2,285).  The Motorola Razr Fold is a sleek device that feels incredible well-built when I held it. Patrick Holland/CNETMotorola Razr FoldAfter years of sticking with clamshell-style small foldables in the Razr series, Motorola is finally bringing a larger book-style foldable to take on its rival Samsung and its Galaxy Z Fold 7. Motorola is continuing to distinguish its handsets with alternative materials and textures like a wooden finish on the Razr Ultra, and the new Motorola Razr Fold has a "silk" textured back that adds a touch of luxury.Motorola's new book-style foldable has a triple-rear camera system (50-megapixel sensors with a trio of lenses: wide-angle, telephoto and ultrawide) as well as some specs advantages over Samsung's big folding phone. The Razr Fold has a 6,000-mAh battery and 80-watt wired and 50-watt wireless charging, which easily outstrips the 4,400-mAh capacity of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and its paltry 25-watt wired and 15-watt wireless charging. Look at that cheeky little camera poking out from the phone. It's adorable, in a way. Katie Collins/CNETHonor Robot Phone We first got a teasing look at the Honor phone with a discrete camera on the end of a robot arm (think one of those DJI pocket-size cameras on a gimbal) during CES 2026, but finally got to see it properly at MWC 2026 just a couple of months later. With its separate, stabilized camera, the Honor Robot Phone lives up to its name, capturing footage that could be far higher quality than that from standard phone cameras at the end of our (shaky human) arms. When it's not in use, the Honor phone's gimbaled arm folds back in and tucks int