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/CNET

Xiaomi'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/CNET

Honor Magic V6

The 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/CNET

Motorola Razr Fold

After 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/CNET

Honor 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 into a notch in the back of the phone. It's a neat return to, and even an expansion upon, the neat pop-up phone cameras from yesteryear, stabilized with all the best modern mobile photography tech.  

ZTE Neo 5 GT. Andrew Lanxon/CNET

ZTE Nubia Neo 5 GT 

The ZTE Nubia Neo 5 GT brings features from premium gaming phones down to a handset that's half the price. At around 450 euros (about $525), the Neo 5 GT has several perks inherited from the around $1,000 RedMagic 11 Pro: touch-sensitive shoulder triggers, a neat rear design and, neatest of all, an internal fan that combines with a thermal-absorbing sheet to lower the phone's internal temperature by 4 degrees Celsius, ZTE says. 

The Nubia Neo 5 line is part of ZTE's efforts to make phones for mobile gamers who don't have deep pockets. The other devices in the lineup are neat enough, with the around 350 euros (about $405) Neo 5 Max boasting a colossal 7.5-inch display, but it's the Neo 5 GT that consolidates the best gaming features (and style) in far more affordable handsets. 

The Galaxy S26. David Lumb/CNET

Honorable mentions: The Samsung Galaxy S26 and the Apple iPhone 17E

While Samsung and Apple weren't at MWC 2026, they seemingly still wanted to be in on the fun, conveniently releasing smartphones just before and during the show, respectively. They aren't part of the conference, but they deserve mention anyway.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 is the company's latest and greatest flagship, with a slightly bigger 4,300-mAh battery and more AI features than its predecessor, but it feels largely the same as the Galaxy S25 before it. But this time around, it's $100 pricier, starting at $900, and it's unclear whether that's due to last year's tariffs or this year's RAM shortage -- though the base configuration does bump storage to 256GB. Still, with the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, a slightly larger 6.3-inch screen, a still-slim 7.2mm thickness and more AI tricks, the Galaxy S26 is the Android phone to beat for other flagships coming later this year. 

The iPhone 17E comes in three colors: Black, white and pink. Apple/CNET

The iPhone 17E is now the most affordable phone in Apple's lineup. Despite keeping the same $599 price as its predecessor, the iPhone 16E, the new handset has double the storage at 256GB and comes with support for MagSafe charging and accessories (many critics didn't like that the 16E didn't have it). It once again cuts some corners to achieve a lower price than the iPhone 17 released last fall, with a quad-core (rather than a five-core) GPU, only a single 48-megapixel rear camera, no Center Stage feature on its selfie camera, no Dynamic Island, no Camera Control button and no always-on display. But its 6.1-inch screen is more scratch-resistant on the 17E than on its predecessor, which is something.