As if the simple fact that Energizer sells smartphones wasn’t surprising enough, the company is unveiling 26 new models at Mobile World Congress this year, with flagship features like pop-up cameras, a massive 18,000mAh battery, and a foldable display. And before you get any ideas, just know that these are all separate phones (though a phone with all three of these features would truly be a sight to behold). In fact, the silhouettes of the pop-up camera models make the phones look like giant batteries, which is weirdly appropriate.
According to 9to5Google, the phones will be part of four lines: Power Max, Ultimate, Energy, and Hardcase. The bulk of the 26 new models will be basic feature phones, part of the Energy and Hardcase lines. The Power Max line will include the 18,000mAh model (the largest battery ever in a phone, followed by Energizer’s own 16,000mAh Power Max P16K Pro), and phones in the Ultimate line will have features like the pop-up camera and teardrop notch displays.
Though not much is yet known about the specs of all of the phones, we do know some details about the Ultimate phones, the more “premium” line. GSM Arena reports that the Energizer Ultimate U620S Pop and U630S Pop run on P70 and P22 MediaTek Helio chipsets, respectively. Both have dual cameras in a motorized pop-up: a 16MP main camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The U620S Pop has triple cameras in the back (16MP, 5MP, and 2MP) with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It will be released in July, while the U630S Pop has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and is coming in June.
Although we don’t have photos of what the 18,000mAh-battery model or the foldable smartphone looks like, my guess is that the foldable smartphone will most likely be a wonky concept device along the lines of Royole’s “charmingly awful” Flexpai, rather than something resembling Samsung’s anticipated foldable phone.
The phones are made by a French company called Avenir Telecom, which has been selling low-spec phones for years under the Energizer license. Still, if an unknown brand like Avenir can make edge-to-edge display phones with pop-up camera designs, that says a lot about where we are in terms of phone innovation.
We’ll know more when Energizer debuts the phones at MWC, which begins February 25th.
This article is from The Verge
