The next big trend in phones? Nostalgia.

If you'd told me last year that the Mobile World Congress — the biggest mobile industry event of the year apart from the iPhone launch — would be dominated by Nokia and BlackBerry, I'd call you names. Slightly offensive, silly names. 

But it's exactly what's happening, and it's not just due to the absence of Samsung's Galaxy S8, whose launch date got shifted to late March. There's a genuine feeling that users are sick of the big-screened, battery-draining smartphone, and they want something different. 

Take BlackBerry's KEYone for example. It's an Android smartphone with a physical keyboard, and while that set of traits would've gotten it immediately laughed off a few years ago (as proven by BlackBerry's now non-existent market share), this year it's the phone that stands outOur article about that phone was shared more than any other MWC news item this year, and we could see the interest firsthand at BlackBerry event in Barcelona, which also generated tons of buzz on social media.  Read more...