Samsung, iPhone, Pixel: The many phones of Anwar Ibrahim

After a tumultuous couple of days since Malaysia went to the polls, we finally have a new Prime Minister when Pakatan Harapan leader Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in earlier today. Following that, he was scheduled to hold a press conference where he would go on to announce several things, such as Monday (28 November) being a public holiday and that the first order of business in Parliament would be to hold a vote of confidence.

However, it wasn’t the smoothest of press conferences as it would be delayed a little, first before the press conference itself when Indonesian President Joko Widodo called him to congratulate him on his appointment as Prime Minister. Later on, just as he sat down to hold the press conference, it would be delayed again when this time Turkish President Recep Erdogan would also call him to congratulate him on his new job.

Being the tech fans that we are, we couldn’t help but notice the smartphones Anwar was using to take these calls. First off, during his chat with President Widodo, he was seen using what appears to be a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Samsung’s flagship smartphone from three years ago. Despite its age, it’s still a perfectly solid device to daily drive of course, especially considering that Samsung had still updated it to Android 12 earlier this year.

As for the second call he had with President Erdogan, this one was a bit more of a surprise especially when you realise it’s a smartphone that’s not officially available in Malaysia. Anwar appeared to be taking the call with a Google Pixel 5a, judging on the square camera module with two cameras in it; the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a has an additional spectral and flicker sensor on the bottom of the square island while the Pixel 5a does not. The Pixel 5a was launched just last year actually in August, two months before Google launched the Pixel 6 series powered by their own Google Tensor processors. This makes the Pixel 5a the last Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered device from Google so far.

With all that being said, it turns out that Anwar might not be completely on Team Android. A quick check on his Twitter shows that all of his tweets have been posted using an iPhone, though this could of course just be down to whoever’s in charge of his social media being an iPhone user. However, a recent viral tweet depicting Anwar also has a picture of him reading off what looks to be an iPhone, though this one’s a bit more inconclusive as we an only see half the device.

If it is an iPhone, it wouldn’t be the first time Anwar’s been seen using an Apple device—we’ve probably all seen the famous picture of him sitting in front of a MacBook online by now. Anwar has also been spotted using an Apple Watch before too. He also wouldn’t be the only politician to be using Apple hardware either; the likes of Khairy Jamaluddin and Tengku Zafrul are all known to be deep into the Apple ecosystem using iPhones, iPads, and even the new Apple Watch Ultra.

That being said, regardless of what smartphone our new Prime Minister is using, it’s perhaps nice to know that we finally have one after what’s been a rollercoaster week for Malaysia.