This was a an incredibly exciting year for smartphones. I didn’t expect it to be like that; the stage is often described as old or “plateaued.” But as WIRED’s resident phone reviewer, I’ve tested nearly every handset this year—devices as cheap as $130 all the way up to $2,000—and I don’t think there’s been a year full of so many different styles in quite some time.
It all started with the Nothing Phone (3a) series, which the UK company presented at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. While I wasn’t a fan of the Pro model’s top heavy camera module, the blue Electric Wire (3a) is a standout. It looks like no other smartphone on the market, with a transparent backplate, bright color from a small red square, and the company’s signature Glyph lights, which blink when you receive notifications. Those LEDs may not be very useful, but they are fun and smart.
That amazing design has been sorely lacking for several years. Remember the 2020 LG Wing? Nokia 9 PureView with five cameras from 2019? The weird Moto Mods of the last decade, which added things like cameras and speakers to the Moto Z from Motorola? These phones may not have topped the charts, but they tried something different.
Smartphones are a necessity in today’s world, and like all things that are sold, that means that good designs and playability are often sacrificed for good manufacturing. When companies chase what’s important, we end up with simple, easy-looking phones designed for the widest possible audience. That’s why the recent shift to devices with more characters feels important.
Nothing else won its hands this year with the CMF Phone 2 Pro, a sub-$300 phone that didn’t look or feel like its budget price. Specifically, you can detach the back of the phone and replace the backplate with a different colored one, or remove the Accessory Point module and attach things like a lanyard. The stability-focused Fairphone had the same idea as The Fairphone (Gen. 6), except this smartphone did all that while also earning a 10/10 repairability score from iFixit.
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Next came Motorola, which has seen huge success in recent years with its foldable Razr phones. With the 2025 Razr models, the company leaned heavily on various materials and workmanship. You can buy a Razr with a back covered in Alcantara microfiber cloth, vegan leather, or polished black Gorilla Glass. There is even a version with wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. It helps that Motorola remains one of the only manufacturers to offer a foldable phone under $700. (It even goes as low as $600 during sales events.)
You may still be hesitant to invest in one of these hinge-based phones, given their spotty history of durability, but they’re sturdier than ever. I’ve dropped multiple Razrs, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and even the Galaxy Z Flip7 this year, and aside from a few scratches on the frame, none of them have cracked. Motorola introduced a titanium reinforced hinge plate this year. Google promises 10-plus years of folding with its latest Fold and has finally achieved an IP68 rating for its folding design. Samsung claims that its Galaxy Z Fold7 can withstand 500,000 folds, pencils that exceed ten years of normal use.
We should expect more from the way the gadgets in our lives look and feel. Like a good watch, I find that I really enjoy using devices that put more care or effort into design and build quality. This year, I was delighted by the sharp-looking Light Phone III—the anti-smartphone that doesn’t use native apps—while the Small Phone, built with the same goal of helping reduce screen time, had a plastic design that felt awkward. Even with all these tests in form, you don’t need to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a good looking phone. Motorola’s Moto G Stylus 5G has an attractive design with a leather-like texture, and usually retails for $300.
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It was thin, as usual, and it was very tight. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air may not be original ideas, but I don’t like it, holding a phone that is light and lightweight is actually pretty cool. Unfortunately—and not surprisingly—Samsung’s design has lacked battery life, and while the iPhone Air delivered better-than-expected runtimes, its single-camera system and high price tag didn’t scream good value in an economically tumultuous year. (These flaws may explain rumors suggesting that Samsung has canceled plans for its successor to be the thinnest handset and that Apple has been experiencing shortages of the Air.)
But we have already seen the advantages of thin phones. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold7 is one of the best folding phones of the year, in large part due to a significant reduction in size and weight over its predecessors. Apple is rumored to be working on a foldable iPhone, and learning from the iPhone Air will go a long way toward making the device less difficult to hold.
