"This was a surprisingly fun year for smartphones. I wasn't expecting it to be; the category is often described as stale or "plateaued." But as WIRED's resident phone reviewer, I've tested nearly all of this year's handsets-devices as cheap as $130 all the way to an eye-watering $2,000-and I don't think there's been a year filled with as many varied styles in quite some time."
"It all started with the Nothing Phone (3a) series, which the UK company launched at Mobile World Congress early in the year. While I wasn't a fan of the Pro model's top-heavy camera module, the electric blue Phone (3a) is a standout. It looks like no other smartphone on the market, with a transparent backplate, a pop of color from a small red square, and the company's signature Glyph lights, which blink when you receive notifications."
"That whimsical design has been sorely lacking for several years. Remember 2020's LG Wing? The five-camera Nokia 9 PureView from 2019? The weird Moto Mods of a decade ago, 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 commodities, that means good and playful designs are often sacrificed for the sake of manufacturing efficiency."
This year brought surprising variety in smartphone design, spanning budget to premium handsets and notable stylistic experimentation. The Nothing Phone (3a) series showed distinctive aesthetics — a transparent backplate, a red-square accent, and Glyph lights that blink for notifications — while the electric blue model stood out despite a bulky Pro camera module. Past experiments like the LG Wing, Nokia 9 PureView, and Moto Mods show earlier unusual form factors. Market pressure for manufacturing efficiency often yields plain, mass-appeal phones, but recent devices bring back character. The CMF Phone 2 Pro offered a premium feel under $300 with a removable backplate and a detachable Accessory Point module.
Read at WIRED
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