Smartphones might feel a bit samey at a glance, but 2025 was one of the most interesting years we’ve had in a long time.
Instead of just spec bumps and slightly better cameras, we saw brands taking real swings at new ideas – some genuinely useful, some gloriously over-the-top, and some that might not stick around for long but were fun while they lasted.
From modular zoom lenses and rear displays to text-driven photo editing and ultra-thin designs, here are the standout bits of smartphone tech that made 2025 feel exciting again.
Oppo’s optical teleconverter for the Find X9 Pro
The Oppo Find X9 Pro is already one of the best Android camera phones you can buy, trailing only niche monsters like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. On paper, its camera setup looks capable, if not familiar: a 50MP main, a 50MP ultrawide and a 200MP periscope telephoto.
Even high-res telephotos aren’t new – Xiaomi and Honor have been there already – but Oppo’s real party trick this year is the Hasselblad-branded 10x optical teleconverter.
This clip-on lens effectively supercharges the telephoto camera, bumping things up to 10x and 20x optical zoom, with digital zoom stretching all the way to an absurd 200x. In practice, it really does help close the gap between you and your subject, whether you’re grabbing close-ups at a festival or, more mundanely, zooming in to read a sign that’s just out of reach for your eyes.
It’s not a perfect solution. The teleconverter only works with a specific case for the X9 Pro, and once it’s attached, you’re locked into that zoom lens – the main and ultrawide cameras are off the table.
It’s also a big, slightly comical-looking attachment that makes your phone resemble a compact camera. But then, most “proper” zoom lenses aren’t exactly subtle, and that’s part of the charm.
The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max’s flashy rear display
Apple refreshed the look of its iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max this year, with aluminium sides, a two-tone rear and a new camera bar that stretches across the back of the phone.
The bar is said to house components previously tucked inside the chassis to free up room for a larger battery – which helps explain the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s impressive claim of up to 39 hours of video playback.
As striking as it looks, Apple’s camera bar doesn’t do much beyond that. Xiaomi’s alternative does.
The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, launched in China just weeks after Apple’s latest lineup, takes a very similar camera island idea and hides a full-blown screen in the middle of it. And it’s not a throwaway extra: the 2.9-inch, 120Hz LTPO AMOLED panel is surprisingly premium for what many would assume to be a gimmick.
It doubles as a rear viewfinder for high-quality selfies using the main cameras, displays notifications and incoming calls, and even turns into a tiny gaming screen when paired with Xiaomi’s quirky game controller case that clips onto the phone. It’s the kind of feature that feels playful but still has some practical benefits day to day.
Strictly speaking, calling this “2025” tech is a little cheeky given it won’t see an international launch until 2026, but it’s already been on sale in China for months – and it’s too interesting to ignore.
Samsung’s tablet-style Galaxy Z TriFold
Foldables have settled into a fairly predictable rhythm: you either get a clamshell-style device that folds into a compact square, or a book-style design that opens into a small tablet. Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold tears up that template and asks a bigger question: what if your phone, tablet and even a light laptop could all be the same device?
Closed, the Z TriFold doesn’t look especially outlandish. There’s a regular candybar-style outer display, and inside you get a square-ish foldable screen. The twist is the third panel hidden in the mix, which lets you extend the inner display even further into something much closer to a true tablet.
The clever bit is the software. As you unfold each panel, apps scale and reflow smoothly rather than awkwardly snapping between layouts. Videos stretch naturally across the hinges, and multi-window setups remember exactly where you left everything as you expand the screen.
The result is a far more fluid, considered experience than we’ve seen on traditional book-style foldables, which can suddenly feel a bit basic by comparison. Wider availability isn’t expected until early 2026, but on the strength of the concept alone, it feels like a genuine next step for foldable tech.
The Pixel 10’s text-based Magic Editor
Google has been pushing AI-powered photo editing for a while now, but the Pixel 10’s text-based Magic Editor feels like the moment it truly clicks into place.
Instead of hunting through menus and sliders in Google Photos, you simply describe what you want: “darken the sky”, “remove the bin in the corner”, “make this look like it was taken at golden hour” – that sort of thing. The phone then interprets your request using generative AI and makes the adjustments for you.
The beauty of this approach is that you don’t need to know anything about masking, cloning, colour grading or any other technical editing jargon. You can be as vague or as specific as you like; you just tell the Pixel what’s bothering you in the shot and let it handle the rest.
For people who’ve always found photo-editing tools intimidating, it’s genuinely transformational, lowering the skill barrier and helping casual shooters get results that previously demanded time, effort and experience.
The new glassy look of iOS 26
iOS has felt visually familiar for a long time, which is why the big Liquid Glass UI revamp in iOS 26 caused such a stir when it arrived in September.
Apple has given panels and menus a subtle glass-like treatment, complete with convincing refractions and reflections that react to the content beneath. As you move your phone, highlights and reflections appear to shift realistically in the “virtual” light, making the home screen, notifications and system menus look more tactile and grounded.
On a technical level, it’s seriously impressive. Android manufacturers have rushed to copy the style, but most alternatives still rely on simpler Gaussian blur and transparency effects that don’t quite match the depth or realism of Apple’s implementation.
Crucially, though, Liquid Glass doesn’t change how iOS actually works. Navigation, gestures and the core layout are all very familiar, which means iPhone owners get a fresh look and a bit of visual excitement without having to relearn their phone. It’s a rare case of form enhancing the experience without getting in the way.
Ultra-slim phones of all shapes and sizes
Finally, 2025 marked the return of something we haven’t seen in a long time: genuinely ultra-thin phones.
Handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, iPhone Air and Motorola Edge 70 all pushed thickness below the 6mm mark, compared to the roughly 8mm we’ve become used to with most flagships. On a spec sheet it doesn’t sound dramatic, but in the hand it absolutely is.
These phones feel almost impossibly light, especially considering they still pack fairly large displays. They slip into a pocket and more or less vanish, and the in-hand feel is distinct enough that you remember it long after you put the device down.
There is a trade-off, though. Most of these ultra-slim models suffer from compromised battery life and pared-back camera systems. They look and feel futuristic, but they rarely match chunkier rivals on stamina or imaging performance.
So while wafer-thin phones have been one of 2025’s defining design trends, early rumours suggest manufacturers might quietly step back from them in 2026 in favour of more balanced designs. If that happens, this year’s crop could end up as short-lived curiosities – memorable, but not necessarily the future.
2025 didn’t reinvent the smartphone outright, but it did remind us that there’s still plenty of room for creativity, whether that’s in hardware add-ons, wild form factors or clever uses of AI. If even a handful of these ideas stick, the next few years of phone tech should be anything but boring.
