6 trends to expect from flagship Android phones in 2025

The first wave of next-gen Android phones has been launched, with big Chinese players like HONOR, OnePlus, OPPO and others all revealing their products. This is just the beginning though and we expect many more high-end Android phones to launch in 2025.

But what do these phones – featuring all-new processors and other hardware upgrades – tell us about what to expect in 2025? From battery life to performance gains and beyond, here’s what the next year could hold.

One of the most notable improvements to expect in next-generation smartphones is much better battery life, at least in theory, and there are several reasons for this. Perhaps the biggest reason is the wider adoption of silicon batteries, offering more capacity for the same physical size as lithium batteries. Everyone from HONOR and Xiaomi to OPPO and OnePlus are stepping up their efforts in this regard. In fact, the vivo X200 Pro Mini has a more compact 6.39-inch display paired with a large 5,700 mAh battery. On the other end of the spectrum, the realme GT7 Pro packs a 6,500mAh battery into its frame.

Another reason to hope for better battery life in 2025 is that two of the leading Android phone processors, the Snapdragon 8 Elite and the MediaTek Dimensity 9400, are both built on a 3nm TSMC process. This promises major efficiency gains over previous 4nm processes used for previous high-end chips. In fact, Qualcomm claims that the new Snapdragon processor is 44% more efficient than the previous chip, while MediaTek claims its processor is 40% more efficient.

But don’t just take my word for it. His colleague Rob Triggs tested the Snapdragon-powered ROG Phone 9 Pro and saw major improvements in battery life compared to the previous generation. The most notable gains came from Zoom calls (30%), 4K video streaming (30%), and web browsing (46%). Expect increased power consumption when using these new phones at full speed, but you only really do that in benchmark apps.

Perhaps the biggest improvement in next-gen flagship Android phones is performance, as the Snapdragon 8 Elite adopts a custom Oryon processor. Our own initial testing with the realme GT7 Pro didn’t quite hit the 45% CPU/GPU improvement Qualcomm claims, but we still saw some very impressive year-over-year gains. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone 9 Pro effectively matches Qualcomm’s CPU claims, but falls a bit short in the GPU category.

MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 doesn’t offer the same huge CPU boost, but our OPPO Find X8 Pro tests found the phone to be a beast in GPU stress tests while running cooler than the ROG Phone 9 Pro. So mobile gamers should keep this in mind.

Smartphone makers fought for the thinnest phone crown over a decade ago, and we even saw ultra-thin phones without a headphone jack back then. It now appears that this war could resume in 2025.

We’ve heard plenty of rumors about a so-called iPhone 17 Air, featuring a slimmer design than other iPhone 17 models. If that wasn’t enough, we also recently learned that Samsung could launch a Galaxy S25 Slim a few months after the Galaxy S25 series.

This could potentially spark a wider phone war between smartphone makers. After all, how many OEMs blindly follow Apple in the first place? The downsides would, of course, include smaller battery capacities and potentially hotter devices, thus negating the benefits we just mentioned.

Qualcomm previously confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Elite would likely be more expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and recent leaks point to a 20-30% price hike. Even the Dimensity 9400 would be more expensive than the Dimensity 9300. It’s not just the processors that would be more expensive, as RAM prices would also have seen an increase.

Android phone makers will have to do something about these rising costs. They could pass these increases on to consumers by charging a higher price for new phones. The alternative would be for these brands to offer downgraded features (or avoid major upgrades) in order to control BOM costs.

We’ve already seen a few downgrades, like the more affordable ASUS ROG Phone 9 completely ditching a telephoto lens that you’ll find on the Pro. Meanwhile, the Xiaomi 15 comes with a 50MP 2.5x camera instead of last year’s 50MP 3.2x shooter. Realme’s GT7 Pro also ditches wireless charging despite the fact that the GT5 Pro offers this feature. So don’t be surprised if more phones come with a few downgrades or skip major upgrades altogether. We might even see brands like Samsung maintain the price of the Galaxy S25 series in some regions while increasing the price in other markets to compensate. The company did this with the Galaxy S23 series last year, when global markets were effectively subsidizing U.S. prices.

Early in-display fingerprint sensors were pretty bad, with slow scanning speeds and often requiring multiple tries. But technology has made major advances over the years, and we’ve even seen some flagship phone makers move from optical fingerprint sensors to faster, more reliable ultrasonic solutions. These scanners even allow you to unlock your phone with wet fingers.

Qualcomm has long been one of the only major suppliers of in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensors. However, something big happened in this area earlier this year when Chinese company Goodix announced the commercial availability of its first integrated ultrasound scanner. The technology debuted on the vivo Ultrasonic fingerprint sensors integrated into the screen. 2025.

While water resistance is certainly nothing new, the latest flagship phones have virtually all adopted IP68 and even IP69 ratings. Almost all current Snapdragon 8 Elite and Dimensity 9400 phones have full-fledged water resistance. Some of them also have a higher IP69 rating, which protects against high-pressure water jets and high-temperature water.

The IP69 rating is not really practical for the vast majority of users. After all, how often do you use a pressure washer? But I’m always happy to see more and more brands adopting good water resistance. Even the OnePlus 13 adopts IP68/IP69 ratings, although it remains to be seen whether this will apply to global models. Realme’s latest flagship also delivers on these ratings, which is a big deal for a value-driven brand that has largely eschewed water resistance. Still, we expect even more devices to offer at least IP68 ratings.

That’s it for our list of trends to expect in 2025, but we can think of a few other things to watch out for. There is a small chance that some phones will offer 8K/60fps video capture, as MediaTek’s latest chip supports this standard. We also expect a few OEMs to offer so-called agentic AI services, which can perform tasks autonomously on your behalf. Are there any next-gen smartphone trends we may have missed? Let us know in the comments!