In many ways, 2024 was one of the best years for smartphones in a long time. While one can cite several other innovations made in previous years, 2024 marked a significant year in which phones launched more user-friendly screens, finally embraced years of promised software updates, mastered overheating and have evolved to more user-friendly practices as best practices. repairability.
But I’m not convinced that 2025 will be as good. Patent disputes between Samsung and BOE warm upthreatening to ban BOE displays here in the United States. For me, this is particularly concerning because Samsung AMOLED panels typically use PWM dimming, which gives me headaches and makes it impossible to use these types of displays long term, while BOE panels are much more respectful of the eyes.
We’re also seeing design convergence toward the “iPhone is best” model among OEMs, something that hasn’t happened en masse in a very long time. I’m not just talking about the hardware design being too flat. Samsung’s upcoming OneUI 7 looks more like an iPhone than ever, and the companies have slowly been introducing iPhone designs like split notification shades and Dynamic Island to Android phones in the latest software updates.
Sure, some of these trends are positive, but a lot of them could mean that the best phones of 2025 will end up all looking and feeling the same in North America, and that’s something I’d rather avoid.
Be together, not the same
In North America, particularly the United States, smartphones are primarily purchased from the carrier of choice. Whether it’s Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or one of the many smaller carriers or MVNOs, carriers are often the most affordable way to get a new phone. For this reason, American customers mainly buy from four brands: Apple, Samsung, Google and Motorola.
According to Search for counterpointless than 10% of U.S. customers buy from other brands, a direct side effect of this purchasing model. So, companies like Nothing, CMF, OnePlus, Nuu, Blu and several others are struggling to make significant gains. Most China-based OEMs like Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Honor aren’t even officially sold in the US, which further complicates things, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Once upon a time, Android’s slogan was: “Be together, not the same.” It turns out that Android phones may all be different, but they share the same experience and apps, giving users real choice without sacrificing the apps or services they love.
From the Samsung Galaxy S25 to the recently launched Google Pixel 9 series, many phones now look like iPhones.
Looking ahead to the North American smartphone market in 2025 reveals fewer choices than ever, and even the few players in the market seem to be converging around a master hardware design language that feels uninspired and entirely utilitarian. From the rumored Galaxy S25 to the recently launched Pixel 9 series, many phones now look like an iPhone.
Many people seem to prefer flat front glass on their phones, if only to make it easier to find a tempered glass screen protector. Unfortunately, most Android phones in the US have (or will have) ultrasonic fingerprint sensors in 2025, which are sometimes faster and more accurate – although this depends heavily on the person.
The problem is that many tempered glass screen protectors make ultrasonic fingerprint sensors useless. They just don’t work at all when a protector is placed on top. Seems like that defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?
This makes product testing more important than ever, especially since the biggest advantage of a flat panel display is that it makes adding a screen protector easier. No modern Android phone offers advanced facial recognition, as Google tried to push back on the Pixel 4 lineup, so good fingerprint sensor performance is extremely important for a good user experience.
I’m not convinced that the current trajectory in hardware design is entirely a good thing, but that’s why we need to have alternatives. OnePlus and Motorola remain the primary alternatives available to Samsung, Google, and Apple, which is a good thing, considering the big three aren’t prioritizing eye health like they should.
Some new entries into the more affordable phone market in 2024 give me confidence in this sector for 2025. Nuu and CMF have both delivered fantastic entries under $300, bringing back the feeling that you can still buy a good phone without spending $500, $1,000 or even more. I hope these two companies – and a few others – continue this trajectory into 2025 and reverse the trend of more expensive phones.
The Chinese quotient
The US government continues to wage an economic war against China, and with that, a wave of new tariffs and bans is expected to appear in 2025. While this is attractive from a “domestic” perspective, the problem is that almost all of the real competition for Google, Samsung and Apple comes from China. Lenovo, a company based in China, owns Motorola. BBK, a group based in China, owns OnePlus.
From my perspective, the two best hopes here are Nothing – as well as Nothing’s CMF sub-brand – and Nuu. Nothing is based in London and Nuu is based in Hong Kong. There are other brands that could offer good alternatives in the wake of a total product ban in China, but these two are the shining gems, in my opinion.
From what I can tell at the moment, a “total ban” won’t happen, but I fully expect prices for Chinese brand phones to increase, especially in the US.
Since these companies are among the few keeping prices low, I hope lawmakers take a moment to think about other economic impacts before passing sweeping legislation.
Better performance than ever
For the longest time, Android was a sort of “second-class citizen” when it came to performance compared to Apple silicon. Last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was the closest we’ve ever been to Apple-like performance in Android phones, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the upcoming 2025 phones is the first time Never that we’ve seen Snapdragon chips eclipse Apple’s latest advances in most measures.
This is exciting to say the least, and has been achieved thanks to Qualcomm unifying its chipsets across mobiles and laptops. In other words, we’re getting laptop-like performance with our 2025 flagship phones. That’s a massive upgrade!
| Row 0 – Cell 0 | Single-core | Multi-core |
| Snapdragon 8 generation 3 | 2144 | 6698 |
| Snapdragon 8 Elite | 3236 | 10049 |
| Apple A18 (iPhone 16) | 3429 | 8790 |
Tensor G5 could finally give Pixels the performance boost they need in 2025.
Not only that, but Qualcomm is said to have done a better job of controlling thermals while delivering better performance. The last two times we saw a big change in the naming convention and processor design – it’s the Snapdragon 810 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – things didn’t go very well and the chips steadily overheated. From what we know, the third time seems to be the charm for Qualcomm.
Google Pixel phones will finally get a major performance boost in 2025, if Tensor G5 leaks are to be believed. It has been rumored for years that Google will switch to TSMC for Tensor G5 instead of using Samsung cores, and that G5 is the first “fully custom” Tensor chip.
Previous generations were built on Exynos technology and this was consistently the case. The performance of the Tensor G4 in the Pixel 9 series is akin to that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which, as you might guess, is now 3 full generations behind what Qualcomm just released.
The future of foldable phones
Finally, I wanted to touch on the state of foldable phones and what 2025 has in store for them. We’ve already heard rumors of a major player pulling out of the foldable phone category. Fewer players is always worse for competition, but foldable phones remain a relatively small part of the biggest phone makers’ revenue returns, so it’s not really surprising to see a company potentially pull out.
From my point of view, foldable phones are already great and 2024 has proven to be the best year yet for the segment. Although we didn’t get a sequel at the OnePlus Open, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Honor Magic V3 both surprised me in the best way.
2024 was a great year for foldable phones, but with a player rumored to be leaving the space, 2025 seems a little uncertain.
On the other hand, Motorola continues to impress with its Razr reboot. Motorola has always delivered great hardware design, superb battery life, surprisingly good cameras, and the best flip phone software on the market, along with a new commitment to providing long-term updates.
Overall, though, I’m not feeling the best about 2025, although there are still some bright spots in the U.S. market. Carriers continue to have a stranglehold on the country’s telephone distribution systems, and smaller players are struggling to get a foot in the door because of it. If there’s any change needed here, it’s to help people move away from relying on carriers so we can have better choices for mobile devices.
