Right now, it’s easy to get bored with smartphones. After all, at the high-end end, they’re all very powerful, have great cameras, generally decent battery life and broadly similar features to their predecessors and rivals, so there may be little to really separate them. But believe us: exciting phones are still being made.
And when we say ‘exciting phones’, we’re talking about handsets that do something completely new or unusual or push way beyond typical flagship specs. Phones that aren’t afraid to experiment and see what sticks.
We undoubtedly saw some such handsets in 2025 (for example the Huawei Mate XT), but in 2026 we expect a larger number to be launched. So below is a look at five upcoming handsets that should be worth getting excited about, even (or especially) if you’re getting bored with most smartphones.
1. Xiaomi 17 Pro Max / Xiaomi 17 Ultra
The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max has actually already been announced, but it’s not yet available outside of China, with leaks suggesting that it might get its global launch in January.
This phone – and the smaller Xiaomi 17 Pro – stands out primarily by having a screen on the back, so you can see notifications, control media and more without ever interacting with the main screen.
Of course, this secondary screen can also be used to frame photos, so you can use the rear cameras for selfies. And if you pair the phone with an official Game Boy-like case, you can even use the secondary screen to play games.
The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max also has a massive 7,500 mAh battery, which is a much higher capacity than most phones can claim. This cell supports 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging, which also has most phones beat, and the rest of the specs are all in line with what you’d expect from a high-end handset, including a top-tier Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset and four 50MP cameras (if you include the selfie camera).
So what about the Xiaomi 17 Ultra? Well, it hasn’t been announced yet, even for China, but leaks suggest it could get a launch in China before the end of 2025, with a global launch possible in 2026. This is likely to be a phone similar to the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, but even better, with leaks suggesting its main upgrade could be a bigger 1-inch camera sensor – which, as with so much, most in this range would have.
2. Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is another phone that has already been announced, but it likely won’t be available outside of South Korea until 2026. Even then, while a US launch has been confirmed, it may not be sold in the UK or Australia.
Still, if you’re lucky enough to be in a place where you can buy this device, you might want to, as this is Samsung’s first tri-fold smartphone – in other words, a phone with two hinges and three screen sections, so it can be the size of a 10-inch tablet when unfolded, but only a 6.5-inch smartphone when folded down.
This isn’t the world’s first triple phone, as Huawei got there first with the aforementioned Huawei Mate XT, but it could be the first remotely mainstream.
It also packs some impressive specs and features, being as little as 3.9mm thick when unfolded and sporting a 200MP main camera.
3. iPhone Fold
The long-rumored iPhone Fold is set to be Apple’s first foldable phone, and the vast majority of leaks now agree that it will arrive in 2026.
It’ll likely land in September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, but it’s likely to be far more exciting than any of its siblings, and it could be the foldable phone that makes this style of handset truly mainstream.
As for specifications, the leaks don’t agree, but it’s likely to have a foldable display of between 7.6 and 7.9 inches, along with a bezel-less display of around 5.5 inches.
It may also have two rear cameras along with a front-facing camera below the display, which is something else Apple has never done before. If the selfie camera is below the screen and the phone doesn’t support Face ID as reported, it could have an all-screen design.
Another design highlight could be the lack of a fold, with several sources suggesting that the iPhone Fold may not have a fold in the area where the screen folds. Or that, if it does, it might be almost invisible. Apple’s desire for a curved design is also reportedly part of why we’ve waited so long for this phone to arrive, as the technology apparently wasn’t ready until now.
4. OnePlus 16
The OnePlus 16 might feel like an odd inclusion here because we don’t actually know anything about this phone yet, but what we do know is that the OnePlus 15 is an excellent handset, and one of the very few that we’ve ever given a five-star review to, so it’s fair to say we’re hyped for the successor.
Not only does the OnePlus 15 do all the basics well, but it also goes above and beyond what most phones can handle, with, for example, a huge 7,300mAh battery and a 165Hz screen. Most flagships top out at 120Hz, and they usually have batteries under 6,000mAh.
So we hope that OnePlus will continue to push things forward with the OnePlus 16, because if it does, this could easily be one of the most exciting phones of 2026.
5. Ayaneo Pocket Play
The Ayaneo Pocket Play is probably a niche device, but it’s also very different from any current smartphone. Our closest point of comparison is the ancient Xperia Play, because like that device, this is a phone and handheld console in one, with physical controls that slide out.
That should give the Pocket Play an edge over typical gaming phones, which may have shoulder triggers but otherwise mostly rely on their touchscreen or accessories to play games.
But while we’ve seen images of the Ayaneo Pocket Play and assume it’s likely to launch in 2026, we don’t know much else about it yet, so it remains to be seen what the specs and pricing will be like.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, video unboxings, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
