Right now, it’s easy to feel bored with smartphones. After all, at the high-end, they’re all very powerful, have great cameras, generally decent battery life, and largely similar features to their predecessors and rivals, so there can be little to truly set them apart. But trust us: there are still exciting phones being made.
And when we say ‘exciting phones’, we’re talking about handsets that do something genuinely new or unusual, or push well beyond typical flagship specs. Phones that aren’t afraid to experiment and see what sticks.
We arguably saw some such handsets in 2025 (the Huawei Mate XT, for example), but in 2026, we’re expecting a greater number to launch. So, below, you’ll find 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 China, with leaks suggesting it might get its global launch in January.
This phone – and the smaller Xiaomi 17 Pro – stand out primarily through having a screen on the back, so you can view notifications, control media, and more, without ever interacting with the main display.
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 display to play games.
The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max also has a massive 7,500mAh battery, which is a far higher capacity than most phones can lay claim to. 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 of the Xiaomi 17 Ultra? Well, that hasn’t been announced yet, even for China, but leaks suggest it might get a China launch before the end of 2025, with a global launch possible in 2026. This will probably be a similar phone to the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, but even better, with leaks suggesting its key upgrade could be a larger 1-inch camera sensor – which, as with so much in this series, would have most rivals beat.
2. Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is another phone that’s already been announced, but it probably won’t be available outside 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 somewhere where you can buy this device, you may well want to, as this is Samsung’s first tri-fold smartphone – in other words, a phone with two hinges and three screen sections, allowing it to be the size of a 10-inch tablet when unfolded, but just a 6.5-inch smartphone when folded down.
This isn’t the world’s first tri-fold phone, as Huawei got there first with the aforementioned Huawei Mate XT, but it could be the first remotely mainstream one.
It also has some impressive specs and features, coming in at as little as 3.9mm thick when unfolded, and having 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’s coming in 2026.
It will probably land in September, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, but it’s likely to be far more exciting than any of its siblings, and could be the foldable phone that makes this style of handset truly mainstream.
As far as specs go, leakers aren’t in agreement, but it’s likely to have a foldable display of between 7.6 and 7.9 inches, along with a cover screen of roughly 5.5 inches.
It may also have two rear cameras, along with an under-display front-facing camera, which is something else Apple has never done before. If the selfie camera is under the screen, and the phone doesn’t support Face ID as reported, then it could have an all-screen design.
Another design highlight could be the lack of a crease, with multiple sources suggesting the iPhone Fold might not have a crease in the area where the screen folds. Or that, if it does, it might be almost invisible. Apple’s desire for a creaseless design is also reportedly part of why we’ve been waiting so long for this phone to arrive, as the tech apparently wasn’t ready until now.
4. OnePlus 16
The OnePlus 16 might feel 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 a superb handset, and one of the very few that we’ve ever given a five-star review to, so it’s fair to say that we’re hyped for its successor.
Not only does the OnePlus 15 do all the basics well, but it also goes beyond what most phones can manage, with, for example, an enormous 7,300mAh battery and a 165Hz screen. Most flagships top out at 120Hz, and they usually have batteries of under 6,000mAh.
So, we hope 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 likely to be 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 all in one, with slide-out physical controls.
That should give the Pocket Play an advantage over typical gaming phones, which might have shoulder triggers but are otherwise mostly reliant on their touchscreen or accessories for playing games.
But while we’ve seen pictures of the Ayaneo Pocket Play and assume it will probably 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.
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