2024 is gone and while it hasn’t really been a huge year for smartphone innovation, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some standout devices released in 2024. Here are the five that most stood out to me.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Let’s start strong with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. This phone has a unique feature that for some reason has remained exclusive to it, and in 2025 it seems like only its successor will also be able to boast it.
I am of course talking about the anti-reflective coating on the Gorilla Glass Armor that’s on top of the AMOLED display. Long established in the world of wristwatches since the advent of sapphire crystals, this basically does what it says – reduces reflections, and very much so, in the case of the S24 Ultra.
You can see the difference clearly even in pictures like this one
Unlike with watches, where most have such a coating on the underside of the sapphire, and some have it both on the underside and on top of it, with smartphones I assume the fact that there’s a display panel under the glass makes it impossible to apply such a coating under the glass since it would then be in contact with the screen itself. This means that in time the coating will wear off, and we’ve already seen reports of that happening.
I don’t think this is an issue per se, the issue is Samsung not thinking of this in advance and setting up a (let’s say) yearly refreshing service for the AR coating on your S24 Ultra for a modest fee – or even for free since you’re already paying so much for the device itself. Hopefully that will be coming soon seeing as how the S25 Ultra is rumored to get a similar coating.
But all of this is to say that this is a game changer for usability, especially for people like me whose eyes are very sensitive to light reflecting off things at odd angles. It also has the additional benefit of the screen seeming brighter than other panels with the same objective brightness, since the display doesn’t need to fight all those reflections in the process.
Speaking of usability, the S24 Ultra also has a pretty significant issue with it, owing to its very sharp corners. This is only a problem if you don’t use a case, since if you do, how curved that is will depend on the model of the case. But using it “naked” with those sharp corners definitely isn’t a very comfortable experience for long stretches, do keep that in mind. Thankfully Samsung seems intent on rectifying this issue for the next generation.
There’s not much else to say about the S24 Ultra – it has all of the top specs, it has very good (though perhaps not the best) cameras, it even has a stylus built-in, and with One UI 7 it seems like Samsung is finally getting serious about caring about the software experience, and especially the smoothness of the software interaction. It took many, many years, but we might finally be there – so with that in mind the S24 Ultra, with the inevitable incoming deals once its successor is released, could actually become a very good buy in early 2025.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
| 256GB 12GB RAM | € 929.90 |
£ 720.00 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | € 924.64 |
£ 806.09 |
| Show all prices | ||
Now let’s move on to foldables, and there are a few here I want to talk about. While Samsung continued to rest on its laurels in this space, this year vivo, Honor, Huawei, and Xiaomi made some huge strides towards cementing foldables as a mainstream product category on one hand, and the future of smartphones on the other.
vivo X Fold3 Pro, Honor Magic V3
The vivo X Fold3 Pro brought a very good camera system to a book-style foldable that was still very easy to handle, and then the Honor Magic V3 went under 9.5 mm thickness when closed, which seemed insane a few years ago when this whole foldable thing got started. But here we are.
vivo X Fold3 Pro
Sure, you may think a couple of millimeters or so aren’t that important, but in actual day-to-day use every single millimeter is, in how fatigued your hands feel (or don’t) after an hour or two of non-stop use. I am all for even thinner foldables going forward, but even if we hit a wall at around 9 mm, that’s great – these are now barely thicker than a normal mainstream slab-style device, and they also turn into mini-tablets! Water resistance is improving across the industry as well, so I dare say we’re almost at a point where foldables become normal – the only problem is still the price, which hasn’t come down as much as everyone was anticipating.
Honor Magic V3
So unfortunately these are still very much luxury items. In this day and age most people definitely can’t live without a smartphone, but most people definitely can live without a folding smartphone, even if it’s better than a candybar-style device.
vivo X Fold3 Pro
| 1TB 16GB RAM | $ 1,999.00 |
|
| Show all prices | ||
Honor Magic V3
| 256GB 12GB RAM | $ 1,379.00 |
$ 65.62 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | € 1,399.46 |
£ 1,392.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Huawei Mate XT
Speaking of luxury products, no foldable has ever been more like that than Huawei’s Mate XT. I’d wager you should look at this more as a concept car – you won’t buy one, but it gives a glimpse into what is possible. Hopefully the “tri-fold” (shouldn’t we call it “bi-fold”, by the way?) form factor will be picked up by other companies in the coming years, since it fixes the main problem that book-style foldables still have even today: the weird aspect ratio when unfolded. With the Mate XT you get an even bigger tablet when you unfold all of it, but importantly, it also has a tablet-like aspect ratio so it actually feels like you’re using a standalone tablet.
The fact that the Mate XT arrives after a few very tough years for Huawei following the US sanctions against the company only makes the achievement of actually creating and releasing something like this even more extraordinary. If in five years we can have devices with this form factor for below $1,500, then we’ll all be better for it.
That might not happen, however, as the truth is that the all-screen, slab-style device is probably the pinnacle of smartphone design, at least for the foreseeable future. There have been thousands of iterations on this design over the past decade or so and that means every single detail has been perfected slowly, so sometimes hard to notice, but these improvements have all led to us having amazingly powerful computers in our pockets that are even decently resistant to falls and scratches right now. Most times it’s hard to be thankful for what you already have, but as someone who’s been watching this space for more than a decade now, I have to say it’s been an amazing journey.
And weird new form factors don’t always make as much sense as we techies (does anyone still use that term?) might want them to. That said, I do think tri-folds and rollables are the logical next step in the smartphone realm and can’t wait to have tons of them to choose from, hopefully at not insane prices.
Xiaomi Mix Flip
My final pick is the Xiaomi Mix Flip because its cover display simply looks amazing. Yes, it’s subjective, yes, it’s superficial, but I stand by my opinion here. And before you say “but moto”, sure, the razr+ also has a lot of cover screen, but it doesn’t have a flagship chipset and that’s a weird miss in my book. Its battery capacity is also sad, so there’s that.
Out of nowhere Xiaomi made its first flip-style foldable in 2024 and, in my opinion, hit it out of the park. It’s not just me, however, rumor has it sales have been very good and so the next iteration will come with some big changes – hopefully in the camera department, I might add. Let’s add an ultrawide, shall we?
Xiaomi Mix Flip
| 512GB 12GB RAM | € 1,078.62 |
£ 1,077.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Anyway, that’s been my Top 5 for 2024, and I’m looking forward to 2025 and all the weird and interesting devices that are going to be released this year. And also the boring ones that perfectly do what they’re supposed to at a good price. With prices continuously creeping upward in all segments of the market, these are incredibly important too and I hope we’ll be getting a lot of them this year.
