The period of 1 cellphone to rule all of them is coming to an finish. The brand new temper is to choose a handset that most accurately fits your every day wants, whether or not it’s an intensively targeted digital camera system, a black and white display screen or a trendy sports activities car-inspired design. Right here’s a choice of seven new gadgets from the extremely high-tech to a beer-branded ‘dumb cellphone’, with a bunch of different smartphone options in between.
Seven options to the smartphone establishment
1. Porsche Design Honor Magic6 RSR
Porsche Design Honor Magic6 RSR
(Picture credit score: Honor)
A companion to Honor’s lately launched Magic V2 RSR folding cellphone, that is the traditional various. A chic extension of the Chinese language model’s Magic line of premium smartphones, the Magic6 RSR continues the auto-influenced styling pattern of its sister cellphone, resplendent in a Frozen Berry metallic end, certainly one of Porsche’s Taycan exterior colors.
Porsche Design Honor Magic6 RSR alongside its inspiration
(Picture credit score: Honor)
The cellphone can also be obtainable in Agate Gray (lengthy related to the 911), and components just like the hexagonal cellphone module are additionally immediately derived from Porsche’s inside design. The twin-layer 6.8in OLED display screen improves sturdiness and brightness, with added mud and water resistance, and the lens cluster features a 100x digital zoom alongside an ultra-wide lens, macro facility and 50 megapixel photos.
Porsche Design Honor Magic6 RSR
(Picture credit score: Honor)
Porsche Design Honor Magic6 RSR, worth tbc, Honor.com
2. Boox Palma
(Picture credit score: Boox)
Not strictly talking a cellphone however taking the identical kind issue in addition to a bunch of performance, the Boox Palma makes use of an e-ink display screen to offer a totally totally different information-gathering expertise. Swapping sim performance for a black and white, 824 x 1648-pixel display screen, however retaining Android and subsequently entry to apps would possibly appear to be a large trade-off.
In actuality, the Boox Palma can do all the pieces you want for day-to-day communication – texting, Slack, WhatsApp, and many others – with out the temptation to dip into dazzling 4K video and little hits of social media. For studying, researching and taking notes, it’s a welcome diversion from distraction.
Boox Palma, $279.99, Store.Boox.com
3. Sony Xperia 1 V
(Picture credit score: Sony)
Sony’s newest gadget, the Xperia 1 V, locations an emphasis on the digital camera, with a brand new sensor system that attracts on developments within the firm’s industry-standard vary of Cinema Line cameras and vary of Alpha cameras. The latter’s performance is mirrored within the six preset settings (full guide management can also be doable), superior autofocus methods and burst modes, whereas movie followers can bask within the capability to file 4K HDR at 120fps on each certainly one of its Carl Zeiss lenses. From the textured physique that evokes an old style SLR, the Xperia 1 V is a instrument for content material creators of each stripe.
(Picture credit score: Sony)
Sony Xperia 1 V, £1,299, Sony.co.uk, @Sony.UnitedKingdom
4. Boring Cellphone
The Boring Cellphone by Heineken x Bodega
(Picture credit score: Heineken x Bodega)
One of the vital intriguing examples of latest ‘no-tech’ has come from a collaboration between a Dutch brewer and an American ‘conceptual retail area’. The ‘Boring Cellphone’ is a tie-in between Bodega and Heineken and European good cellphone producer Human Cellular Units (maker of Nokia telephones).
The Boring Cellphone by Heineken x Bodega
(Picture credit score: Heineken x Bodega)
On the one hand, the Boring Cellphone is a slick piece of promoting, a intelligent method of drawing consideration to the smartphone-fuelled desertification of pub chats and bar banter. On the opposite, it’s additionally an instantaneous cult object – simply 5,000 will likely be made – mixing the present pattern for clear electronics with a transparently easy working system that strips out any alternative for surreptitious scrolling when your focus needs to be elsewhere.
The upside to those downsides is an old-school battery life (an entire week of standby time), and a design that hits all the precise noughties cues, from the clear plastic case to the holographic stickers and the freshly trendy flip cellphone format. There’s even a 0.3 megapixel digital camera and inbuilt FM radio for true throwback followers.
The Boring Cellphone by Heineken x Bodega
(Picture credit score: Heineken x Bodega)
The Boring Cellphone arose out of a spot of market analysis that exposed 9 in ten folks confess to preserving one eye on their feeds even after they’re out with family and friends. Maybe aware of the destructive influence this may need on bar tabs, Heineken, Bodega and HMD conjured up the ‘boring’ handset, ‘dialling down the tech to assist folks really join over a beer,’ in accordance Heineken’s International Head, Nabil Nasser. If you happen to aren’t one of many 5,000 capable of get your arms on the gadget, Heineken will quickly be releasing a devoted app to show down the IQ of your smartphone.
For extra info go to Heineken, Heineken.com, @Heineken
Bodega Retailer, BDGAstore.com, @Bodega
HMD, HMD.com, @HMDdevices
5. Hisense A9 Professional e-ink smartphone
Hisense A9 Professional e-ink smartphone
(Picture credit score: Hisense)
One thing of a big gamble, the Hisense A9 Professional is probably finest left to these pleased with hacking round inside Android’s endlessly customisable innards. As its title suggests, the A9 Professional is a traditional smartphone outfitted with an e-ink display screen. It has all of the accoutrements you’d anticipate, together with WiFi, Sim slot, Bluetooth, Micro SD, entrance and rear cameras, headphone socket and a fingerprint sensor, together with 8GB RAM and 256GB of inner storage.
The show can also be entrance lit, enabling it for use at nighttime, and there’s even an onboard speaker for listening to audio books. Anticipate to need to make some adjustments to make it run easily on non-Chinese language networks, nonetheless.
Hisense A9 Professional, $500, Hisenseeink.com
6. Minimal Cellphone
(Picture credit score: Minimal Firm)
One other area of interest product with potential however no ensures is the Minimal Firm’s Minimal Cellphone, presently being developed by way of crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. It takes an analogous strategy to the Hisense mannequin, solely with a much smaller footprint and the addition of a full Qwerty keyboard.
(Picture credit score: Minimal Firm)
Whether or not sufficient former Blackberry followers might be persuaded to help the initiative stays to be seen, however the combine compact kind issue and full Android performance make this one to observe.
Minimal Cellphone, extra info by way of Indiegogo.com
Minimal Firm, MinimalCompany.com, @Attempt.Minimal
7. Xiaomi 14 Extremely
(Picture credit score: Xiaomi)
You’ll be on a lot firmer floor with Xiaomi’s newest smartphone, the 14 Extremely. That includes the fruits of an ongoing partnership with Leica, the 14 Extremely contains a 4 lens digital camera system, providing a complete of six totally different focal lengths. Just like the Sony Xperia, the 14 Extremely marks a departure from the shiny, slippery-bodied smartphone aesthetic in direction of a extra textured and grippy vegan leather-based floor design that references conventional digital camera our bodies.
(Picture credit score: Xiaomi)
With its round lens cluster the 14 Extremely actually appears the half, and the standard glass can seize topics in decrease gentle than ever earlier than, in addition to produce a pure depth of discipline impact. The gadget may also entry loads of onboard picture processing in addition to output RAW recordsdata for many who favor to work in digital darkrooms.
Xiaomi 14 Extremely, obtainable in white or black, £1,299, Mi.com