These days, it’s easy to get bored with smartphones. After all, at the high end, they’re all very powerful, have excellent cameras, generally decent battery life, and largely similar features to their predecessors and rivals, so there’s not much to really set them apart. But trust us: there are still some exciting phones out there.
And when we talk about “exciting phones,” we’re talking about handsets that do something genuinely new or unusual, or go way beyond typical flagship specs. Phones that aren’t afraid to experiment and see what sticks.
We’ve undoubtedly seen some of these handsets in 2025 (the Huawei Mate XT, for example), but in 2026 we expect more 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 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 it could launch globally in January.
This phone – and the smaller Xiaomi 17 Pro – stand out primarily for its screen on the back, which lets you view 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-style case, you can even use the secondary screen to play games.
The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max also has a massive 7,500mAh battery, which is a lot more capacity than most phones can claim. This cell supports 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging, which also outperforms most phones, and the rest of the specs are all 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 launch in China before the end of 2025, with a possible global launch in 2026. It’ll likely be a phone similar to the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, but better, with leaks suggesting its key upgrade could be a 1-inch larger camera sensor – which, as with many things in this series, would beat most rivals.
2. Samsung Galaxy Z Tri-Fold
The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is another phone already announced, but it likely won’t be available outside of South Korea until 2026. Even then, while a US launch has been confirmed, it might not be sold in the UK or Australia.
Still, if you’re lucky enough to be somewhere where you can buy this device, you might want to, because it’s 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.
It’s not the world’s first tri-fold phone, as Huawei got there first with the aforementioned Huawei Mate XT, but it could be remotely the first.
It also has impressive specs and features, with a thickness of just 3.9mm when unfolded and a 200MP main camera.
3. Folding the iPhone
The long-rumored iPhone Fold is expected to be Apple’s first foldable phone, and the vast majority of leakers now agree that it will arrive in 2026.
It’ll probably land in September, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, but it’ll likely be much more exciting than any of its siblings, and could be the foldable phone that makes this style of handset truly mainstream.
As for the specs, leakers disagree, but it’s likely to have a foldable screen between 7.6 and 7.9 inches, as well as a cover screen of around 5.5 inches.
It may also have dual rear cameras, as well as a front camera under the display, something Apple has never done before. If the selfie camera is below the screen and the phone does not support Face ID as stated, then it could have an all-screen design.
Another design highlight could be the lack of a crease, with several sources suggesting that the iPhone Fold might not have a crease in the area where the screen folds. Or, if it does, it might be almost invisible. Apple’s desire for a crease-free design would also partly explain why we’ve been waiting so long for this phone to arrive, as the technology apparently wasn’t ready until now.
4.OnePlus16
The OnePlus 16 might seem like an odd inclusion here as we don’t 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 we’ve ever given a five-star review to, so it’s fair to say we’re excited about its successor.
Not only does the OnePlus 15 do all the basics well, but it also goes beyond what most phones can handle, with, for example, a massive 7,300 mAh battery and a 165 Hz display. Most flagships top out at 120 Hz and typically have batteries under 6,000 mAh.
So we hope OnePlus continues 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 Handheld Game
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 older Xperia Play, because, like that device, it’s a phone and handheld console all in one, with slide-out physical controls.
This should give the Pocket Play an advantage over regular gaming phones, which may have shoulder triggers but rely primarily on their touchscreen or accessories to play games.
But even though we’ve seen photos of the Ayaneo Pocket Play and assume it will likely launch in 2026, we don’t know much about it yet, so it remains to be seen what the specs and pricing will be.
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