There was a moment late last year when I thought I'd lost my wallet. I searched everywhere, in every nook and cranny. It was nowhere. I began walking through all the steps I'd have to take to secure my life; my IDs, my credit cards, even some memories stuffed inside. I was, for a moment, devastated. Then I remembered something: I'd had the wallet on me the other day when I briefly wore a pair of pants... then I switched into shorts.
The wallet was in the pocket of those pants, folded, and laying a shelf in my closet. Now, if I'd had an AirTag on it, I could've located the wallet with some ease. The irony is that this wallet came with a perfect circle cut-out to hold Apple's popular tracking tag. After that scare, I decided to slip an AirTag in, and now I can find it in my house.
And if I had the new AirTag (Second Generation or AirTag 2), I'd find it even more easily – because, as promised, it's got far better range, and can chirp loud enough that you can easily hear it from a room away.
Apple AirTag 2: Price and availability
$29 / £29 / AU$49
Available now at Apple Store and retail
Apple AirTag 2: Setup
Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future
If you own one of the best iPhones, setting up the new AirTag is as easy as it was with the original tracking disc. After unpacking the AirTag, I pulled the thin plastic covering off and then tugged until the tiny bit of embedded flexible plastic pulled out of the AirTag.
With that, the AirTag started looking for its iPhone mate. My iPhone 17 Pro Max, which was sitting nearby, immediately detected the AirTag and lit up. On-screen steps guided me through the process of pairing it with the phone and naming the tag (you typically choose a name that aligns with what you want to track, so 'Backpack,' 'Luggage,' etc.).
There's also a pretty stern warning about how AirTags are not intended to be used to track people without their consent. The new AirTags support all the same privacy features, like alerting you if an unknown AirTag is somehow on your person. Plus, if the AirTag is separated from its owner for an extended period, it will start making noise.
Since Apple sent me one of its $35 / £40 / A$59 FineWoven Key Rings, I slipped the AirTag into it and attached it to my backpack.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Apple AirTag 2: Test drive
From the outside, the Apple AirTag 2 is indistinguishable from the original AirTag launched in 2021, but inside it's a whole different story.
Apple replaced significant components, including the ultrawideband chip, which now matches what we've had in the iPhone since 2023 (iPhone 15), and new speakers. Both of these changes are critical to the AirTags 2's biggest updates.
When I learned about the new Apple AirTag, I noted Apple's claims of 1.5x better range and a 50%-louder speaker with some skepticism. Those sounded like big leaps, and I wondered, at first, how I might test them.
The answer was simple, and it resided in my wallet. I simply compared the original AirTag to this new and improved one.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Finding things near and far
The AirTag is useful for finding stuff you've misplaced in your home, but even more impactful when you, or say, your airline has misplaced your luggage, for example. Apple has partnered with dozens of airlines that can now use an AirTag to help locate your lost luggage and let you know it's been found; a reunion with your luggage should soon follow.
Like the original AirTag, the new one can tap into a network of one billion Apple devices to phone home. Basically, an AirTag separated from its owner can ping, for instance, a nearby iPhone, and that connects with the iCloud network to deliver the AirTag's location information (based on that original iPhone's location) back to the owner in the Find My app. All of this information is delivered anonymously, and it's also end-to-end encrypted.
A locally misplaced item can be found via the AirTag's ultrawideband capabilities.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
To be clear, I had no intention of losing my wallet or backpack, but I thought I could test out the new range and audio capabilities.
My house is about 40ft front to back and 50ft diagonally from one corner to the other. I placed my backpack with both the AirTag 1 (in my wallet) and the AirTag 2 in one corner, and then I walked to the opposite, far corner of my house.
In the FindMy app, I started by selecting my wallet and then choosing 'Find' to launch Precision Finding. The app reported that my wallet was 'far' and, though connected, said the signal was weak and suggested I move to a different location.
AirTag (2026): The range is much better.FutureAirTags (First Gen): It works but the range is much shorter.Future
I started walking in the direction of the wallet and AirTag 1. When I was almost two-thirds of the way to its location, the Find My interface picked up the wallet at 22ft away, but could not identify the direction.
It wasn't until I was within six feet of the AirTag 1 that I got directional information, which is a giant white arrow on a green background that points you to your missing bag, wallet, or whatever.
Next, I returned to the far corner of my house and selected the backpack, in which I had placed the AirTag 2.
Even from that location, the phone connected to the AirTag and told me it was 47 feet away. By the time I was just a third of the way across my home (roughly 32ft), Find My started displaying directional information – a significant improvement over the original AirTag.
I reran the test with the wallet and backpack AirTags fully exposed, and the results were the same.
Sound off
The new AirTags are also advertised as being significantly louder than the original tags, thanks to new speakers.
Keeping the AirTags in the same location, I first selected the wallet AirTag in Find My devices and then chose 'Play Sound'. I heard the familiar two-tone sound.
From inside my backpack, I could just make out the muffled dat-dat-da-dat-dat, which plays three times before ceasing.
I made sure the AirTag 2 was similarly seated inside the backpack, and then selected 'Play Sound' for that AirTag. The difference in volume was stark; I could hear it clearly, even over the din of a nearby television. Impressive.
Watch this
If you have an Apple Watch 9 (or above) or Ultra 2, try this with the new AirTag. (Image credit: Future)
The new AirTag also works with the Apple Watch (Series 9 and above or Ultra 2), though enabling it was slightly less intuitive than I'd prefer.
To add an AirTag to your Apple Watch, you open the Control Panel, hit Edit, and then select 'Find AirTag'. The system walks you through selecting a compatible AirTag, in my case, the backpack one, and once that's done it's just a press of your Apple Watch Side Button and a tap on the Find AirTag icon to launch a search for that item.
When I did it on my Apple Watch 9, the screen immediately transformed into a searching graphic similar to what I see in the iPhone Find My app's Precision Finding feature. It instantly showed me how many feet I was from the backpack, and when I started walking toward it, it switched to a circular wayfinder, with one portion of the circle turning bright white to indicate the proper direction. When I arrived at the backpack and its AirTag, the screen turned green with a bright check mark.
While I can't test battery life, you'll be pleased to know that the new AirTag uses the same CR2032 3-volt lithium coin battery, and is rated to last a year. Finally, the IP67 rating remains, which means the AirTag (2026) can handle splashes of water (rain) and dust.
Overall, this is an excellent little update that retains all that's good about the original AirTag, and updates crucial features to make them much more useful when you're trying to find your lost item. And Apple earns extra points for not raising the price or altering the design, which might have forced you to buy new AirTag accessories.
There was a moment late last year when I thought I'd lost my wallet. I searched everywhere, in every nook and cranny. It was nowhere. I began walking through all the steps I'd have to take to secure my life; my IDs, my credit cards, even some memories stuffed inside. I was, for a moment, devastated. Then I remembered something: I'd had the wallet on me the other day when I briefly wore a pair of pants... then I switched into shorts.
The wallet was in the pocket of those pants, folded, and laying a shelf in my closet. Now, if I'd had an AirTag on it, I could've located the wallet with some ease. The irony is that this wallet came with a perfect circle cut-out to hold Apple's popular tracking tag. After that scare, I decided to slip an AirTag in, and now I can find it in my house.
And if I had the new AirTag (Second Generation or AirTag 2), I'd find it even more easily – because, as promised, it's got far better range, and can chirp loud enough that you can easily hear it from a room away.
Apple AirTag 2: Price and availability
$29 / £29 / AU$49
Available now at Apple Store and retail
Apple AirTag 2: Setup
Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future
If you own one of the best iPhones, setting up the new AirTag is as easy as it was with the original tracking disc. After unpacking the AirTag, I pulled the thin plastic covering off and then tugged until the tiny bit of embedded flexible plastic pulled out of the AirTag.
With that, the AirTag started looking for its iPhone mate. My iPhone 17 Pro Max, which was sitting nearby, immediately detected the AirTag and lit up. On-screen steps guided me through the process of pairing it with the phone and naming the tag (you typically choose a name that aligns with what you want to track, so 'Backpack,' 'Luggage,' etc.).
There's also a pretty stern warning about how AirTags are not intended to be used to track people without their consent. The new AirTags support all the same privacy features, like alerting you if an unknown AirTag is somehow on your person. Plus, if the AirTag is separated from its owner for an extended period, it will start making noise.
Since Apple sent me one of its $35 / £40 / A$59 FineWoven Key Rings, I slipped the AirTag into it and attached it to my backpack.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Apple AirTag 2: Test drive
From the outside, the Apple AirTag 2 is indistinguishable from the original AirTag launched in 2021, but inside it's a whole different story.
Apple replaced significant components, including the ultrawideband chip, which now matches what we've had in the iPhone since 2023 (iPhone 15), and new speakers. Both of these changes are critical to the AirTags 2's biggest updates.
When I learned about the new Apple AirTag, I noted Apple's claims of 1.5x better range and a 50%-louder speaker with some skepticism. Those sounded like big leaps, and I wondered, at first, how I might test them.
The answer was simple, and it resided in my wallet. I simply compared the original AirTag to this new and improved one.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Finding things near and far
The AirTag is useful for finding stuff you've misplaced in your home, but even more impactful when you, or say, your airline has misplaced your luggage, for example. Apple has partnered with dozens of airlines that can now use an AirTag to help locate your lost luggage and let you know it's been found; a reunion with your luggage should soon follow.
Like the original AirTag, the new one can tap into a network of one billion Apple devices to phone home. Basically, an AirTag separated from its owner can ping, for instance, a nearby iPhone, and that connects with the iCloud network to deliver the AirTag's location information (based on that original iPhone's location) back to the owner in the Find My app. All of this information is delivered anonymously, and it's also end-to-end encrypted.
A locally misplaced item can be found via the AirTag's ultrawideband capabilities.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
To be clear, I had no intention of losing my wallet or backpack, but I thought I could test out the new range and audio capabilities.
My house is about 40ft front to back and 50ft diagonally from one corner to the other. I placed my backpack with both the AirTag 1 (in my wallet) and the AirTag 2 in one corner, and then I walked to the opposite, far corner of my house.
In the FindMy app, I started by selecting my wallet and then choosing 'Find' to launch Precision Finding. The app reported that my wallet was 'far' and, though connected, said the signal was weak and suggested I move to a different location.
AirTag (2026): The range is much better.FutureAirTags (First Gen): It works but the range is much shorter.Future
I started walking in the direction of the wallet and AirTag 1. When I was almost two-thirds of the way to its location, the Find My interface picked up the wallet at 22ft away, but could not identify the direction.
It wasn't until I was within six feet of the AirTag 1 that I got directional information, which is a giant white arrow on a green background that points you to your missing bag, wallet, or whatever.
Next, I returned to the far corner of my house and selected the backpack, in which I had placed the AirTag 2.
Even from that location, the phone connected to the AirTag and told me it was 47 feet away. By the time I was just a third of the way across my home (roughly 32ft), Find My started displaying directional information – a significant improvement over the original AirTag.
I reran the test with the wallet and backpack AirTags fully exposed, and the results were the same.
Sound off
The new AirTags are also advertised as being significantly louder than the original tags, thanks to new speakers.
Keeping the AirTags in the same location, I first selected the wallet AirTag in Find My devices and then chose 'Play Sound'. I heard the familiar two-tone sound.
From inside my backpack, I could just make out the muffled dat-dat-da-dat-dat, which plays three times before ceasing.
I made sure the AirTag 2 was similarly seated inside the backpack, and then selected 'Play Sound' for that AirTag. The difference in volume was stark; I could hear it clearly, even over the din of a nearby television. Impressive.
Watch this
If you have an Apple Watch 9 (or above) or Ultra 2, try this with the new AirTag. (Image credit: Future)
The new AirTag also works with the Apple Watch (Series 9 and above or Ultra 2), though enabling it was slightly less intuitive than I'd prefer.
To add an AirTag to your Apple Watch, you open the Control Panel, hit Edit, and then select 'Find AirTag'. The system walks you through selecting a compatible AirTag, in my case, the backpack one, and once that's done it's just a press of your Apple Watch Side Button and a tap on the Find AirTag icon to launch a search for that item.
When I did it on my Apple Watch 9, the screen immediately transformed into a searching graphic similar to what I see in the iPhone Find My app's Precision Finding feature. It instantly showed me how many feet I was from the backpack, and when I started walking toward it, it switched to a circular wayfinder, with one portion of the circle turning bright white to indicate the proper direction. When I arrived at the backpack and its AirTag, the screen turned green with a bright check mark.
While I can't test battery life, you'll be pleased to know that the new AirTag uses the same CR2032 3-volt lithium coin battery, and is rated to last a year. Finally, the IP67 rating remains, which means the AirTag (2026) can handle splashes of water (rain) and dust.
Overall, this is an excellent little update that retains all that's good about the original AirTag, and updates crucial features to make them much more useful when you're trying to find your lost item. And Apple earns extra points for not raising the price or altering the design, which might have forced you to buy new AirTag accessories.
If you’re serious about video capture, there’s a good chance that a gimbal is on your ever-growing shopping list. And if you’re looking for something that can support one of the best cameras for YouTube and general video capture, the Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro is an option you might want to consider.
This is a pro-spec gimbal that comes with a built-in camera for AI subject tracking and remote viewing, a touchscreen remote, impressive battery life, and a respectable 5.51lbs / 2.5kg maximum payload. It’s packed with features, and the Pro kit comes with a range of useful accessories for not much more than the price of the standalone Pro option.
The MT3 Pro even features a detachable 1.4-inch touchscreen remote, which can be used to control the gimbal from up to 32.8ft / 10m, with the ability to see what the AI tracking camera sees. This is fantastic, whether you’re capturing yourself or simply working at a distance from the camera. You can, of course, also access many gimbal settings via the remote, and there’s a mount that attaches the remote to the multi-angle arm that’s included in the pro kit.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: James Abbott)
In terms of build quality, there’s no faulting the MT3 Pro. It feels like a quality product, as you’d hope and expect for the price. It’s a surprisingly compact gimbal considering it has a maximum payload of 5.51lbs / 2.5kg, which is enough to support a range of different cameras and necessary accessories up to some professional options.
The MT3 Pro is comfortable to hold thanks to the contoured grip and the weight of just 2.36lbs / 1.07kg. Plus, the included mini tripod acts as both a stand and an extended handle / grip. The Pro kit also comes with a multi-angle handle, which is perfect for adding stability in ‘side handle mode’ and for capturing low-angle shots in ‘briefcase mode’. Another useful feature is the ability to switch the camera to portrait mode in a matter of seconds, without having to rebalance the gimbal.
A great aspect of the MT3 Pro is that it comes with everything you need to attach and stabilize smartphones, action cameras, compact cameras and larger mirrorless cameras, DSLRs, and video cameras. For most professionals and advanced users, a mirrorless or video camera will be the obvious camera of choice, but you never know when you may need to attach an action camera or smartphone, so this functionality remains useful – if you shoot just with a phone, however, you'll find a better alternative in our best phone gimbals guide which includes Hohem's own iSteady M7 in top spot.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
The camera mount is Arca-Swiss compatible, which means you can attach your camera and camera cage to the gimbal. Like all gimbals, the MT3 Pro conveniently folds flat for transport and storage. Parts of the MT3 Pro are Teflon-coated, intended to make balancing easier when adjusting the tilt, roll and pan arms. The MT3 Pro was easy enough to balance, and the arms certainly moved with ease during the process.
One of the more interesting features is the AI subject tracking for humans, pets, vehicles, and pretty much any subject you might want to capture. The subject tracking works well, incredibly well, when it comes to locking onto subjects as you move around them, or if the subject itself moves – the gimbal will follow. 'Any subject' may seem vague, but during my testing I was able to select literally anything, and the MT3 Pro would dutifully lock on to it.
The gimbal achieves success here thanks to its 2MP AI camera. This not only allows the gimbal to see the subjects it's tracking, but, as previously mentioned, it also provides a live view of what’s happening in front of the camera. It’s not a live feed from the camera, but it remains useful by allowing you to select the subject to be tracked. You can set custom follow speeds to make the MT3 Pro quicker and generally more responsive when required. You can also use hand gestures to control some functionality of the gimbal, which is useful for vloggers.
The Hohem Joy app allows you to perform several tasks, including updating firmware, controlling the gimbal wirelessly, setting up shooting tasks such as timelapses, and smartphone camera control when stabilizing your smartphone. It’s not the best app of its kind, but it could be worse, and I was surprised to find a firmware update available for the pre-sale MT3 Pro I was testing.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
One thing I did find tricky with the MT3 Pro is that some features and functions are tucked away behind multiple button presses, as well as being accessible on the remote. This is fine if you use gimbals daily, but for less frequent users it will take some time to learn what one, two, three or four presses, or a long press, of a button does. Not a dealbreaker, for sure – just something to be aware of.
The Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro is an impressive and useful gimbal thanks to these features and others, including the Spot Mini Motor, which can be set up to add easy motorized focusing of your lens / follow focus. This is only available in the Pro kit. Standard features include control of compatible cameras, and there’s also a built-in light. This has Kelvin and brightness control, and although it’s not the brightest it does add useful fill light in some situations.
This and the AI subject tracking will of course take their toll on battery life, but Hohem claims that the 4350mAh battery can provide up to 20 hours of use when these features aren’t being used. I wasn’t able to fully test that claim, but a single charge did more than cover my testing period, which spanned a couple of weeks and multiple shoots.
Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro review: price and availability
The Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro was announced on January 6 2026, alongside the Hohem iSteady MT3. The latter is a less expensive option with a lower maximum payload and fewer features. The iSteady MT3 models will initially be available in the United States with pre-orders open now. Hohem has suggested that a wider release to the UK, Australia and other regions could follow in March/April.
I reviewed the iSteady MT3 Pro kit, which costs $549, while the iSteady MT3 Pro costs $449. Without listing everything you get in the Pro kit, in addition to what comes with the MT3 Pro, you also receive a carry case, multi-angle handle, a focus motor and associated accessories, among other items, and for just $100 more it's an attractive option. We'll update this page when we have details of pricing and availability for regions outside the US.
Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro review: specs
Dimensions:
Folded: 8.5 x 11.6 x 2.6 inches / 216 x 295 x 65mm / Unfolded: 13.3 x 5.9 x 7.8 inches / 338 x 150 x 199mm
Weight:
2.36lbs / 1070g
Max payload:
5.51lbs / 2.5kg
Verical shooting:
Yes
Compatible phone width:
58 to 90mm
Connectivity:
USB-C / Bluetooth
Battery life:
Up to 20 hours (without AI tracking)
Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro review: also consider
Hohem iSteady M7
If you only need a gimbal for stabilizing your smartphone, the Hohem iSteady M7 can support devices that weigh up to 1.1lbs / 500g, so even the Max and Ultra models of the phone world can be kept steady. It also features a telescopic extension, AI subject tracking and a detachable touchscreen remote.
The DJI RS4 Mini is a more entry-level option than the MT3 Pro, but comes in at a lower price while retaining DJI’s signature quality. It also features AI subject tracking, and a maximum payload of 4.4lbs / 2kg. The arms are on the stiff side when it comes to balancing, but it’s otherwise a worthy consideration if you’re on a budget. DJI also has the pricier RS4 in its range, and more recently announced the RS5.
You want excellent subject tracking The AI-powered subject tracking, along with the live view from the AI camera, is fantastic for keeping your camera locked onto the subject, whether that’s you or anything else.
You use multiple cameras If you shoot with a range of different camera formats, including your smartphone, the MT3 Pro has you covered, with mounts for phones and action cameras included.
You need long battery life With a battery life up to 20 hours when you’re not using AI tracking modes, you should, in theory, be able to get a day’s shooting out of the MT3 Pro.
Don't buy it if...
You only shoot video with a smartphone With its 5.51lbs / 2.5kg maximum payload, this is a gimbal that’s designed to support up to full-frame mirrorless cameras. A phone-only gimbal would be a more cost-effective option if that's all you use.
You’re on a budget The iSteady MT3 Pro certainly isn’t cheap, but you get what you pay for in terms of features. However, if you’re on a budget, less expensive alternatives are available, including the iSteady MT3.
You rarely shoot handheld If you only occasionally shoot handheld, a camera cage with handles could be a great option that saves cash. You will need extremely steady hands, though.
How I tested the Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro
I tested it over a couple of weeks
I paired it with a range of cameras
I tested all of its features
The Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro was tested over a couple of weeks indoors and out, with my smartphone, compact camera and full-frame mirrorless cameras, and with video accessories attached. The gimbal was tested according to what I was shooting, but emphasis was placed upon overall stability and the effectiveness of the AI-powered subject tracking. I also tested the touchscreen remote, the spot mini motor for focus control, and the other accessories included in the kit.
If you’re serious about video capture, there’s a good chance that a gimbal is on your ever-growing shopping list. And if you’re looking for something that can support one of the best cameras for YouTube and general video capture, the Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro is an option you might want to consider.
This is a pro-spec gimbal that comes with a built-in camera for AI subject tracking and remote viewing, a touchscreen remote, impressive battery life, and a respectable 5.51lbs / 2.5kg maximum payload. It’s packed with features, and the Pro kit comes with a range of useful accessories for not much more than the price of the standalone Pro option.
The MT3 Pro even features a detachable 1.4-inch touchscreen remote, which can be used to control the gimbal from up to 32.8ft / 10m, with the ability to see what the AI tracking camera sees. This is fantastic, whether you’re capturing yourself or simply working at a distance from the camera. You can, of course, also access many gimbal settings via the remote, and there’s a mount that attaches the remote to the multi-angle arm that’s included in the pro kit.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: James Abbott)
In terms of build quality, there’s no faulting the MT3 Pro. It feels like a quality product, as you’d hope and expect for the price. It’s a surprisingly compact gimbal considering it has a maximum payload of 5.51lbs / 2.5kg, which is enough to support a range of different cameras and necessary accessories up to some professional options.
The MT3 Pro is comfortable to hold thanks to the contoured grip and the weight of just 2.36lbs / 1.07kg. Plus, the included mini tripod acts as both a stand and an extended handle / grip. The Pro kit also comes with a multi-angle handle, which is perfect for adding stability in ‘side handle mode’ and for capturing low-angle shots in ‘briefcase mode’. Another useful feature is the ability to switch the camera to portrait mode in a matter of seconds, without having to rebalance the gimbal.
A great aspect of the MT3 Pro is that it comes with everything you need to attach and stabilize smartphones, action cameras, compact cameras and larger mirrorless cameras, DSLRs, and video cameras. For most professionals and advanced users, a mirrorless or video camera will be the obvious camera of choice, but you never know when you may need to attach an action camera or smartphone, so this functionality remains useful – if you shoot just with a phone, however, you'll find a better alternative in our best phone gimbals guide which includes Hohem's own iSteady M7 in top spot.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
The camera mount is Arca-Swiss compatible, which means you can attach your camera and camera cage to the gimbal. Like all gimbals, the MT3 Pro conveniently folds flat for transport and storage. Parts of the MT3 Pro are Teflon-coated, intended to make balancing easier when adjusting the tilt, roll and pan arms. The MT3 Pro was easy enough to balance, and the arms certainly moved with ease during the process.
One of the more interesting features is the AI subject tracking for humans, pets, vehicles, and pretty much any subject you might want to capture. The subject tracking works well, incredibly well, when it comes to locking onto subjects as you move around them, or if the subject itself moves – the gimbal will follow. 'Any subject' may seem vague, but during my testing I was able to select literally anything, and the MT3 Pro would dutifully lock on to it.
The gimbal achieves success here thanks to its 2MP AI camera. This not only allows the gimbal to see the subjects it's tracking, but, as previously mentioned, it also provides a live view of what’s happening in front of the camera. It’s not a live feed from the camera, but it remains useful by allowing you to select the subject to be tracked. You can set custom follow speeds to make the MT3 Pro quicker and generally more responsive when required. You can also use hand gestures to control some functionality of the gimbal, which is useful for vloggers.
The Hohem Joy app allows you to perform several tasks, including updating firmware, controlling the gimbal wirelessly, setting up shooting tasks such as timelapses, and smartphone camera control when stabilizing your smartphone. It’s not the best app of its kind, but it could be worse, and I was surprised to find a firmware update available for the pre-sale MT3 Pro I was testing.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: James Abbott)
One thing I did find tricky with the MT3 Pro is that some features and functions are tucked away behind multiple button presses, as well as being accessible on the remote. This is fine if you use gimbals daily, but for less frequent users it will take some time to learn what one, two, three or four presses, or a long press, of a button does. Not a dealbreaker, for sure – just something to be aware of.
The Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro is an impressive and useful gimbal thanks to these features and others, including the Spot Mini Motor, which can be set up to add easy motorized focusing of your lens / follow focus. This is only available in the Pro kit. Standard features include control of compatible cameras, and there’s also a built-in light. This has Kelvin and brightness control, and although it’s not the brightest it does add useful fill light in some situations.
This and the AI subject tracking will of course take their toll on battery life, but Hohem claims that the 4350mAh battery can provide up to 20 hours of use when these features aren’t being used. I wasn’t able to fully test that claim, but a single charge did more than cover my testing period, which spanned a couple of weeks and multiple shoots.
Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro review: price and availability
The Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro was announced on January 6 2026, alongside the Hohem iSteady MT3. The latter is a less expensive option with a lower maximum payload and fewer features. The iSteady MT3 models will initially be available in the United States with pre-orders open now. Hohem has suggested that a wider release to the UK, Australia and other regions could follow in March/April.
I reviewed the iSteady MT3 Pro kit, which costs $549, while the iSteady MT3 Pro costs $449. Without listing everything you get in the Pro kit, in addition to what comes with the MT3 Pro, you also receive a carry case, multi-angle handle, a focus motor and associated accessories, among other items, and for just $100 more it's an attractive option. We'll update this page when we have details of pricing and availability for regions outside the US.
Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro review: specs
Dimensions:
Folded: 8.5 x 11.6 x 2.6 inches / 216 x 295 x 65mm / Unfolded: 13.3 x 5.9 x 7.8 inches / 338 x 150 x 199mm
Weight:
2.36lbs / 1070g
Max payload:
5.51lbs / 2.5kg
Verical shooting:
Yes
Compatible phone width:
58 to 90mm
Connectivity:
USB-C / Bluetooth
Battery life:
Up to 20 hours (without AI tracking)
Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro review: also consider
Hohem iSteady M7
If you only need a gimbal for stabilizing your smartphone, the Hohem iSteady M7 can support devices that weigh up to 1.1lbs / 500g, so even the Max and Ultra models of the phone world can be kept steady. It also features a telescopic extension, AI subject tracking and a detachable touchscreen remote.
The DJI RS4 Mini is a more entry-level option than the MT3 Pro, but comes in at a lower price while retaining DJI’s signature quality. It also features AI subject tracking, and a maximum payload of 4.4lbs / 2kg. The arms are on the stiff side when it comes to balancing, but it’s otherwise a worthy consideration if you’re on a budget. DJI also has the pricier RS4 in its range, and more recently announced the RS5.
You want excellent subject tracking The AI-powered subject tracking, along with the live view from the AI camera, is fantastic for keeping your camera locked onto the subject, whether that’s you or anything else.
You use multiple cameras If you shoot with a range of different camera formats, including your smartphone, the MT3 Pro has you covered, with mounts for phones and action cameras included.
You need long battery life With a battery life up to 20 hours when you’re not using AI tracking modes, you should, in theory, be able to get a day’s shooting out of the MT3 Pro.
Don't buy it if...
You only shoot video with a smartphone With its 5.51lbs / 2.5kg maximum payload, this is a gimbal that’s designed to support up to full-frame mirrorless cameras. A phone-only gimbal would be a more cost-effective option if that's all you use.
You’re on a budget The iSteady MT3 Pro certainly isn’t cheap, but you get what you pay for in terms of features. However, if you’re on a budget, less expensive alternatives are available, including the iSteady MT3.
You rarely shoot handheld If you only occasionally shoot handheld, a camera cage with handles could be a great option that saves cash. You will need extremely steady hands, though.
How I tested the Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro
I tested it over a couple of weeks
I paired it with a range of cameras
I tested all of its features
The Hohem iSteady MT3 Pro was tested over a couple of weeks indoors and out, with my smartphone, compact camera and full-frame mirrorless cameras, and with video accessories attached. The gimbal was tested according to what I was shooting, but emphasis was placed upon overall stability and the effectiveness of the AI-powered subject tracking. I also tested the touchscreen remote, the spot mini motor for focus control, and the other accessories included in the kit.
If you leave aside the why, the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is unquestionably a remarkable design achievement, even more so when you consider the state of folding phone art just seven short years ago.
The Galaxy Z TriFold is, after all, the great-grandchild of Samsung's original Fold, a woe-begotten device that almost single-handedly ended the category. Samsung, however, swiftly iterated, rapidly making its folding devices thinner, lighter, sturdier, and infinitely more attractive.
Virtually everything Samsung learned from that journey is on display in the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold, a powerful, thin, relatively light, and somewhat amazing device that forces you to ask yourself why you might want to keep a 10-inch tablet in your pocket.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
I finally got to hold and briefly play with the TriFold at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, where the phone made its US debut, and I came away impressed at its thinness when unfolded, its compactness when folded twice, its relatively lightweight nature, and the hints of power and even camera performance.
There's much we still need to learn, such as when it will start shipping outside Korea, and what it will cost (most estimate that $2,400 is a good starting point), and how well it will hold up to real-world use.
Even so, my overall impression is of a well-built, high-quality device that effectively answers the question of whether it's possible to have both a 6.5-inch phone and a 10-inch tablet in one compact device.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold: price and specs
In Korea the Galaxy Z TriFold starts at 3.59 million KRW, which equates to roughly $2,500 but it's hard to know if that will have any bearing on the final price, which could be significantly higher than that conversion or a bit lower. We'll have to wait until Samsung starts shipping the device outside its home market to find out.
The base model comes with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, and there's no option for more storage, which is a bit of a shame. It's possible Samsung may revisit storage options at a later date, once it sees how the Korean market responds to the singular option (early reports are that the small initial run of Z Trifold stock quickly sold out).
Ultimately, while the Galaxy Z TriFold might cost as much as a well-appointed laptop, it's difficult to compare it to other foldables since this is a tri-folding device, unlike the Pixel 10 Pro Fold or even its own cousin, the Galaxy Z Fold 7. You get a lot more screen, and arguably a lot more engineering, for your money.
Samsung Galaxy TriFold specs
Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7
Dimensions (folded):
75.0 x 159.2 x 12.9mm
72.8 x 158.4 x 8.9mm
Dimensions (unfolded):
214.1 x 159.2 x 3.9mm (center screen only) Button side: 4.0mm SIM tray side: 4.2mm
143.2 x 158.4 x 4.2mm
Weight:
309g
215g
Main display:
10-inch QXGA+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X
(2160 x 1584 - 269ppi), adaptive refresh rate (1-120Hz)
8-inch QXGA+ Dynamic AMOLED
(2184 x 1968), adaptive refresh rate (1~120Hz)
Cover display::
6.5-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X
(2520 x 1080 422ppi), adaptive refresh rate (1-120Hz)
6.5-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED
2x display (2520 x 1080, 21:9), adaptive refresh rate (1~120Hz)
Chipset:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Mobile Platform for Galaxy
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Mobile Platform for Galaxy
RAM:
16GB
12GB / 16GB (1TB model only)
Storage:
512GB
256GB / 512GB / 1TB
OS:
Android 16 / One UI 8
Android 16 / One UI 8
Primary camera:
200MP f1.7
200MP f1.7
Ultrawide camera:
12MP f2.2
12MP f2.2
Telephoto
3x 10MP f2.4
3x 10MP f2.4
Cover Camera:
10MP f2.2
10MP f2.2
Inner Camera:
10MP f2.2
10MP f2.2
Battery:
5,600mAh
4,400mAh
Charging:
50% in 30 mins with 45W fast charger (wired)
30 mins with 25W adapter (wired)
Colors:
Crafted Black
Blue Shadow, Silver Shadow and Jetblack [Samsung.com Exclusive] Mint
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold preview: design
Thin and elegant when unfolded
Folded, it's compact, a little thick, and heavier than your average flagship
Premium materials
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The Galaxy Z TriFold is another design triumph for Samsung in the foldable phone space. Yes, there are two hinges in this tightly wound product rather than one, but nothing about the execution feels incomplete or half-realized.
First of all, Samsung made the smart choice of designing the TriFold so that you fold in one side, then the other to fully protect the flexible 10-inch main screen when it's not in use. This is in contrast to Honor's Magic Triple foldable, which is designed so that one portion of its flexible display wraps over one of the hinges.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Samsung knows better. It's put so much thought and effort into how this device folds that the TriFold throws up a full-screen warning (and vibrates the device) if you're in danger of folding it incorrectly,
Yes, you heard that right: there is a right way and a very wrong way to fold the Z TriFold. It's always the left side first and then the right side on top of that. The three-segment stack then holds together tightly, so much so that it feels like one solid 12.9mm-thick unit.
Unfolded, each of the TriFold's three segments has a slightly different thickness, with the center section, at 3.9mm, being the thinnest. The other two are closer in thickness to the unfolded Z Fold 7: roughly 4.2mm.
In tablet mode, the TriFold lies almost perfectly flat, save for the camera bump. In general, the TriFold resists any attempt to keep it partially folded or unfolded; you either use it fully folded and focus on the cover screen, or unfold it as a tablet.
Folded, the TriFold resembles its cousin, the Z Fold 7, though at 309g it's substantially heavier. Unfolded, it's like the world's thinnest 10-inch tablet. Samsung, by the way, has done a remarkable job of hiding the flexible screen creases. Not only are they barely visible, but I could scarcely feel them.
The Galaxy Z TriFold is only available in one color for now: Crafted Black, which I liked, even if every surface of the TriFold appeared to be a fingerprint magnet.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold: displays
Relatively roomy and bright cover display
Expansive 10-inch tablet main display
Both screens offer high resolutions and snappy, variable refresh rates
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
While I didn't get a lot of time with the Galaxy Z TriFold, I can tell you that both screens are beautiful and responsive. I like that the 6.5-inch cover display doesn't feel cramped, and I don't mind the 10MP selfie camera cutout.
The flexible main display is huge, and qualifies as the first truly foldable, pocketable 10-inch tablet (it also has a small punch-out for a 10MP selfie camera, but that all but disappears on the huge screen). The display is not only fast, it's the perfect place to try out all sorts of multi-tasking and multi-desktop tricks. It's also a capable second screen for a Windows desktop, much more exciting to use than a mere Android smartphone.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Galaxy AI works especially well on the larger screen, where we used it to remove some people from a complex image during our demo session. What's notable is that the big screen can show you both the original and the AI-edited images at once in a perfectly-synced side-by-side view.
I'm sure people will be blown away when you pull this phone out, unfold it, and get to work. As for me, I did a little drawing on it with my finger, but I did long for S Pen support. However, like the Z Fold 7, the Z TriFold lacks a digitizing layer (there's no room for it at this thickness), so I'll have to be satisfied with finger or analog stylus input, at least on this first model.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold: cameras
200MP sensor is now the benchmark for Samsung foldables
Zoom is a little underpowered
Decent selfie cameras
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
With the Z Trifiold, Samsung has essentially matched the camera system found on its other big-screen foldable, the Z Fold 7. Here's what you get:
200MP wide
12MP ultra-wide
10MP 3x telephoto
10MP cover-screen
10MP main-screen
It's a good system. The 200MP camera takes great photos, and I doubt anyone will be disappointed with the 12MP ultrawide and pair of 10MP selfie cameras. I do wish the 10x telephoto offered more than 3x optical zoom, but it's still, even in my limited experience with the device, a decent shooter.
I can't say much more about the cameras because I only shot with them in a small, controlled space, but I would not be surprised if they all perform similarly to their equivalents on on the Z Fold 7.
(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold: Software and AI
The phone will ship with Android 16
All the expected Google Gemini integration is here
This is another Android 16 system running One UI 8 or above. It's a really good platform with useful widgets and daily digests.
The two AI platforms – Samsung Galaxy AI and Google Gemini – are as deeply integrated here as they are in all other recent Galaxy-grade smartphones.
However, other than trying the Galaxy AI image editing, I didn't get to try any other AI features. I don't expect any surprises here, though, and I'm pretty certain that virtually all the AI features will look better, and in some cases work better, on the 10-inch display.
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Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold: Performance and battery
Custom Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor
Even more base RAM than the Z Fold 7
Battery is split into three modules and, at 5,600mAh, it's huge
As with the Galaxy S25 line and the Z Fold 7, the new Z TriFold is packing the top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy. That means it's a customized CPU build that ups the GHz just a bit, which may result in better performance than you'd get from an Android phone running the standard mobile CPU.
Backing it with 16GB was a pretty smart move, too, since it'll help support all those onboard AI operations.
The system starts and ends with 512GB of storage. There's no option for a terabyte, which is surprising since this handset is so obviously aimed at business and enterprise users.
As for how well it performs, in my brief hands-on time every operation was smooth and fast – but then I didn't have the chance to really put the Galaxy Z TriFold through its paces.
The TriFold splits its large 5,600mAh battery across the device's three segments. As for what that means for battery life in daily use, we'll have to wait for our full review.
Overall, though, the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold impresses with expert design and engineering, big-screen productivity, and a flagship-level cover screen, all at a still truly pocketable size. Let's just hope it's not widely expensive.
What makes a great sequel? Across film, gaming, and indeed smartphones, the best follow-ups carry forward and amplify the good things while dialing down any pretension. In the phone world, this means zeroing in on the features and functions that give a phone its purpose.
That’s exactly what Oppo has done with the Find X9 Pro. It takes everything great about last year’s Oppo Find X8 Pro and dials it up to 11, while ditching the idea that this is anything other than an iPhone 17 Pro Max for Android lovers. It's both simpler and somehow more obscenely powerful than its predecessor, and I, for one, love it.
Now sporting a drastically simplified flat-edged design, flat display, and top-left-mounted square camera housing, the Find X9 Pro resembles an iPhone more than any other Oppo phone before it, but the Chinese tech giant is banking on the idea that if you’re willing to spend pro-flagship prices on an Android phone, that’s not too big a deal.
For all its cool designs over the years, the Find X series has always been defined by hardware power – and more recently, extremely powerful camera systems – so it’s quite something that the Find X9 Pro still managed to surprise me with its specs sheet. The phone is one of the first to ship with the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset, alongside a healthy 16GB of RAM, and a ludicrously large 7,500mAh silicon-carbon battery with 80W wired charging. It's almost excessively performant, but can get a bit hot in even moderate use.
But what about that camera system? The Oppo Find X9 Pro has a 50MP main camera, 50MP ultra-wide camera, and – brace for impact – a 200MP telephoto camera with 3x zoom. That super-high-res sensor allows for a 50MP crop at 6x, which helps make up for the loss of the dedicated 50MP 6x camera from last year’s model, and a 12MP crop at 13.2x zoom. And that’s not even mentioning the detachable 10x zoom lens – you’ll have to read on for my thoughts on that.
In adequate lighting, the main camera defaults to 50MP shots rather than binning to 12MP as most phone cameras do, and a special mode allows for 200MP full-res shots with the telephoto camera. The capability here is immense, but unfortunately, Oppo’s post-processing is still a bit too aggressive, sometimes veering into AI-flavored reconstruction.
For the Star Wars fans out there, the Oppo Find X9 Pro is the Empire Strikes Back of smartphone successors – bigger, brasher, and close to objectively better than last year’s Oppo Find X8 Pro. Yes, polishing the experience has buffed out some of the quirky charm of last year’s model – I especially miss the vinyl-like rear panel, which has been replaced with glass – but the final product is so much greater than the sum of its parts that this simply ceases to matter.
This is a superb phone that would immediately rank amongst the best phones on the market, were it not for its tragically limited availability. As with previous Oppo phones, no US release is expected.
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Price and availability
The Oppo Find X9 Pro in the Oppo Aramid Fiber Case (sold separately) (Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
Not available in the US
Costs £1,099 / AU$2,299
One configuration with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage
Despite launching “globally”, the Oppo Find X9 Pro is unavailable through official channels in the US. It is, however, available in the UK and Australia, where it competes with and slightly undercuts other large pro-grade flagship phones when it comes to price.
The Oppo Find X9 Pro costs £1,099 / AU$2,299 for its single configuration. For that, you get 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
At face value, that price is about right for a large Pro-labelled camera phone, but as usual, Oppo is actually offering great value for money. Compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max – an obvious analogue to the Find X9 Pro, not to mention an influence – the Find X9 is £100 less with double the storage in the UK. In Australia, the Find X9 Pro comes in at AU$300 cheaper than the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 512GB of storage.
Let’s keep it real: the Oppo Find X9 Pro isn’t cheap, but it's a pretty good deal compared to its plus-sized, Pro-powered camera phone contemporaries. It’s a shame it’s not more widely available, which will probably keep it off our lists of the best camera phones, best AI phones, best Android phones, and more. I’d expect to see it top our list of the best Oppo phones soon, though.
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Specs
In this review, I’ll go through the Oppo Find X9 Pro’s features and capabilities in detail, but if you just want an overview of the phone’s key specs, check out the handy table below.
Dimensions:
161.3 x 76.5 x 8.3mm
Weight:
224g
Display:
6.78-inch AMOLED
Resolution:
1272 x 2772 pixels
Refresh rate:
120Hz
Chipset:
MediaTek Dimensity 9500
Rear cameras:
50MP main + 50MP ultra-wide + 200MP telephoto (3x)
Front camera:
50MP
Storage:
512GB
RAM:
16GB
OS (at launch):
Android 16 with ColorOS 16
Battery:
7,500mAh
Charging:
80W wired, 50W wireless
Value score: 4 / 5
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Design
(Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
Comes in two colors – Silk White and Titanium Charcoal (named as such despite the phone containing no titanium)
Flat edges, flat display, flat rear panel
Square camera housing
With its flat edges, rounded corners, and almost square camera housing in the top-left corner, there are no prizes for guessing where Oppo got its inspiration for the Find X9 Pro's design. This is probably as close as a phone maker can legally get to the iPhone before Cupertino starts asking questions.
Specifically, the Find X9 Pro resembles last year’s iPhone 16 Pro Max. Its Snap Key and Quick Button are echoes of the Action Button and Camera Control and serve similar, if not identical, functions, and the curvature and overall ergonomics of the phone are reminiscent of last year’s Apple flagship (why the "Snap" key doesn't control the camera is lost on me).
As on OnePlus phones, the Snap Key replaces the ringer switch from last year’s model. While I was a fan of the convenience of the ringer switch, the modularity of the new button helps to make up for it. It's set to the new AI Mind Space feature by default, but I mostly had it set to control the flashlight.
The Find X9 Pro is beautifully made. My review unit came in the striking Silk While finish with a matte glass rear panel and satisfyingly bold aluminum rails. I’m a big fan of how subtle the branding is, too. The Oppo logo and Hasselblad icon on the camera housing only show up as light hits them, which gives the phone a sense of prestige.
As for the front panel, the 6.78-inch screen is surrounded on all sides by 1.15mm bezels that barely feel present during use. A punch-hole selfie camera sits at the top of the display. There’s also the standard power and volume buttons on the right side of the phone, and a USB-C port on the bottom edge by the main speakers. Unfortunately, I noticed some wobble in the buttons after just a few weeks of use, which isn’t the most encouraging thing to see.
At 8.3mm, the Find X9 Pro is barely thicker than last year’s Find X8 Pro, but feels a lot heftier due to its flattened sides. I think this makes the phone easier to take photos with, considering the location of the Quick Button, but I’ve got large hands – your mileage may vary. Overall, the Find X9 Pro is a good-looking phone, but doesn’t leave as much of an impression as the marbled design of the Find X8 Pro or the faux-leather body of the Find X6 Pro before that. It trades originality for subtlety, and I’m not sure that’s an equivalent exchange.
Design score: 3 / 5
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Display
(Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
6.78-inch display
1272 x 2772 resolution
120Hz refresh rate with 3600 nits of peak brightness
The Oppo Find X9 Pro’s display is second only to its camera system in the list of its best features. This is a huge, bright, sharp, and immersive panel that makes photos, videos, and games look vivid while providing plenty of room for browsing, scrolling, and even multitasking.
The Find X9 Pro’s display feels truly immersive. At 6.78 inches, it’s almost as large as the iPhone 17 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which have 6.9-inch panels, though to be honest, the Find X9 Pro is about as large as I’d want a phone to be. Its flat edges make the panel feel much more present and consistent than last year’s Find X8 Pro, but make using the phone a touch less comfortable, especially when dragging in gestures from the edges.
At a resolution of 1272 x 2772 pixels and a pixel density of 450ppi, the Find X9 Pro’s display is sharp and detailed, and its maximum typical brightness of 1800 nits is plenty bright for indoor or outdoor use (brightness peaks to 3600 nits for HDR media). It also gets down to a single nit at its minimum brightness – handy for use at night or in darker environments.
The display cycles at a static 120Hz, which works synergistically with ColorOS’ brilliant animation processing to offer a super-smooth UI experience. The display is unfailingly bright. Colors may be a touch less saturated than other flagship handsets, but not to a problematic degree. The settings app has a full section dedicated to color balance, too, so you can fine-tune the visuals to your liking.
The Find X9 Pro’s display is calibrated for balance out of the box, but the settings app is rich with color and brightness settings.
Display score: 5 / 5
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Cameras
(Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
50MP main camera
200MP telephoto camera with 3x zoom
50MP ultra-wide camera
50MP selfie camera
The Oppo Find X9 Pro has one of the most powerful camera systems you’ll find on any phone. Its 50MP main camera with a large 1/1.28-inch sensor picks up an excellent amount of light and detail. Its 200MP telephoto camera, with 3x relative optical zoom, can take full-resolution photos and reach into double-digit zoom lengths with a solid amount of detail. Its 50MP ultra-wide camera is sensibly relegated to third place but still produces great pictures in good conditions, and its 50MP selfie camera is a real step up from the Find X8 Pro’s 32MP sensor.
Taking photos is comfortable and enjoyable with the Find X9 Pro. I’m a big fan of the Quick Button, Oppo’s answer to the iPhone’s Camera Control, which is easy to work with thanks to the phone’s general bulk and flat aluminum chassis. The camera app is clean and keeps all the important settings within immediate reach or under a single menu, while the large display makes for a great viewfinder. As for video, the Find X9 Pro can shoot at a maximum of 4K at 120fps, or 1080p at 240fps.
The Find X9 Pro will default to taking full-resolution photos with its 50MP main camera, as long as the phone judges there's enough light around. That leads to more detailed photos, but it also takes up more storage. Similar is the new 4K motion photo capability, which ups the resolution of the video clip taken with each image, but again takes up more space.
So far, so good, but there is unfortunately a catch – Oppo has filled its image processing pipeline with what appears to be some pretty aggressive AI, which is hard to anticipate and impossible to switch off. At all ranges, there's a chance your image may become a mess of swirls and smudges as the AI image signal processing tries to replicate what you saw through the viewfinder. This seems to happen whether the AI Telescope Zoom feature is turned on or off.
Shooting on the Find X9 Pro is a joy, but aggressive post-processing can make it hard to predict how the final image will look. (Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
That means that photography on the Find X9 Pro is intermittently transcendent and frustrating. When it’s good, the Find X9 Pro captures brilliant photos that contend with those taken on the best camera phones – dynamic, rich in detail, and naturally vivid. But every now and then, you’ll scroll through the gallery and find something that looks like it came straight out of the early days of Dall-E mini. It’s not too common, but it is unpredictable, which is almost worse.
In terms of photo-focused accessories, the Oppo Find X9 Pro launches alongside the Oppo Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit, which requires the Aramid Fiber Photography Case. The kit centers on an attachable telephoto lens that extends the reach of the telephoto camera to 10x, resulting in genuinely breathtaking images. It’s a beautiful and confusing thing to capture this much detail with a phone camera system.
However, the teleconverter kit isn’t available in the UK or Australia, so it doesn’t impact the score here – you can read my Oppo Find X9 Pro camera impressions for more on that. Still, even without a huge attachable zoom lens, the Find X9 Pro’s camera system is brilliant – yet I can’t ignore how much its aggressive post-processing annoys me.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Camera Samples
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Camera score: 4 / 5
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Software and AI
(Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
Android 16 with ColorOS 16
Possibly the smoothest Android wrapper
AI Mind Space is well executed
The Oppo Find X9 Pro ships with ColorOS 16, built on Android 16, and like ColorOS 15, it’s a smooth and well-formatted Android wrapper that takes obvious influence from iOS. You’ll notice Liquid Glass-style transparency effects, rounded square app icons, and a near-identical control center to the one found on an iPhone. But the outsider Oppo Find X9 Pro isn’t trying to compete with the iPhone – it’s trying to provide an alternative for Android enthusiasts, and under that lens, the aesthetic choices make sense.
If it seems like I’m being lenient on Oppo for jacking Apple’s style, it’s because I can’t get over how well ColorOS 16 runs. ColorOS (and by extension OxygenOS, the OnePlus equivalent) is the most performant and smoothest-running Android wrapper I’ve ever used. Thanks to parallel processing, several UI animations can run at the same time, and I like the way app windows and other elements react to your inputs.
This is the other end of the scale from the stiffness of Samsung’s One UI, and while some may find ColorOS feels a bit loose, for me, it’s the perfect way to keep things feeling fast and reactive.
That’s not to say ColorOS is perfect; there are some quirks. The one that appears most often is the Snap Key triggering things on screen – it seems the software registers a long press as some kind of input – not a dealbreaker by any means, but a strange oversight for a premium phone. And the Find X9 Pro comes with the usual folders of suggested apps (read: advertisements) and a handful of preinstalled bloatware apps, which is completely unacceptable on a phone that costs £1,099.
Unfortunate bloatware aside, the big-ticket software item on the Find X9 Pro is AI Mind Space, a transplant of OnePlus’ AI Plus Mind feature that launched earlier this year. The concept is a good one – a dedicated space for your various notes, screenshots, and digital ephemera that uses AI to pick out the important stuff.
AI Mind Space is bound to the Snap Key by default, with a short press taking a screenshot and scanning for information, and a long press recording an audio message. AI Mind Space can also be paired with Google Gemini to merge your assorted memories with the phone’s onboard Google AI tools. Even as an AI skeptic, I like AI Mind Space – it’s an intelligent and well-presented home for the disparate notes, screenshots, and audio recordings I make on a daily basis. You can also add your own notes to each memory, which is useful for context that the straightforward AI screenreader can’t gather.
It’s also worth giving O+ Connect a mention, Oppo’s app for cross-platform file management and remote control, specifically with Mac computers. It’s no replacement for AirDrop, but it is nice to have the option of easier cross-platform collaboration if you need to send something to a Mac-wielding friend or, like me, run a hybrid Android/MacOS everyday carry.
Software and AI score: 4 / 5
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Performance
(Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)
MediaTek 9500 chipset
16GB of RAM
Performs admirably in a variety of tasks
The Oppo Find X9 Pro is one of the first phones in the world to launch with the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset. Taiwan-based chipset manufacturer MediaTek has been a growing name in the mobile industry for a while, and the Dimensity 9500 delivers. The Find X9 Pro is fast and fluid in pretty much any scenario, and even with multiple apps open and on-screen I couldn’t find a way to slow it down.
For web browsing and social media, using the Find X9 Pro is like driving to the grocery store in a tank, but when things heat up, that extra power really comes in handy. Things do literally heat up, though, as I noticed the Find X9 Pro getting a bit toasty at times – understandable during long gaming sessions or when pushing the camera system, but a little puzzling when swiping through Instagram.
As for memory, the Find X9 Pro comes in a single configuration, with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and both feel plentiful. That large RAM budget gives the phone flexibility when it comes to multitasking and AI – I noticed that I rarely had to reload pages or apps. And 512GB of storage is, in my opinion, more than enough for any smartphone – though the camera’s high-resolution imaging modes will fill up that space pretty quickly.
Everything about the Find X9 Pro is just fast. The in-display fingerprint scanner is basically instant. Installing and opening apps is painless; I can hop into Call of Duty or Fortnite or Capcut and trust things will just work, which, to me, is the ideal phone experience. Accessing the camera is fast thanks to the Quick Button. And thus far, I haven't encountered any crashes or experience-breaking glitches. The phone does get hot intermittently, which I’m keeping an eye on, and if I can get really nitpicky, the speakers are a little too sibilant for my preference. Otherwise, the Find X9 Pro excels.
Performance score: 4/5
Oppo Find X9 Pro review: Battery
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7,500mAh silicon-carbon battery – almost as large as an 11-inch iPad
80W wired charging
50W wireless charging
The Oppo Find X9 Pro has a 7,500mAh silicon-carbon battery. There are no adjectives I could use to accurately convey how huge that is, so let’s get into some comparisons.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max with e-SIM has a 5,088mAh battery. These are considered excellent battery capacities by phone standards.
The Oppo Find X8 Pro managed an impressive 5,910mAh, while the OnePlus 13, which we showered with praise for its fantastic battery life, has a 6,000mAh battery. That’s quite a bit larger than the average phone battery already, but the Oppo Find X9 Pro blows both of these flagships out of the water.
The Find X9 Pro’s battery is so large that it makes more sense to compare it to tablets. According to PhoneArena, the 2025 base-model iPad has a 7,698mAh battery, which is fractionally larger than the battery in the Oppo Find X9 Pro. Holding the two devices side by side makes this feel physically impossible, but Oppo has leveraged the energy density and capacity benefits of silicon-carbon technology to make it so. It’s a serious engineering win that other phone makers should look to for inspiration.
As you might expect, battery life is unfailingly excellent. I frequently got one and a half or even two full days of use from the Oppo Find X9 Pro, and support for 80W SuperVOOC charging (that’s proprietary Oppo charging tech, so not all high-wattage chargers will deliver it) meant top-ups were pretty swift too. I would often plug in the Find X9 Pro to charge, look away for what felt like no time at all, and come back to an additional 40% charge, and topping up from empty to full took no more than an hour.
Battery score: 5/5
Should you buy the Oppo Find X9 Pro?
Oppo Find X9 Pro score card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
The Oppo Find X9 Pro isn't cheap, but it steadily undercuts its closest mainstream competition
4 / 5
Design
Without the quirky materials and curved frame of last year's model, the Find X9 Pro is left feeling a little unoriginal. Superb build quality, though.
3 / 5
Display
A terrific display made all the more immersive by new flat edges and a sharp resolution.
5 / 5
Software
Bloatware is inexcusable at this price point, and there are a few quirks to smooth out, but, damn, ColorOS 16 is just so smooth.
4 / 5
Camera
The Find X9 Pro comes equipped with an overpowered camera system that opens a world of photo possibilities. Aggressive post-processing adds annoying guesswork to shoots.
4 / 5
Performance
Oppo has done its thing and equipped the Find X9 Pro with a handful of very powerful internal components. No complaints other than a bit of occasional heat.
4 / 5
Battery
A 7,500mAh cell means the Find X9 Pro is in a league of its own when it comes to battery life. Charging is quick, considering the massive capacity.
5 / 5
Buy it if
You want a powerful camera phone
If you can bear with its occasionally aggressive post-processing, the Oppo Find X9 Pro's camera system is one of the most powerful on the market, and takes fabulous photos. View Deal
You want a huge battery
The Oppo Find X9 Pro's battery is so large it'll make you rethink the way you approach charging, and how much battery life is enough for a day's use. Ludicrously good. View Deal
Don't buy it if
You want something familiar
Oppo has created a powerful phone with a great software experience, but it'll be harder to find others using the same platform if that matters to you. View Deal
You don't need loads of power
Despite offering pretty good value for money, the Find X9 Pro is mighty expensive. If you're not a power user, there are cheaper and more suitable options, such as the OnePlus 13R listed below. View Deal
Also consider
iPhone 17 Pro Max
The Oppo Find X9 Pro takes so much inspiration from the iPhone 16 Pro Max that anyone who isn’t a diehard Android fan should give the latter’s current-gen counterpart some consideration. Apple’s latest big flagship is the company’s best camera phone ever, and it produces excellent photos despite boasting lower-resolution sensors than the Find X9 Pro. You also get access to the App Store and easier networking with MacBooks and other Apple devices.
Want a beastly Android camera phone but need a more familiar interface and a more developed ecosystem than Oppo can offer? The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra could be for you. Its quad-camera setup is one of the best on the market, while the 6.8-inch display and built-in S Pen make it a great productivity tool.
The Oppo Find X9 Pro is a heavyweight, both in its build and its ability. If you’d rather have something a touch lighter in the hand and on the pockets, the OnePlus 13R is a great choice. With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, 12GB of RAM, and a genuinely great camera system, the OnePlus 13R is a cheaper flagship with few compromises.
I used the Oppo Find X9 Pro over the course of a month, putting it through daily use and a number of specific performance and charging tests. I made and received calls, chatted over SMS, WhatsApp, and social media, took plenty of photos and videos, and played games like Fortnite and Call of Duty Mobile. I also tried out AI Mind Space.
Before completing this review, I adopted the Oppo Find X9 Pro as my daily driver, then combined my experience with the phone with my journalistic training and knowledge of the phone industry to provide an accurate assessment.
With the Honor Magic 8 Lite, the battery is undoubtedly the star of the show. It has the same massive 7,500 mAh capacity as the Oppo Find X9 Pro, but when combined with its lower-end energy-efficient chip, it lasts even longer. I'm not exaggerating when I say that four days on a single charge is quite easy to achieve with this phone.
The Magic 8 Lite's construction has been significantly upgraded this year, too. It now carries the highest possible IP rating, so dust and water will pose no threat, while a shock-resistant frame and reinforced tempered glass should keep it fairly safe from drops.
The phone's display is another highlight, and it ticks all the most important boxes. It's bright, has a speedy 120Hz refresh rate, supports PWM dimming, and has slim symmetrical bezels all the way around.
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Unfortunately, the Magic 8 Lite's performance isn't quite so impressive. You'll see the occasional stutter when you're going about your daily business, and you'll need to use very low graphics settings to get a playable experience in modern games.
The cameras, too, left me wanting more. Honor hasn't upgraded the camera hardware on its Magic Lite series for the last few generations, and while the main sensor on this latest model is quite good, the ultra-wide is pretty terrible.
The software won't be to everyone's taste (and it's not fully up to date), but it has some genuinely useful features, as well as some neat AI tricks that are often reserved for pricier flagship phones. I found it very easy to live with.
So, whether the Magic 8 Lite is right for you will all depend on your priorities. As a photographer and a gamer, I didn't have the greatest time with Magic 8 Lite, but not everyone is like me. Battery life is the number one concern for many users, and that's one area where the Magic 8 Lite will definitely not disappoint.
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Price and availability
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Announced on December 8, 2025
Coming to the UK and Europe in January
Not available in the US
The Honor Magic 8 Lite was announced on December 8, 2025, and is expected to begin shipping in the UK and Europe in January. As usual for Honor products, it won't be coming to the US.
Honor hasn't confirmed official pricing just yet, but with the Magic 7 Lite retailing for £399 at launch, I'd expect the Magic 8 Lite to cost a similar amount.
If so, that would put it in league with big-name rivals like the Samsung Galaxy A56 and Google Pixel 9a, though the Magic 8 Lite already stands out by offering the biggest battery of the three, as well as an IP69K rating.
Value score: TBC
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Specs
Here's a look at the Honor Magic 8 Lite's key specs:
Honor Magic 8 Lite
Dimensions
161.9 x 76.1 x 7.76mm
Weight
189g
OS
MagicOS 9, based on Android 15
Display
6.79-inch OLED, 120Hz
Resolution
2640 x 1200 pixels
Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4
RAM
8GB
Storage
256GB / 512GB
Battery
7500mAh
Rear cameras
108MP (f/1.75) main, 5MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide
Front camera
16MP (f/2.45)
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Design
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Plastic frame with 6-layer drop-resistant structure
Forest Green, Midnight Black, and Reddish Brown options
IP68/IP69K dust and water-resistant
With the Magic 8 Lite, Honor has done away with the curved edges we saw on the last few generations, instead opting for a boxy design with flat siderails, which is bang on trend. While I appreciated how slim the curved edges made the Magic 7 Lite feel, the newer model feels more premium and modern.
The phone is available in three different colors: Midnight Black, Reddish Brown, and Forest Green. I have the latter in for review, and it looks lovely. The rear panel has a velvety matte feel, and the color shifts slightly when the light hits it. It's not a fingerprint magnet, either, which is often a problem with matte-finish phones.
The cameras are arranged in a centrally placed halo, just like on the previous generation, and the design reminds me of the Huawei Mate-series flagships. Love it or hate it, there's no denying it stands out from the crowd.
One of the big upgrades this year is the new IP68/69K rating for dust and water resistance. This means the phone is effectively immune to dust ingress and can withstand dunks in fresh water, as well as blasts from jets of hot water. So, if you can't resist scrolling while you take a shower, this is one of the few phones that will survive the ordeal.
The drop resistance has also been cranked up a notch. Honor reckons it'll survive drops from up to 2.5m heights, thanks to a new 6-layer drop-resistant structure that incorporates non-Newtonian fluid.
The phone still has a plastic frame, but it doesn't seem to be holding it back in terms of durability. The tempered glass coating on the screen has also been toughened; it now has a 31% deeper tempering depth to help with scratch and crack resistance.
Design score: 4 / 5
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Display
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6.79-inch 120Hz OLED display
3840Hz PWM dimming
6,000-nit peak brightness
The Honor Magic 8 Lite now has a fully flat screen, rather than curved edges, and I much prefer it. Not only does this mean you avoid unwanted reflections and accidental edge touches, but it's also easier to find a quality screen protector.
The bezels are slimmer, too, and they're symmetrical on all sides, which gives the phone a more premium look. The pill-shaped selfie cutout is also gone, and you now get a more typical circular punch hole.
The screen is also brighter than before, able to reach a whopping 6,000 nits at peak brightness. I certainly never had any trouble seeing the display out in the sunlight.
(Image credit: Future)
It's an OLED panel, and as you might expect, it delivers the deep, inky blacks and vibrant colors that the technology is known for. A 120Hz refresh rate keeps things looking smooth as you swipe around, too.
If you're concerned about eye strain, you'll be pleased to learn that the Honor Magic 8 Lite supports 3,840Hz high-frequency PWM dimming. This will help your eyes feel fresher when using the phone at low brightness levels.
Another neat feature is Honor's AI Heavy Rain Touch/Glove Touch tech. This ensures that the touchscreen continues working when others might fail, for example, when there's water on the screen. It's very useful in the British wintertime.
Display score: 4 / 5
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Cameras
(Image credit: Future)
108MP main (f/1.75)
5MP ultra-wide (f/2.2)
16MP selfie camera (f/2.45)
The Honor Magic 8 Lite has two rear cameras: a 108MP main and a 5MP ultra-wide. Around the front, there's a 16MP punch hole selfie camera.
This is the exact same hardware that we saw on the Magic 7 Lite and Magic 6 Lite before that. Neither of those phones impressed me with their photographic abilities, so my expectations were on the ground when coming to test the Magic 8 Lite.
Indeed, the ultra-wide is as bad as you might expect. You can get passable results in perfect lighting, but there's only so much you can do with such a low-resolution sensor. In low light, you should avoid it entirely.
The main camera, on the other hand, is quite decent. Just don't let the 108MP specification fool you into thinking you'll get exceptionally detailed shots. It spits out 12MP JPEGs by default, and you'll need a bright sunny day if you want to use the full resolution, as the pixels are quite tiny.
I had hoped that this high-resolution sensor would allow for big digital crops without much of a loss in quality, but that's not the case. You can see the quality degrade quite significantly at 3x zoom, and it gets worse as you approach the maximum of 10x.
Still, in the right conditions, you can get some great shots with the Magic 8 Lite. Honor's processing is a little punchy and contrasty for my tastes, but you are given plenty of controls to adjust the way your images look.
The selfie camera is fine, but wholly unremarkable. It's on par with most budget-focused handsets, and it gets the job done, but it doesn't have the edge that Instagram addicts will be looking for.
I found that portrait mode cutouts weren't the most reliable, often chopping off bits of hair. Plus, there's less control than I'm accustomed to. There's no way to change the blur level on the selfie camera, for instance; it's just on or off.
For video shooting, you can capture at up to 4K 30fps on the main camera, while the other two lenses top out at 1080p. Video stabilization isn't the most impressive, and the lack of consistency across lenses means that budding content creators will be left wanting more.
Cameras score: 3 / 5
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Camera samples
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Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Performance
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Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset
8GB RAM
256GB / 512GB storage
The Honor Magic 8 Lite is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC. It's a healthy upgrade compared to the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 that was (strangely) present in both the Magic 6 Lite and 7 Lite.
Still, this is a budget-focused chipset, so you should temper your expectations when it comes to performance. It's paired with 8GB of RAM, which should be sufficient for some multitasking, and either 256GB or 512GB of storage.
In normal day-to-day use, when scrolling social media and responding to emails and WhatsApp messages, the phone feels quick enough. At times, though, you can feel the difference between this and a flagship device. You can expect to see the occasional stutter in the system animations, and sometimes things will take a split second longer to load. Honestly, though, it's very easy to live with.
However, when you boot up a demanding game, that performance gap widens significantly. In fairness, the Magic 8 Lite was still able to play Wuthering Waves, which is well known as one of the most challenging Android titles, but I had to stick to the lowest preset to get playable framerates, and I still saw the odd performance dip.
So, this phone is not a good choice for keen gamers, but if you're more into Candy Crush or retro titles, you might find this level of performance to be all you need.
Performance score: 3 / 5
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Software
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Magic OS 9, based on Android 15
Plenty of AI features
6 years of updates and security patches (in EU regions)
The Magic 8 Lite runs Magic OS 9, which is the same software you'll find on Honor's 2025 flagships like the Magic 7 Pro and Magic V5. That said, we've already seen Magic OS 10 begin to roll out to these handsets, so it's a little strange that the Lite model is launching one step behind. Hopefully, the upgrade will materialize before too long.
Honor promises six years of OS upgrades and security patches for the Magic 8 Lite in the EU, so it will definitely get the new OS, but how soon it will arrive remains to be seen. Regardless, it's a very decent update policy at this price point; it doesn't match the seven years that you get with Honor's flagship phones, but it outdoes a lot of the similarly priced competition. It should be noted, though, that outside of the EU, this phone only gets two years of updates.
Magic OS continues to be a divisive Android skin. It's heavily stylized, and it changes a lot of the core fundamentals, so Android purists probably won't love it. Personally, though, I quite enjoy it. I think it looks nice, and it adds some genuinely useful features.
Honor's Magic Portal interface on the Magic 8 Lite (Image credit: Future)
Honor's Magic Portal is probably the most unique offering. It allows you to drag text and images from one app to another, and I find myself using it quite frequently. I was pleased to see that Honor's "Knuckle to Portal" gesture is now supported on the Lite model, too, as it was missing when I reviewed the previous model.
In terms of functionality, there's a lot of overlap between Magic Portal and Google's Circle to Search, which is also supported on this phone. That said, having more than one way to accomplish a task is rarely a bad thing, because if one service isn't behaving the way you'd like, you can try the other.
You also get loads of AI-powered image editing tools on the Magic 8 Lite, like an object eraser, reflection removal, outpainting, background removal, and more. Again, a lot of these features are built into Google Photos, too, but if you use both platforms, you can see which one does a better job.
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Magic Pill on the Magic 8 Lite (Image credit: Future)
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Magic Pill on the Magic 8 Lite (Image credit: Future)
I'm a big fan of Honor's Magic Pill feature, which is functionally almost identical to Apple's Dynamic Island. It's nothing particularly new, but it means you have quick access to things like media controls and timers, no matter which app is running in the foreground.
The aggressive power-saving measures that the OS applies by default are less impressive. If you want timely notifications, you might find that you need to go into the settings and tweak things. I often found I wasn't getting notifications from my video doorbell, for example.
Software score: 3 / 5
Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Battery
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7,500mAh silicon-carbon battery
66W wired charging
No charger included
Without a doubt, one of the most appealing aspects of the Magic 8 Lite is its insane battery life. The 7,500mAh silicon-carbon cell is up there with the largest batteries available today (tied with the Oppo Find X9 Pro and RedMagic 11 Pro). The difference here is that it's paired with a less powerful and more energy-efficient chipset, which results in the best battery life of any phone I have tested to date.
When I was working in the office, and not playing too many games or taking a lot of photos, I found I was only using around 25% of the Magic 8 Lite's battery per day. I managed to make the phone last for four days on a single charge, and it wasn't particularly challenging to do so.
Of course, battery life varies wildly depending on how you use your phone, but even the heaviest of users should be able to achieve two days on a charge without any difficulty. So, if you're always forgetting to charge your phone, the Magic 8 Lite could be an absolute game-changer.
What's more, despite having a massive battery, the phone also doesn't take too long to charge. It supports up to 66W speeds using an official Honor charger, but sadly, you don't get one included in the box.
With the right charger, you can expect around a 50% charge in just half an hour, while a full charge will take just over an hour. Not too shabby.
As ever, I would have loved to see wireless charging support, especially since the feature seems to be making its way to more mid-rangers, but there's none of that here.
Battery score: 5 / 5
Should you buy the Honor Magic 8 Lite?
Honor Magic 8 Lite scorecard
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
We're still waiting for confirmation of the phone's price.
TBC
Design
The Magic 8 Lite looks a lot more premium than its predecessor, and it's a lot more durable, too.
4 / 5
Display
Slimmer bezels, higher brightness, and PWM dimming make this display a winner.
4 / 5
Cameras
The 108MP main camera can take some decent shots, but the ultra-wide is pretty awful.
3 / 5
Performance
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 is adequate for daily use, but it's nothing too special.
3 / 5
Software
There are some great features, but it's already a generation behind, and the power-saving features can be annoying.
3 / 5
Battery
Simply put, this is the longest-lasting phone I've tested to date.
5 / 5
Buy it if...
You hate charging your phone
If you're always walking around with 1% left in the tank, the Honor Magic 8 Lite could be the phone for you. You can easily go for three days on a single charge, and with light use, you might even be able to make it last four.
You need something durable
An IP69 rating for dust and water resistance, along with a shock-resistant frame and thickened tempered glass, makes for a very hard-wearing phone. This device should be able to withstand some abuse.
Don't buy it if...
You want blazing-fast performance
While I found the performance to be adequate for basic tasks, you can definitely tell this isn't the speediest device around. Gamers should steer clear.
You want the best cameras
With the Magic 8 Lite, you only really get one good camera; the ultra-wide and selfie snappers are wholly unimpressive. If photography is your priority, there are better options to consider.
Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Also consider
The Honor Magic 8 Lite is a battery life champion with great durability, but there are plenty of other great options around the same price. Here are a couple of competitors that are worth looking at:
Samsung Galaxy A56
Samsung's mid-range favorite offers a more premium build, using more aluminum and glass than plastic. It also has a superior ultra-wide camera, but the battery is much smaller, and the charging isn't as quick.
Google's Pixel 9a is powered by the Tensor G4 chip, which is a massive step up from the Magic 8 Lite's Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 in terms of performance. The cameras are more impressive, too. However, yet again, Honor reigns supreme when it comes to battery life and charging speed.
I put my SIM card into the Honor Magic 8 Lite and used it as my main phone for just over a week. I used it exactly as I would use any other phone, taking lots of photos, gaming, messaging, working, streaming video, and navigating with Google Maps and Waze.
I also compared the experience of playing graphically challenging games like Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero to my experience on other Android mid-rangers like the Nothing Phone (3a) and Samsung Galaxy A56. I also ran multiple benchmarks on the handset, including 3DMark, GFXbench, and Geekbench.
I assessed the battery performance based on my real-world usage, and charging times were measured using an official Honor 100W wall adapter and cable.
The Fan Edition range, now dubbed FE, offers a premium flagship experience at a more affordable price, but this is naturally achieved through compromises on the specs sheet. This year’s Galaxy S25 FE tries to be a lower-cost Galaxy S25 Plus, and toward this goal, Samsung has completely delivered.
The Galaxy S25 FE features a solid specs sheet and an experience that’s mostly akin to its more expensive siblings, but some of the tradeoffs result in an experience that’s hard to recommend. The Galaxy S25 FE delivers the same battery life and charging speeds, the same great display, and two of the three cameras are also identical. Yet, the reduction in RAM to 8GB and the switch to last year’s Exynos 2400 processor resulted in performance I found considerably wanting.
A key challenge is the competition - rivals are proving that Samsung may need to tweak its approach to the Fan Edition to deliver on its value. If you’re in the US, the Galaxy S25 FE is much easier to recommend at its starting price of $650, but even then, the OnePlus 13R is a worthy alternative.
In the UK, the Galaxy S25 FE is much harder to recommend. It's starting price is still £649, but there are competitors in this price range that you won't find in the states, like the Honor 400 Pro and Poco F7 Ultra, which both offer more powerful chipsets, better cameras, faster charging, and longer battery life.
That ultimately sums up the biggest challenge for the Galaxy S25 FE. It offers a solid, yet unremarkable experience that doesn’t excel in any particular area and struggles to stand out against its rivals, whether from Samsung or others. It’s a good phone that’ll keep you mostly happy, but there are better choices out there.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Price and availability
Starts at $649 / £649 / AU$1,099 for 128GB/8GB configuration
That’s $350 / £350 / AU$600 less than S25 Plus, although this has double the storage.
(Image credit: Nirave Gondhia)
The US and UK launch prices for the Galaxy S25 FE are competitive, especially as they’ll likely reduce further with sales, and Samsung is offering incentives such as a free Watch 7 and Buds in the UK. It’s worth noting that this pricing applies to the 128GB storage option; the 256GB model costs an extra $50, £50, or €50. If you want the top 512GB model, it’ll cost you a further $100, £100, or €100; at $799 in the US, other devices offer a true flagship experience and also come with similar amounts of storage.
At $649, the Galaxy S25 FE offers considerable value for US audiences and fills an emerging market need. Still, Samsung could do more to deliver a truly competitive experience at this price point.
Storage
US price
UK price
AU price
128GB
$649
£649
AU$1,099
256GB
$699
£699
AU$1,199
512GB
$799
£799
AU$1,399
Value score: 4 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE review: Specs
The Galaxy S25 FE is effectively a pared-back version of the Galaxy S25 Plus at a lower price. It weighs the same, has the same-sized screen, the same battery life and charging speeds, and two of the three cameras are also identical.
To achieve this, Samsung chose to cut down on the RAM (from 12GB to 8GB), reduce the peak brightness of the screen to 1,900 nits, and drop the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor for its own Exynos 2400 processor. The periscope camera is lower resolution and has a longer focal length, but it still offers the same 3x optical zoom.
The 4,900 mAh battery is identical to the Galaxy S25 Plus, as is the 45W charging, which is faster than the 25W included in the more expensive Galaxy S25. There’s also 15W wireless charging and Qi2-Ready cases that add magnetic wireless charging support. As it launches with Android 16 and One UI 8 out of the box, the Galaxy S25 FE will receive one more software update than its namesake siblings.
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE
Dimensions
161.3 x 76.6 x 7.4 mm
Weight
190g
OS
OneUI 8, Android 16, up to 7 major Android upgrades promised
The same familiar design as the rest of the Galaxy S25 lineup
The rear finish is less prone to scratching than the S25 Plus
(Image credit: Nirave Gondhia)
Put the Galaxy S25 FE and Galaxy S25 Plus next to each other, and by design, they’re virtually indistinguishable. The Galaxy S25 FE offers most of the Galaxy S25 Plus experience at a lower price by retaining the same design language as the rest of the Galaxy S25 series.
The exception to this is in the rear glass finish. Almost a year after the Galaxy S25 Plus, the Galaxy S25 FE solves one of my key problems with the Plus's navy finish: it scratches extremely easily. Although there’s no notable change to this finish, during my time with the Galaxy S25 FE, I’ve found that the rear finish is more durable than the Galaxy S25 Plus, which is a welcome improvement that wasn’t even applied to the Galaxy Z Fold 7 a few months ago.
Beyond this, the build is virtually identical to the Galaxy S25 Plus, right down to the same 190 grams weight. By virtue of larger bezels — more on that below — the Galaxy S25 FE is almost 3 mm taller and 1 millimeter wider than the Galaxy S25 Plus, but this doesn’t have a large impact on daily usage. Instead, it feels just like the Galaxy S25 Plus does.
If you’ve seen a recent Samsung phone, the design of the Galaxy S25 FE will feel instantly familiar. However, I hope that, in future versions, Samsung aims to differentiate it somewhat so it feels unique, in much the same way that the Galaxy S25 Edge feels familiar yet unique within the rest of the Galaxy S25 family.
Design score: 4 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Display
Large, vibrant display that's on par with the Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Plus
Just as capable as the best Samsung phones.
(Image credit: Nirave Gondhia)
The key selling point for the Galaxy S25 FE is that it offers a display of the same size and quality as the flagship Galaxy S25 Plus, but at a more affordable price. In this vein, the 6.7-inch screen on the FE absolutely delivers, and it’s one of my favorite features on this phone.
A peak brightness of 1,900 nits is lower than the Galaxy S25 Plus (which reaches 2,600 nits) and lower than key rivals such as the Pixel 10 (up to 3,000 nits) and OnePlus 13R (up to 4,500 nits). Yet, under the bright sunshine in Bali over the past few days, I’ve had zero issues with this lower brightness and it’s proven to be just as capable as its siblings in direct sunlight. There’s also the same 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate and HDR10+ support, although it lacks the Dolby Vision support that some non-Samsung rivals continue to offer.
Although the screen size is the same, the bezels around the Galaxy S25 FE display are slightly larger than on the Galaxy S25 Plus, but this doesn’t affect daily usage. Similarly, the drop from Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to Gorilla Glass Victus+ on both the front and rear hasn’t led to any reduction in protection, at least in the time I’ve been using it, especially since both feature the same Mohs hardness rating for durability.
Samsung consistently makes my favorite smartphone screens, and the Galaxy S25 FE screen is up there with the best Samsung phones. If you want a large, vibrant, and colorful display, this one hits the mark!
Display score: 5 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Software
Seven years of Android and security updates
Slower AI performance thanks to more reliance on the cloud
(Image credit: Nirave Gondhia)
The Galaxy S25 FE runs One UI 8 on top of Android 16 out of the box, and comes with the same seven-year commitment towards software and security updates as the rest of the family. By launching with the latest Android version out of the box, the seven-year commitment means it will support up to Android 23, whereas the rest of the Galaxy S25 is only guaranteed to support up to Android 22.
Samsung has proven to be quite adept at rolling out updates quite quickly — a stark contrast to its past history of being amongst the slowest — so it’s likely that the Galaxy S25 FE will receive updates in a timely way like the rest of the lineup.
One UI 8 remains one of the most polished Android experiences you can find, and the Galaxy S25 FE does nothing out of the ordinary that you won’t find on the rest of the lineup. However, the lower RAM and change in processor — more on that below — also mean AI performance is far weaker, with more tasks requiring cloud assistance rather than being performed on-device.
Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite has all the features you’d expect from an AI suite on a flagship smartphone, but the lack of performant capabilities means you are less likely to use these. That’s a shame as Writing Tools, editing in the Gallery app, and Circle-to-Search are all features I use quite often. On the Galaxy S25 FE, I’ve found I use them less often simply because there’s a notable delay in responses and completing requests.
Beyond this, you’ll find that the Galaxy S25 FE feels just like any other Samsung smartphone. It’s designed to be instantly familiar to anyone who has used a modern Samsung smartphone, and it delivers the same experience and interface as the One UI 8 update for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Galaxy S25 Edge, and Galaxy S25 Plus.
Software score: 3 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Cameras
A nearly identical experience to the Galaxy S25 Plus camera
A poorer telephoto camera, that's even farther behind the competition
(Image credit: Nirave Gondhia)
Look at the Galaxy S25 Plus camera and the Galaxy S25 FE camera, and you'll notice that they're virtually the same. This is both a blessing and a curse, as it's easy for Samsung to use this camera system again — it's been the same in many recent Samsung phones — but it continually struggles against the competition.
However, dive deeper, and you'll notice that while the 50MP main and 12MP ultrawide cameras are the same as the Galaxy S25 Plus, the 8MP telephoto is a step lower than the 12MP telephoto in the Galaxy S25 Plus. As a result, average telephoto performance on the Plus is even worse on the Galaxy S25 FE.
The net result is that while this camera is mostly as capable as the rest of the Galaxy S25 family — save for the flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra — it's not a true flagship camera. Instead, the main and ultrawide cameras are slightly above average at best, while the telephoto is below average, especially compared to the competition.
Despite this, the Galaxy S25 FE does retain one of my favorite camera features on any smartphone camera: color point in portrait mode.
Samsung's portrait mode has proven more versatile than the competition, with a variety of options that can be adjusted before or after taking a photo.
Color Point is the most unique feature on a phone. It lets you keep a subject in color while turning the background grayscale. While performance is less capable on the Galaxy S25 FE than on other Samsung phones, it still lets you capture unique photos that no other phone can natively.
Then there's the 12MP selfie camera, and this delivers the same performance as the rest of the lineup, which uses the same selfie camera. I've found that images are a little soft and lacking in detail, but this is true of most of its siblings.
That mostly summarizes the entire Galaxy S25 FE camera experience: it's virtually identical to the Galaxy S25 Plus, but this isn't necessarily a positive, especially as the Galaxy S25 Plus camera is slightly above average at best. However, the Galaxy S25 FE offering this at a lower price does mean it's better than most phones at this price point.
Camera score: 3 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Camera samples
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Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Performance
Average performance from the Exynos 2400 processor in daily tasks
Below average performance under heavy usage, or when using AI features.
(Image credit: Nirave Gondhia)
If there's one area where the Galaxy S25 FE has proven disappointing, it's performance.
Samsung managed to reduce the price of the Galaxy S25 FE (compared to the Galaxy S25 Plus) by switching from Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy to last year's Samsung Exynos 2400. While this is acceptable for daily use, it has a marked impact on performance under gaming, heavy loads, and AI.
Simply put, the Galaxy S25 FE begins to struggle under heavy loads, especially since the lower RAM means it's often bumping up against the edge of available memory. This is also readily apparent in the camera app, where image processing takes considerably longer than on the Galaxy S25 Plus.
In most daily tasks, the Galaxy S25 FE delivers flagship-level performance, but if you're a heavy user, you will likely find it wanting. Similarly, the fingerprint sensor remains one of the worst on a smartphone to date — just like the rest of the Galaxy S25 family — and Samsung needs to improve it considerably in future phones, especially as the competition is significantly better.
Performance score: 3 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Battery
Solid battery life that delivers a day of use with a little to spare.
45W charging is also a welcome improvement
(Image credit: Max Delaney / Future)
The Galaxy S25 FE features the same 4,900 mAh battery as the Galaxy S25 Plus, and as such, it delivers mostly the same battery life.
During my time with it, it has mostly lasted a full day of use with around 5-6 hours of screen time, but it doesn't achieve much more than that. With heavy usage, this slips to just under five hours, and the battery needs recharging by the end of the day, but this is mostly when using the camera extensively or gaming heavily.
When you need to recharge the battery, charging speeds have improved from 25W to 45W, reducing overall charging time to around an hour.
However, like the rest of Samsung's lineup, achieving the top speeds requires using Samsung's own 45W charger, or another higher-rated PPS charger. When plugged into my trusty Nomad wall charger — which can deliver up to 100W for most phones — or my Anker power bank, I've experienced charging speeds closer to 30W, and overall charging time dropped to around an hour and 20 minutes.
Then there are two different occasions where the Galaxy S25 FE decided to trickle charge and took over 3 hours to charge to full. When I next charged it with the same charger, it had suddenly returned to the fast charging speeds, and even restarting the phone didn't help when it had entered this trickle charging mode. There's no specific reason this should have happened, and I've yet to replicate it beyond those two occasions, but it's puzzling and a little concerning.
Overall battery life is more than good enough for most people, but the charging situation remains somewhat puzzling. It can deliver a fast charge in an hour, but it can also take much longer, and there seems to be little rhyme or reason for it.
Battery score: 3 / 5
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge score card
Value
If you want a Galaxy S25 Plus at a more affordable price, the Galaxy S25 FE delivers. However, rivals stand out for key reasons in ways that the Galaxy S25 FE just can't.
4/5
Design
An improved rear finish over the Galaxy S25 Plus, but otherwise this is virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the Samsung's lineup. I wish Samsung had found a way to make it stand out.
4/5
Display
The same great display I saw on the Galaxy S25 Plus (with the same below-average fingerprint scanner). It’s vibrant and sharp, even in direct light despite the lower peak brightness, but it remains one of the best screens on a phone.
4/5
Software
Samsung’s One UI looks as good as ever, though the lack of performance means the AI features are less useful than ever. Thankfully, this phone still gets seven years of updates so is a solid buy for long-term support.
3/5
Cameras
The cameras are virtually identical to the Galaxy S25 Plus, meaning you get the same above-average camera experience. Yet, this is the same camera system found on Samsung phones for years, and doesn't stand out in any way, especially when rivals offer better zoom performance.
3/5
Performance
The Exynos 2400 is a key difference to the rest of the Galaxy S25 family, and also a source of disappointment for overall performance, but especially on-device AI features. An older Snapdragon chipset would likely have performed better here.
3/5
Battery
Solid but unremarkable battery life, that's just shy of the battery found on the Galaxy S25 Plus.. The 45W charging is a welcome improvement, but doesn't markedly change overall charging times and neither stands out against the competition.
3/5
Buy it if...
You want a cheaper Galaxy S25 Plus The Galaxy S25 FE is effectively a more affordable Galaxy S25 Plus, so if your budget doesn't stretch that far, or deals aren't as widely available, you should consider the Galaxy S25 FE.
The camera isn't as important to you. If you don't take many photos or don't care about the best camera, the Galaxy S25 FE is worth considering.
Don't buy it if...
You want the best phone. If you want the best phone, look elsewhere. The Galaxy S25 FE is fine, but there are better phones you can buy at a similar price.
You want a camera that doesn’t disappoint. The Galaxy S25 FE's camera can be disappointing if you want the best or if you take a lot of photos.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: Also consider
Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus The Galaxy S25 Plus is a better version of the Galaxy S25 FE, and is often available at a similar price, especially outside the US. If it's between these two, the Galaxy S25 Plus is a much better purchase.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. If you want the best Samsung phone you can buy, this is it, as it comes with an S Pen, anti-glare screen, two zoom lenses, incredible battery life, and up to 1TB of storage. The only problem? It's twice the price.
I used the phone as my primary phone for a week, and as a secondary phone for another two weeks.
I took over 100 photos and videos in a variety of lighting conditions
I played games and watched movies
I checked my email, posted on social media and worked in Slack
I used AI features extensively
I've been using the Galaxy S25 FE for over two months since its launch in early September.
Before posting this review, I used it extensively in the US, UK, and Bali for a week, complete with two active SIM cards. I tested all of the AI features on both Wi-Fi and mobile data connections, as well as
Future Labs tests phones using a mix of third-party benchmark software and proprietary, real-world tests. We use Geekbench, CrossMark, JetStream, WebXPRT, Mobile XPRT, and 3DMark for performance testing. We test a phone's performance on video tasks using Adobe Premiere Rush. We also measure display color output and brightness.
For battery testing, we perform proprietary tests that are the same for every phone, which enable us to determine how long it takes for the battery to run down.
After several years of standing at the edge of the pool and occasionally dipping its toes in, British phone maker Nothing has finally decided to jump into the cold lido that is the premium smartphone market. Perhaps it took those “no running” signs too literally, because while the Nothing Phone 3 is one of the best Android phones I've tested recently, it hasn’t made enough of a splash to truly threaten its big-name rivals.
The Nothing Phone (3), as it’s officially called – excuse the odd bracketing, but if you're new to the brand, the company is a grammatical law unto itself – marks an ascension from the mid-range Phone 1 and Phone 2. It's now priced akin to the Samsung Galaxy S25 and iPhone 17, and shall be judged accordingly.
In many ways, this is a phone that meets or even exceeds any expectations that such comparisons may evoke. Its quartet of 50MP cameras gives the big-name phones some needed pointers in hardware, especially with its far-reaching periscope lens. The battery is bigger than what Apple or Samsung use in their similarly priced mobiles, and the Phone 3's charging speed likewise outstrips the competition (as long as you don't treat mid-range Android phones from non-Samsung companies as 'the competition', because you can spend less and get more from certain lesser-known devices).
I also like some of the software touches Nothing has brought to its fork of Android. The icons of apps you download will automatically be converted into Nothing's house style, which, on my sample, worked more often than it didn't and maintained a consistency to the Phone 3's design that's rare among smartphones these days.
What I'm about to write next will upset Nothing fans, but it's something that struck me repeatedly through weeks of testing the Phone 3: it's the most novel and ‘Nothing’ touches to the phone's software that might put people off.
Take, for example, the design. Nothing likes a unique, blocky design for its phones, but ‘unique’ isn't the same as ‘good’. The Phone 3 is also a fair bit heavier than the average handset and feels ungainly to hold.
The extra side button that Nothing has added to the edge of the mobile is useful in certain situations, as it lets you take a screenshot with one tap. However, it's poorly placed – I kept mistaking it for the power button – and doesn't do as much as I would've liked. I was longing for it to double as a camera app shutter button, like on the Sony Xperia 1 VII, but no cigar.
As I've already alluded to, I can also see many people finding the software as divisive as the phone’s design, although with Nothing OS, you get out as much as you put in (i.e, if you don’t like its look, you can change a lot about it), which can't be said for every Android fork.
Going into this review, with knowledge of the price in mind, I imagined that the Phone 3 would be a Samsung Galaxy S25 and iPhone 17 rival that would pale in comparison to two of the most popular devices out there. And having used the handset for four weeks, I don’t imagine it’ll challenge those heavyweights in terms of sales.
But at the same time, I do understand the appeal of the Nothing Phone 3. It’s slick, but unafraid of its rough edges; not attempting to be the ‘everyone phone’ but trying to do something different. And you've got to respect that.
Nothing Phone 3 review: price and availability
(Image credit: Future)
Released in July 2025
12GB / 256GB: $799 / £799 / AU$1,509
16GB / 512GB: $899 / £899 / AU$1,689
The Nothing Phone 3 was released in July 2025 in two variations. You can pick up the Phone 3 with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, and that’ll cost you $799 / £799 / AU$1,509, or there’s a model with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, and that sells for $899 / £899 / AU$1,689.
That’s a fairly premium price, and a marked step up from the $599 / £579 / AU$1,049 asking price of the Nothing Phone 2, but the brand is pushing this as its first "true flagship", and so the bump makes sense.
For context, the 256GB model of the iPhone 17 costs $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, and the Samsung Galaxy S25’s lowest-storage variant starts at the same price everywhere except Australia (where it isn’t on sale). Admittedly, for the latter, that’s a 128GB model, but you get the picture – this is the ‘premium’ price to aim for.
If that price increase is too much for you to stomach, you should consider all of the Phone 3's budget siblings, which are already out: there's the Phone 3a, Phone 3a Pro, and Phone 3a Lite.
Nothing Phone 3 review: specs
Nothing Phone 3 specs
Dimensions:
160.6 x 75.6 x 9mm
Weight:
218g
Screen:
6.67-inch FHD (1260 x 2800) 120Hz AMOLED
Chipset:
Snapdragon 8s Gen 4
RAM:
12/16GB
Storage:
256/512GB
OS:
Android 15, Nothing OS 4
Primary camera:
50MP, f/1.7
Ultra-wide camera:
50MP f/2.2 114-degree
Periscope camera:
50MP, f/2.7, 3x zoom
Front camera:
50MP, f/2.2
Audio:
Stereo speakers
Battery:
5,150mAh
Charging:
65W wired, 15W wireless, 7.5W reverse
Colors:
White, black
Nothing Phone 3 review: design
(Image credit: Future)
Chunky (9mm) and heavy (218g)
Unique twists: Glyph Matrix and Essential Key
Blocky design
It’s been a while since I’ve used a phone that felt quite as chunky as the Nothing Phone 3. Partly, this is down to the 218g heft, putting it in a weight class above many of its premium rivals (it matches the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, despite being smaller in most regards), but partly it’s the sheer blocky design of the thing.
I’m no thin-phone evangelist, but at 9mm thick, the Phone 3 is at the other end of the spectrum from the likes of the iPhone Air. It’s 160.6mm tall and 75.6mm wide, so it’s big, but it’s not Ultra or Pro Max big. But in some ineffable way, it still feels chunkier than its bigger rivals. This is clearly a phone that’s been designed meticulously, yet in a lot of ways it feels poorly thought-out.
Like its predecessors, the Nothing Phone 3 has a robot-like, mechanical-looking back, which is ostensibly see-through so you can see some screws, but not any of the real internals. The two horizontal camera lenses stick out quite far, though the higher, periscope one doesn’t; the orderly part of me hated how slightly offset this camera was. I see the whole aesthetic of the Phone 3 being quite divisive, but if you know enough about the brand to be reading this review, you’ve already decided whether you like it or not.
A new feature for the Phone 3 is the Glyph Matrix, which is an upgrade on the Glyph interface that past Nothing phones had (which were basically just light strips). The Matrix lets you display information like a stopwatch or the battery level, and there are a few games too, like Spin the Bottle and Rock, Paper, Scissors. You can scroll through the options or select them by pressing or holding the white circle midway down the body below it. Many of the Matrix functions that Nothing touts on its website, like photo previews or a torch mode, were not readily available on the phone I tested (at least via the Glyph menu, or anywhere else I checked).
So, the Glyph Matrix is an interesting feature with a few neat use cases, but there weren’t enough useful features to make it a core part of my user experience, and due to the nature of pressing the touch button, I found it easier just to flip over my phone to see the time or battery percentage.
Another feature worth flagging is the Essential Key button, which Nothing has spitefully put exactly where a power button would be on any other handset. Due to this placement, I was constantly accidentally pressing it when I wanted the phone to power up or down; hopefully, experience would eventually teach me not to do this, but it was endlessly frustrating.
The button’s actual function is fine: press it for a screenshot or hold it for a video, both of which you can caption with a written or voice memo, before they’re sent over to the Essential Space. More on that later.
Above the Essential Key is the power button, with the two positioned close enough to each other that, at first glance, you could think they were both part of the volume rocker. The latter is on the left edge of the phone, positioned high enough that I couldn’t reach volume up with my fingers, but could get to volume down.
Due to it being 2025, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, so the USB-C port on the bottom edge serves instead. The other important thing to note is the phone's IP68 protection, meaning it’s sealed up from dust and water resistant up to depths of 1.5 meters for up to half an hour.
Design score: 3.5 / 5
Nothing Phone 3 review: display
(Image credit: Future)
6.67 inches, 2800 x 1260 resolution
120Hz refresh rate, 4500 nits max brightness
Protected with Gorilla Glass 7i
Nothing’s apparently still not decided on the perfect screen size. After bumping up the inch count from Phone 1 to 2, it’s now dropped it ever so slightly on the 3; you’re now looking at a 6.67-inch panel, though one with a higher pixel count. That’s 1260 x 2800, for an FHD display.
The screen supports a billion colors with a 10-bit color depth, and it’s noticeable when you’re watching supported content on streaming services or online.
Some more specs: like many premium phones, the refresh rate is 120Hz, with a lower touch sampling rate than previous models at 1,000Hz, but that’s not a spec most people notice. The peak brightness is a glorious 4500 nits, and if the sun had come out once during my testing period, I’m sure I would’ve reaped the benefits of this particular spec.
The screen’s made from Corning Gorilla Glass 7I, which is designed to offer mid-range and budget phones added toughness. Bearing in mind the aforementioned IP68 rating, the handset seems very hardy.
Display score: 4 / 5
Nothing Phone 3 review: software
Here are the apps pre-installed on the Edge 70 (although I can excuse Ecosia, since that's the one I picked as my browser on load-up). (Image credit: Future)
Android 15 with Nothing OS 4 atop
Five guaranteed updates; one already here
Unique look and many bespoke features
When the Nothing Phone 3 launched, it ran Android 15, but by the time I tested it, the rollout to Android 16 had commenced. That's the first of the five major software updates promised to the phone, taking it to Android 20 if Google keeps its numbering system consistent.
Of course, you've seen pictures of the phone, so you know it doesn't run stock Android. Layered atop Google’s software is the company's fork: Nothing OS 4. This is quite a dramatic change versus Android proper, bringing a new look and extra features.
Design-wise, there's obviously the retro-inspired blocky look, which isn't mandatory but which I opted for. I was impressed by how the system converted app icons for all my downloads into the house style, which kept a consistency across the board that I haven't seen before in forks like this. Admittedly, it stumbled a few times – the NYT Puzzles app lost basically its entire logo, and several of Nothing’s own apps have near-identical logos to one another – but it shows admirable commitment to a look.
There are also a few novel features that are unique to Nothing OS, or are at least rare among other brands. Essential Space is a repository of your screenshots, notes, and memos, with organization tools to create collections. The Recorder app has extra features to focus on voices or environmental sounds, and the Essential Key has a shortcut to quickly begin recording. And, of course, there’s the Glyph Matrix and everything that comes with it.
Nothing OS has some AI tools, like integration with ChatGPT and a wallpaper generation tool, but thankfully, these are optional and turned off by default.
There’s some degree of customization in Nothing OS, as you can change the color scheme, add widgets, and create shortcuts, but you’re not getting as much versatility as in most other Android forks. You can change the icon shapes between Nothing’s versions and the standard Android model, and there’s also a storefront to buy alternatives, although, for the most part, these cost money.
Software score: 4 / 5
Nothing Phone 3 review: cameras
(Image credit: Future)
50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide and 50MP periscope lenses
50MP front-facing
Testing is a work in progress; more samples to come
Nothing has decked the Phone 3 out with a camera array that's easy to remember: 50MP, 50MP, and 50MP. One of those is the main snapper, another has an ultra-wide lens with a 114-degree field of view, and the other has a periscope lens for 3x optical zoom.
I'm particularly glad to see the periscope camera, as lenses like this add a certain 'oomph' to a camera array. Not only is it useful for long-range shots, but it also improves the natural bokeh of Portrait photos and the close-up detail of Macro mode.
The selfie camera is – you guessed it – another 50MP snapper, f/2.2. That marks a megapixel increase over the Phone 2, although both use pixel-binning. I found selfies a little washed-out, and in Portrait mode, the artificial bokeh kept fuzzing out parts of my hair.
(Image credit: Future)
My initial impressions of the Nothing Phone 3's camera are rather positive. Its trio of cameras gives you versatility in your shooting, and the Night Mode detail was great. Autofocus was quick, and some of the extra tweaks, like modifiable bokeh, added nice touches.
Nothing's focus seems to be on fine-tuning the standard camera modes rather than adding brand-new ones, though, which seems at odds with its mode of operations in other areas of the device. But I don't mind if I have access to a periscope camera.
You can see some initial camera samples from my time with the Nothing Phone 3 below, but I'm still playing around with it. In the coming days, I'll add more camera samples as well as some fleshed-out thoughts on the phone's photographic performance. I just need to get around to using the three cameras that aren't the zoom one...
Camera score: 4 / 5
Nothing Phone 3 camera samples
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Nothing Phone 3 review: performance and audio
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Top-end Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset
12GB or 16GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB Storage
Stereo speakers or Bluetooth 6.0
Nothing hasn’t given the Phone 3 the very best chipset available, but one so close that you’d only know the difference by looking at its specs sheet. This is the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 from Qualcomm, with that little ‘s’ denoting that this is a step behind the top option (which was the Snapdragon 8 Elite at the time of release, though the Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 has since debuted in newer Android phones like the OnePlus 15).
At the top end of chipsets, though, the performance differences are so minuscule that this really doesn’t matter. When I put the Phone 3 through the Geekbench 6 benchmark tests, the average multi-core score was 6847, and as of the 2025 generation of flagships, any score around 6,500 is the realm of the giants.
I tested the phone on a number of popular mobile titles, and I could always crank the game’s graphics to the max and still enjoy a cracking time. At certain times, including during benchmarking and in certain games, I did notice the phone heat up a fair amount, so be warned if you’re planning on gaming all day.
Depending on which phone you opt for, you’ll get 12GB or 16GB RAM, and I tested a model with the latter. For most people, 12GB is enough, though power users or people buying phones for specific high-intensity use cases might prefer 16GB. The same goes for the storage capacity, which is 256GB or 512GB – I know the former would be enough for me, but if you’re using the handset for work or photography, maybe you’ll want to stretch.
Audio-wise, Nothing has never released a phone with a headphone jack to my knowledge. Instead, you can use a USB-C adaptor, connect headphones through Bluetooth 6.0 or, if you’re home alone and not bothering anyone by using them, the stereo loudspeakers which sound just the same as on every other smartphone.
Performance score: 4.5 / 5
Nothing Phone 3 review: battery life
(Image credit: Future)
5,150mAh battery
65W wired charging
15W wireless powering, 7.5W reverse
The Nothing Phone 3 has a 5,150mAh battery – I’m told the Indian model has an extra 350mAh on top of that, but the rest of us get slightly less – which is slightly smaller than many of its contemporary flagships but does beat Samsung and Apple’s price-for-price alternatives.
That’s a solid battery capacity, and it facilitates full-day phone use; I don’t imagine many people will need to charge the Phone 3 mid-way through the working day.
I wouldn’t rely on the phone for a second day of use, though, with the big screen, powerful processor, and Glyph lights all demanding juice.
You’ve got the full hat-trick of charging options here. There’s 65W wired, 15W wireless, and 7.5W reverse wireless (that’s when you use your phone as a wireless charging mat for other devices). None of those speeds is the best in the biz, but – in what’s becoming a refrain for this section – they trump the respective charging speeds of the Galaxy 25 and iPhone 17.
Battery score: 3.5 / 5
Nothing Phone 3 review: value
(Image credit: Future)
The problem with Nothing’s jump into the big leagues is that the brand’s existing fans, who know the company for mid-range mobiles, might feel a little left in the lurch.
Specifically, fans who are used to the usual Nothing value proposition might not feel that the increased price demanded by the Phone 3 is matched by its spec improvements. Case in point, you can get faster charging, a more premium design, and a bigger battery on much cheaper Android phones.
In short, you’re getting what you pay for, but that’s not the Nothing way – you usually get a little more.
Value score: 3.5 / 5
Should you buy the Nothing Phone 3?
Nothing Phone 3 score card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
Fans of the brand will be disappointed, but you're getting what you pay for.
3.5 / 5
Design
It'll be divisive in the same way that past Nothing phones have been, but there are some unique touches.
3.5 / 5
Display
It's a good-looking panel that's well-protected and very bright.
4 / 5
Software
Whether you love or hate the look, you've got to admit Nothing has created the most consistent piece of phone software since stock Android.
4 / 5
Camera
Solid hardware with a focus on refining the basics of the smartphone camera experience.
4 / 5
Performance
A powerful chipset is accompanied by lots of RAM and storage.
4 / 5
Battery
It's a decently-sized battery, with a fine charging speed, but there's nothing to write home about.
3.5 / 5
Buy it if...
You like the Nothing aesthetic If the design of the Phone 3 and its software speaks to you, then you should pick it up right away. Outside of other Nothing phones, no other handsets compare, visually speaking.
You need lots of processing power The combination of the Qualcomm chipset and loads of RAM makes the Phone 3 a surprisingly capable gaming phone.
You take frequent screenshots If you're always snapping your phone screen and sharing it with people, the Essential Key is going to prove incredibly handy.
Don't buy it if...
You want a slender smartphone The Nothing Phone 3 is not a light phone. You really feel it when it's in your hand.
You don't want to spend too much As the most expensive phone from the brand, this isn't the Nothing phone for people who don't want to spend too much.
Nothing Phone 3 review: Also consider
I keep comparing the Nothing Phone 3 to two particular rivals, so let's take a proper look at them as well as the Phone 3's predecessor.
Nothing Phone 2 The Phone 2 has some scaled-back specs versus the Phone 3, and it misses a few of its unique features. But it's cheaper.
Samsung Galaxy S25 This handset starts for the same price, but that gets you less storage. Samsung's premium mobile may be a bit boring, but it's powerful and has decent cameras.
iPhone 17 Another same-priced phone, this is the option for people who want to use iOS. It's a powerful and long-lasting handset, but with no zoom camera.
I used the Nothing Phone 3 for four weeks before writing this review, and continued additional testing during the writing process.
During said process, I used the Nothing Phone 3 as my main smartphone. This meant it was my tool for taking photos, scrolling social media, gaming, and working. Before and after this testing, I also conducted benchmarks, as well as standardized battery and charging tests.
I've been testing smartphones for TechRadar for nearly seven years now, so I have copious amounts of experience in experimenting with gadgets and assessing whether they're right for the general consumer.
The Xperia 1 VII is Sony’s top Android phone. It’s simultaneously refreshing among its peers and too conservative to be considered all that interesting or dynamic.
It’s very similar to its predecessor, the Sony Xperia 1 VI, but stands out as one of the few higher-end phones with a headphone jack and microSD expandable storage. These are not expensive features, but do partially come to define the Xperia 1 VII’s appeal against its rivals.
The other side of the phone is a bit more problematic. Aside from using what was at launch the latest, most powerful, Qualcomm chipset, the Xperia 1 series is falling behind in a few areas.
Charging speed, battery capacity, camera slickness, and video modes nowadays feel a little regressive in this class, and some of these areas are more limited than they were in some earlier generations of the Sony Xperia 1 VII’s family.
This would not matter so much were the Sony Xperia 1 VII not extremely expensive, but it costs more than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which is the more dynamic phone.
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: price and availability
(Image credit: Future)
Starts at £1,399 (roughly $1,870 / AU$2,885)
Launched in June 2025
The Sony Xperia 1 VII was released in June 2025, following an announcement in May.
It costs £1,399 or 1,499 euros, equivalent to around $1,870 / AU$2,885 in a direct currency conversion at the time of writing, but with no current availability in those regions. This is for the model reviewed, which has 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. There is also a 512GB model in some parts of the world, but this isn't available in the UK.
In any case, that price puts the Sony Xperia 1 VII among the most expensive Android phones to date, short of unusual models encrusted with jewels or gold bling.
Value score: 2 / 5
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: specs
Here's a full specs list for the Sony Xperia 1 VII, so you can see what it has going for it at a glance:
Sony Xperia 1 VII specs
Dimensions:
162 x 74 x 8.2mm
Weight:
197g
Screen:
6.5-inch 19.5:9 FHD+ (1080 x 2340) 120Hz LTPO OLED
Chipset:
Snapdragon 8 Elite
RAM:
12GB
Storage:
256GB
OS:
Android 15
Primary camera:
48MP, f/1.9, 24mm
Ultra-wide camera:
48MP, f/2.0, 16mm
Telephoto camera:
12MP, f/2.3-f/3.5, 3.5x-7.1x zoom (85-170mm)
Front camera:
12MP, f/2.0, 24mm
Audio:
Stereo speakers
Battery:
5,000mAh
Charging:
30W wired, 15W wireless
Colors:
Moss Green, Orchid Purple, Slate Black
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: design
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Gorilla Glass Victus 2 screen protection
Familiar Sony 'monolith' design
3.5mm headphone jack
Phones these days are often accused of being boring, and in many ways the Sony Xperia 1 VII is also guilty of that. It looks virtually identical to its predecessor, and is part of a design family tree so long it could shame some monarchical dynasties.
The Sony Xperia 1 VII is a metal and glass brick that offers very little in the way of visible outer progress in tech or style. But that’s kind of the point with this series.
Sony offers lots of the bits other manufacturers have long since discarded in the noble pursuit of copying Apple. For example, the Sony Xperia 1 VII has a headphone jack, which I love as someone who actually bought a pair of wired in-ear monitors during testing.
It also has space for a microSD card in its SIM tray, and there’s no notch or punch-hole in the screen, just larger-than-most display borders. And it has a two-stage shutter button for the camera too. I’m not much of a fan of the latter these days, but Sony can make treading water seem valuable because it offers so much that other flagship phones just don’t have anymore.
Most of the build bullet points are largely beyond reproach too. The Sony Xperia 1 VII is a full metal and glass phone, with Corning’s tough Gorilla Glass Victus 2 up front, and aluminum sides. Its rear panel is 'just' Victus rather than its successor, which has better drop resistance, but this still provides a respectable amount of protection.
The back is also textured, with a series of embossed dots, apparent when you look real close. It’s very fingerprint-resistant, and simply gives the Sony Xperia 1 VII a different feel than that of flat glossy glass.
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It is basically an identical feel to the Sony Xperia VI, though, especially as the two generations also have a sort-of corrugated effect to the frame.
The rectangular shape makes the Sony Xperia 1 VII feel tough, the sort of phone you could use as a bludgeoning weapon. But in previous generations I’ve found it less than ideal for the finish’s longevity. Eventually the paint will wear off the sharp corners of the frame, showing up as bright, raw aluminum highlights. A couple of weeks in, that wear is already visible on the Sony Xperia 1 VII's camera lens housing.
You can fix that with a case, of course, but the Sony Xperia 1 VII does not include one.
Like other phones in this series, the Xperia 1 VII also has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor rather than an in-screen one. It doesn’t feel as instantaneous as some, and I find it annoyingly picky. As soon as I’ve done a little exercise, just a bit of sweat will cause my finger not to be recognized.
The speaker array deserves a note too. There are front-mounted stereo speakers, with the fairly full-sounding audio I’ve come to expect of top-tier phones. It may not be the loudest stereo pair among flagship phones, but I’ve happily spent many (many) hours listening to podcasts using nothing more than these speakers.
Water resistance is excellent too, as is typical for Sony. The Xperia 1 VII is rated for IP65 and IP68, for protection from immersion in fresh water and being subjected to jets of the stuff. This finish may be easy to scrape, but the phone is difficult to drown.
Design score: 3 / 5
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: display
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Bright screen makes good use of HDR
Lower resolution than older Xperia flagships
Colorful and contrasty
This Sony series used to employ some pretty wild display panels, with ultra-tall shapes and ultra-high resolutions. But the Sony Xperia 1 VII has a far more ordinary 1080p screen that measures 6.5 inches across.
There’s no notch, it’s a totally flat panel, and this is a 120Hz OLED screen with OLED staple deep color and flawless contrast.
The Sony Xperia 1 VII’s default color mode has strong saturation, but there’s also a Creator mode that lowers saturation for a more measured appearance. This also kicks in as standard in apps that try to take over the color presentation of the screen, which is great.
It means your photos end up looking as they will on other well-calibrated screens, rather than severely oversaturated.
There’s nothing too special going on here, but the Sony Xperia 1 VII's screen is at least very bright. Legibility in strong direct sunlight is good, and the high peak brightness makes the most of the latest movements in HDR.
And I’m not just talking about HDR video. You’ll notice in Instagram that sometimes the highlights of the picture are brighter than the app’s white border. That’s HDR for you, and it can look great. It’s used when you look at your own photos in the gallery too, most notably bringing out the bright highlights in clouds in a very eye-catching manner.
Let’s not get carried away, though. Phones are currently on an upwards peak brightness trend thanks to the underlying OLED panel tech developing fairly rapidly in the background. Even fairly affordable phones have ridiculously high peak brightness claims — like the 3,000-nit Nothing Phone 3a.
Display score: 3.5 / 5
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: cameras
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High-quality primary camera
Could feel more responsive and quick
Zoom is fun to use but disappoints on image quality in 2025
You’d think phones like the Sony Xperia 1 VII would have the best phone cameras in the world. A division of Sony, after all, does make almost all of the camera sensors used by the best phones.
Yet despite that the Sony Xperia 1 VII doesn't quite match the best rivals here, not in all respects anyway. While the Sony Xperia 1 VII has mostly top-tier hardware, the experience of actually using the camera doesn’t have the standard-setting gloss and slickness you might expect.
For example, the shutter doesn’t always feel instantaneous, and there’s sometimes a fractional wait between captures as you shoot single stills. The best-feeling phone cameras appear to operate as fast as your finger will go. The Sony Xperia 1 VII isn’t quite there.
Its preview image isn’t the best either. For example, Samsung provides a solid estimation of what a photo will look like before you even take it, including the effects of its HDR processing. The Sony Xperia 1 VII will sometimes show blown highlights in the preview view, even if it pretty much always fixes those highlights by the time the image hits your gallery.
As we’ve seen across the phone, much of the camera is pretty familiar compared to the last generation. The Sony Xperia 1 VII has a large-sensor 48MP primary camera and a still-unusual genuine optical zoom lens – virtually every other phone zoom has what’s known as a prime lens, where the view is fixed.
The ultra-wide gets a notable upgrade, though. Sensor resolution jumps from 12MP to 48MP, which could be good or bad depending on the sensor used. But this time it’s also a much larger sensor, jumping from 1/2.5-inch in the Xperia VI to 1/1.56-inch here. It’s one of the higher-spec ultra-wide cameras you’ll find.
Sure enough, the ultra-wide takes lovely pictures, giving the Xperia 1 VII an admirable sense of consistency between the wide and ultra-wide lenses. Colors aren’t oversaturated, instead appearing largely natural.
Are these two lenses actually equals? It’s not even close, and that becomes clear at night. The Sony Xperia 1 VII can only take (barely) passable low-light shots with the ultra-wide, lacking the dynamic range and detail of the main camera. Far-away brick work turns to mush, and it also seems the ultra-wide shots don’t get as much low-light processing either.
The main camera’s night shots are good, although Sony perhaps leans slightly less egregiously on computational photography to enhance dynamic range. This can mean photos look more natural than the norm, if also less impressive in some scenes.
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The deficiencies of the zoom camera aren’t too hard to find either, even though having what amounts to 16mm-170mm framing versatility is amazing. This camera allows you to shoot at anywhere from 3.5x to 7.1x optical zoom, but when shooting at the further reaches of the zoom in particular, detail integrity and clarity are actually pretty poor considering we are looking at a non digitally-zoomed image.
It’s likely down to a conjunction of two factors that limit the quality of photos we’ll be able to get. There’s the lowly f/3.5 aperture – which is fine in a 'proper' camera but very poor in a mobile phone. And the sensor itself is small. That said, I’ve found that image quality issues can appear in any kind of lighting, from blazing sunshine to night.
That’s not to say the Sony Xperia 1 VII’s extreme zoom images are unusable. They can look good on the surface, but fall apart a bit when approached with a critical eye.
The zoom camera also has a kind of amazing macro mode, which is available at the 120cm focal length. You can focus at up to 4cm away from the camera. It’s enough to reveal the printed dots in a Magic the Gathering card, or the subpixels in a MacBook Air’s display. I’ve used it to identify tiny spiders, and get a closer look at ripening blackberries, but you need a steady hand as the depth of field is extremely shallow. Thankfully the Xperia 1 VII does have a focus peaking option to help out. This is where in-focus elements of the scene are highlighted.
But, stepping back once more, compared to the more conventional pericope designs in phones like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Xiaomi 15 Ultra, Sony needs to up its game to compete.
For video, the Sony Xperia 1 VII has some solid skills, with some odd missing parts. It can capture 4K video at up to 120fps, and there’s a software-generated 'bokeh' blur video mode and an extra stabilized 'AI' mode.
However, where Sony used to be the master of slow-mo video, the Xperia 1 VII has no real notable skills here. Back when ultra-powered slow-mo modes became a show-off contest, there was often interpolation involved. But it was fun to play around with, and that’s largely absent here.
Around the front, the Sony Xperia 1 VII has a 12MP selfie camera. It’s good, capable of rendering natural-looking skin tones, and has the detail to pick out pores, single facial hairs and so on – when you aren’t obliterating such details with filters.
Camera score: 3.5 / 5
Sony Xperia 1 VII review camera samples
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Sony Xperia 1 VII review: performance
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Gradual thermal throttling attempts to manage heat
A high-performing phone
Still gets a little too warm on occasion
The Sony Xperia 1 VII has one of the best chipsets available to Android phones in 2025. This is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. It’s enormously powerful (though now beaten by the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), and here it’s paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
This will be able to handle any game you throw its way and, the largely non-processor-related camera hitches aside, general performance is great. But that's as it should be, as we have every right to expect one of the best possible processors in the Sony Xperia 1 VII, given how much it costs.
When pressure is applied, Sony takes a highly progressive approach to thermal throttling in the Xperia 1 VII. Where some phones hang on for dear life until the internal temperature sensor reaches a certain level, here the performance scales with temperature in a more fine grain way, chipping down almost from the beginning of a gaming session or benchmark test.
After 20 minutes the Xperia 1 VII ends up at 55% of its peak performance. And as that test was performed on a hot day during the summer, I also slung the phone in a fridge to see what happened with the same test. Once again, there was that very gradual loss of power, ending up with 78.8% of its max after 20 minutes.
I have also noticed that the Xperia 1 VII gets hot on occasion, which is predictably accompanied by faster power drain.
In any case, losing up to 45% of peak power may sound pretty bad, but it’s not uncommon to see up to a 55% loss in phones with these high power chipsets.
Some folks had major reliability issues with the Xperia 1 VII at launch, spurring a response from Sony itself. Thankfully, it’s been mostly smooth sailing day-to-day during testing, though.
Performance score: 4 / 5
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: software
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Sticks to the AI basics
Fewer Sony apps than some older phones
Familiar Sony interface style
The Sony Xperia 1 VII runs Android 15 and has Sony’s long-standing custom interface on top. It comes with the promise of four years of operating system version updates and six years of security patches.
There’s nothing too surprising here. It has an app drawer, one that can be arranged either alphabetically or using your own layout. Choose the latter and you can also sort apps into folders.
The only interface niggles we’ve found are that the Wi-Fi switch wasn’t put in the feature toggle drop-down as standard, and that the standby behavior and lock screen layout means it’s easy to accidentally have podcasts or songs skip while the phone is in your pocket.
These are not problems without fixes, but they are annoying.
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A while back, Sony went big on its own apps, including multiple camera apps for enthusiasts and the point ’n’ shoot crowd. It made a minor splash at the time, but all that has mostly been scaled back in favor of simplicity.
And, let’s be honest, having to maintain multiple apps for the same job has got to be a pain.
The Sony Xperia 1 VII gets a single camera app, a basic video editor, the Music Pro multi-track recorder app, and what Sony calls the Creators’ App. This is part social network, part a way to bring over the photos taken with your 'proper' Sony camera(s).
Sony’s concept here does kind of make sense, to bring together the other sides of Sony’s wider business to lend the Xperia 1 VII additional credibility. It desperately wants to make phones for creatives, but doesn’t really have a hope in hell of bringing many of them over to its stable, especially as there are alternatives to all of these apps floating around, ones with more workflow-boosting features.
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This phone also does not have an app pre-installed that lets you use the phone as an external monitor for Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras, despite that feature once being hailed as a photographer’s USP for buying a top-tier Xperia. I did install a Sony app that appeared to do that job, but it also appears to be largely brand-agnostic on the phone side, and I’m primarily a Fuji camera user anyway.
Sony has not gone heavy on AI software in the way other manufacturers have – which may be appealing or a turn-off depending on your tastes. It is here, though. Long-press the side power button and Google Gemini AI appears. There’s just not much in the way of Sony-made AI features, which is probably for the best given how at-risk they’d be of coming across as superfluous and try-hard.
Software score: 3 / 5
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: battery
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Bottom rung 'fast' charging
One-day real-world battery life
5,000mAh capacity
The Sony Xperia 1 VII has a 5,000mAh battery, just like its predecessor. I have found that with my use it lasts a solid day and no more.
Is it worse than last year’s model? Perhaps not, or at least not hugely, but Sony has not caught up with one of the new meaningful developments in phone tech of late. This is the silicon-carbon battery, which allows for higher-capacity batteries in the same size of cell.
The Sony Xperia 1 VII lasts a full day with my kind of use, but rarely has much spare to keep it going overnight or into the next day. On a couple of occasions – usually when I’ve watched too much YouTube – it has needed an evening top-up too. And, as noted earlier, there have been moments when it has inexplicably got warmer than it should, indicative of excess power drain.
I think if you are able to get Sony’s claimed two-day use, you’re not using your phone intensively enough to justify one this pricey.
Charging speeds are not particularly impressive either, as 30W is the power ceiling. Sony does not include a power adapter with the phone, but plenty of non-Sony plugs will be able to charge it at max speed, over USB-PD.
A full charge from flat took 88 minutes, while it reached 50% in a much better-sounding 29 minutes. It’s not a real fast charger, and is now also beaten by Samsung – not a fast-charging pioneer either, but at least top phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra support 45W charging.
The Sony Xperia 1 VII can be charged wirelessly too, but at up to a dismal 15W. Reverse wireless charging is in as well, though, which should come in handy if you have wireless earphones that support Qi charging.
Battery score: 3 / 5
Should you buy the Sony Xperia 1 VII?
Sony Xperia 1 VII score card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
The phone costs a fortune. And while it has the raw power expected at this level, and uses great materials, it’s not clear Sony has really done enough to justify asking for this.
2 / 5
Design
It’s that same old Sony design. Largely impeccable materials and great water resistance, but the brick-like shape creates areas that wear down quickly, and Sony doesn’t include a case.
3 / 5
Display
It’s bright and it has OLED color and contrast. But it’s also pretty ordinary considering the panels Sony used to employ. You don’t miss much, other than the sense you’re paying a lot for a screen like this.
3.5 / 5
Software
Sony offers us some creative apps we imagine most buyers will ignore, but the rest of the software is business as usual. Android 15 with a layer of Sony interface pasted on top, and no obvious AI obsession for better or worse.
3 / 5
Camera
A zero-fat camera array like this is what we want to see. And the phone can take beautiful pictures. It could be better on the slickness of the experience, though, and the zoom is falling behind rivals despite sounding great on paper.
3.5 / 5
Performance
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset is swiftly and progressively throttled in the phone to manage heat. A sensible move, if not one the techy gamers may love.
4 / 5
Battery
We’re in the process of seeing a big leap in phone battery capacities. But Sony isn’t there yet, and this phone doesn’t last more than a day in our experience. Fast charging needs to improve too.
3 / 5
Buy it if...
You want a phone with a headphone jack Old-school in a great way, the Sony Xperia 1 VII has a high-quality 3.5mm headphone jack, which has been a rarity in all but budget phones for years now.
You are a big Sony Alpha mirrorless camera fan The phone has software to link up to your 'proper' camera’s photo library, and the screen is a great way to review photos.
You just love Sony’s style Recognizable from way further than arm’s length to any phone geek, Sony’s phone design hasn’t changed much over the years, and fans may be glad of it.
Don't buy it if...
You want cutting-edge tech While it has a high-end Snapdragon chipset, other areas of the device do not feel as though they are pushing at the edge of what’s possible in phone tech.
You want a deal This is one of the most expensive Android phones in existence, and there’s a good argument that Sony doesn’t really justify the outlay fully.
You love fast charging 30W power supply support means the Xperia 1 VII takes almost 90 minutes to charge from flat, which seems a lot in 2025.
Sony Xperia 1 VII review: Also consider
Not sure about the Sony? Here are a few alternative options.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra There are plenty of more aggressive and competitively priced phones at this level. The perhaps most obvious one is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which has better zoom skills, costs less and has a larger screen. There’s no headphone jack, of course.
Google Pixel 9 Pro The Google Pixel 9 Pro sticks with a smaller screen, costs loads less and still has a solid 5x camera zoom. It makes much more use of software AI, though whether that’s your bag or not depends on your proclivities.
Xiaomi 15 Ultra The Xiaomi 15 Ultra is an alternative you might not instantly think of. It uses more aggressive camera hardware, and has a larger, faster-charging battery. A more cutting-edge design also fits in a significantly larger screen even though the phone itself is only fractionally wider.
Testing included: everyday use, photography, long days away from a charger, a weekend away
Tools used: Geekbench 6, 3DMark
The Sony Xperia 1 VII was used as my primary phone for several weeks, to get the best idea of how it works. I took hundreds of photos with its cameras, and used it during a weekend away, with long days away from the charger.
Some benchmark performance testing was done too, in order to back up, or potentially challenge, observations I found from my everyday phone use. However, there were not any grand surprises to be found in those benchmarks anyway.
