Best smartphones of 2025: Is your phone on the premium list?

The year 2025 is one of improvements and not massive transformation, yet there are few flagships that succeeded in making a splash with intelligent design upgrades, potent processors, and legitimate camera gear. Foldables that transform into tablets, as well as slab phones designed to be the best in capturing pictures, these are the most up-market phones that impressed the most. To achieve level, daily high-end consumption, the iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17, and Oppo Find X9 Pro are the most attractive general options. Read further to know about the Best smartphones of 2025.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7

Galaxy Z Fold 7 is also lighter and thinner than other Fold models, but it has an IP68 rating, making it one of the most durable foldables that you can purchase. When spread out, the large interior display is much better at multitasking, split-screen and media, whereas the outer display is now more comfortable to use with only one hand. To the users, this implies that one gadget can be both phone and compact tablet-perfect in terms of productivity, editing on the move or watching as many movies as you can on a large screen.

Best smartphones of 2025: Samsung has also introduced a 200MP primary camera to the Fold line, which enhances image quality and performance in low light, and equipped it with a high-performance Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset to support comfortable gaming and AI. The advantage is obvious: you have a foldable that does not seem like a compromise in terms of performance or camera quality, and that makes it the best of all power users and early adopters that would require the most versatile form factor.

Motorola Razr 60 Ultra

The Razr 60 Ultra is the first flag in clamshell foldables in the Motorola brand, and this status was achieved in part due to its big and highly functional cover display. This outer screen allows the users to respond to notifications, use applications, view maps, take selfies at up to about 3.5-4 inches without even opening up the phone, which saves on time and battery. When you are interested in a small-size phone and yet you feel like a truly useful phone when it is in the closed form, then this is the flip phone that gets it right.

Best smartphones of 2025: The Razr 60 Ultra supports this through a sophisticated design, IP-rated waterproofness and an effective dual camera setup, which meets the daily shooting requirements with clear photos and 4K video. The software is nearly stock android and performs well, meaning that users who are concerned with the clean user interface as well as pocketability will find it the most comfortable and enjoyable foldable to work with on a daily basis.

iPhone 17 Pro Max

iPhone 17 Pro Max introduces the first high-resolution periscope telephoto camera in a Pro Max, which allows much improved optical zoom and close-up distance to focus on portraits and distant objects. To users, it brings about more creative shooting options without compromising sharpness and it ranks among the best in mobile photography. There is also the added advantage of the A19 Pro chip and better cooling which allows easier performance when recording in 4K, when playing games and in heavy multitasking.

Best smartphones of 2025: Apple has also updated its design with an aluminium frame and minor changes that make it seem to be lighter to hold but still premium. Together with a bright high-refresh display and a long software lifespan, this is the phone to choose when you want the best all-around iPhone to use in the workplace, to create content, and to entertain--assuming that you can accept the high cost and a more scratch-prone enclosure.

iPhone 17

The standard iPhone 17 slightly misses out on the flashy design alterations of the Pro Max, but still provides a 120Hz LTPO OLED display and an improved larger battery, which directly translates to users with smoother animations and more consistent all-day performance. It is also equipped with an additional high-resolution ultrawide and 18MP selfie camera, which provides the photography enthusiast with a greater range of details and flexibility in terms of landscape and social media photography.

Its 8GB RAM is lower than Pro models though with its higher capacity, it is a little less future-proof on paper, though based on the tight hardware software optimisation of Apple, it is one of the fastest phones of its price range. Should you wish to have an Apple experience, but not necessarily the highest tier in the product, the iPhone 17 has the greatest value to feature ratio.

Oppo Find X9 Pro

Oppo Find X9 Pro is an excellent comeback with a sleek, sharp design and a premium in-hand experience that will attract the interest of those who prioritize looks over specifications. The new Hasselblad collaboration and release of a teleconverter lens provide the phone with exceptional zoom options and a steady image quality with varying focal lengths. To photography-first users, this allows greater flexibility that is more pro-camera into a device that can still be easily slipped into a pocket.

In addition to cameras, the Find X9 Pro has a bright and colour-accurate display, rapid charging, and consistent all-round performance, which is the best as it means that the user can use one device to capture photos, stream, and play games. The sole tradeoff is that the teleconverter also may restrict the access to certain camera functions when it is attached, therefore, it is best to go to it when the enthusiast appreciates the quality of the zoom rather than simplicity.

Vivo X300 Pro

The Vivo X300 Pro is customised to nearly fit the theme of camera performance, and the flagship sensor configuration and a teleconverter kit allow a user to take photos in various focal lengths with a minimum compromise in quality. Together with AI-based functions in OriginOS 6, it will assist the user in taking nicer low-light, portrait, and action images without a manual adjustment. This is especially appealing to the creators and hobbyists who use their phone as a main or auxiliary camera.

Best smartphones of 2025: Even when not under the camera, The X300 Pro has good performance, quality of the built, and good battery life, thus it remains a good driver. Nonetheless, it is capable of heating up during high-intensity gaming and does not come with expandable storage which can be annoying to some power users, it only suits those that value imaging quality more than anything.

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

Xiaomi 15 Ultra takes mobile photography to a new level as it has a 200MP telephoto lens and a separate telephoto module, which blurs the zoom, ensuring the photos remain detailed at a great variety of focal lengths. At the back, the camera housing looks like a compact pro camera and Xiaomi goes so far as to sell a photography kit, which is attractive to serious photographers. This is the obvious choice of the users who want to have the closest to a professional camera, but with the phone.

Best smartphones of 2025: The phone has an easy-to-demand performance because the Snapdragon 8 Elite supports heavy apps and AI functionalities; the large camera module turns it into a heavy and unwieldy phone, not easy to use by small hands. It is a tool that the population of amateurs who are ready to sacrifice the size to the highest control of the camera and is not averse to investing additional accessories in the device to get the maximum out of it.

The bottom line for 2025 buyers

In these flagships, 2025 has played with refining concepts as opposed to reinventing them: a smarter display, Super Light, improved cameras and displays and smarter software. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 can be the choice of productivity or the Razr 60 Ultra can be the most compact flip, and photography-oriented clients will be the happiest with Vivo X300 Pro or Xiaomi 15 Ultra. To achieve level, daily high-end consumption, Best smartphones of 2025 the iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17, and Oppo Find X9 Pro are the most attractive general options.

Disclaimer: The information regarding the gadgets/devices listed in the table and article has been sourced from various secondary sources. For detailed product specifications, please refer to the brand sources.