6 smartphone design trends I wish to see blow up before 2030

I won’t be the first to say that smartphone design has become boring, leaving techies like myself craving more innovation and experimentation. Still, there are exceptions. Enthusiast products like the Nothing Phone or the best rugged Android phones come to mind. However, most mainstream phones look and feel the way they did several years ago.

Smartphone design never stopped adapting to trends and expectations. It just does so in more subtle, carefully calculated ways. Still, I don’t see anything as wild as the LG Wing materializing anytime soon. However, I am excited to see smartphone design evolve in practical and inspiring ways in the coming years. These are my top six predictions and expectations for the directions in which design trends could go.

6

New form factors: Triple-folding and rollable phones

The next chapter for foldable phones

These are shaping up as the boldest smartphone design experiments of the decade. We’ve seen the first commercially available triple-folding phone, the Huawei Mate XT, and we expect Samsung to announce its own by the end of 2025. The first rollable phone is likely to materialize soon, with a screen that extends and contracts to adapt to the user’s needs.

While extravagant rollable and triple-folding phones have zero chance of achieving mass adoption, they represent the kind of innovation that thrills enthusiasts. Alternative form factors push the boundaries and embody what’s possible with the latest technology. In practical terms, having a tablet-sized screen that fits in your pocket must be amazing.

Will there be challenges? Surely. The Huawei Mate XT is expensive, and so will any other brand’s response. Durability is also a concern, given the mechanical complexity of such innovative designs. Still, I hope rollable and tri-foldable phones gain enough traction to stick around and become valid alternatives to mainstream handsets.

5

Thinner phones

Significantly slimmer devices like the Galaxy S25 Edge

Who ever asked for a thinner phone? I get why tech geeks aren’t fond of the concept of a slim, premium handset like the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge or the rumored iPhone 17 Air. Space constraints prevent a high-end camera system, a decently sized battery from fitting in, or most other forms of exciting tech.

But then again, there’s more to smartphones than megapixels and milliamp-hours. They are status symbols and platforms for self-expression. I bet there are enough people who care about how their phone looks and would be at least intrigued by a super-thin, premium phone, the kind we haven’t had for some time. I’m not one of them, but I’m in favor of having options, and a phone like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge would bring welcome variety to the market. For everyone else, there’s the S25 Ultra.

Will other companies follow suit? Probably. In addition to Samsung and Apple, at least one other company is exploring the concept: Tecno. At MWC 2025, it showed a 5.75mm-thin smartphone with a 5,200mAh battery. While its maker called it a concept device, a commercial launch is in the cards for 2025.

4

Extra physical buttons

As long as the user can program them

Additional physical buttons on smartphones are not a new concept. Sony Xperia phones have two-stage shutters, and the iPhone 15 series introduced the programmable Action Button. For a brief period, multiple companies had dedicated Google Assistant buttons on their phones.

I believe an extra hardware button could be of great use, as long as the idea is executed well. That wasn’t always the case in the past, which may be why the concept didn’t go mainstream. Some phone companies limited what you could do with their additional buttons. Sometimes, the key was placed in an awkward spot.

Since Apple added the Action Button to the iPhone, I’ve wished its rivals would add one to their Android phones. Having a button we can customize would be neat. It would also be more convenient than a software solution since a physical button is accessible from any screen and even during stand-by.

Android has always been about freedom of personalization, so a response to the Action Button seems overdue. Fortunately, at least one Android brand thinks that way. OnePlus will be replacing its alert slider with a programmable button, the company confirmed. I hope it works well and sticks around.

3

Thinner camera islands

And by thinner I mean less obnoxious

We all want phones that take good photos. However, a good camera system requires sufficient physical space to fit a large sensor and any secondary lenses it may have. That’s how we got phones with camera islands occupying half their backs. A humongous camera island is an eyesore, in my opinion, and sometimes makes the phone uncomfortable to use.

Can you have a high-end camera that doesn’t stick out too much? It seems so. Samsung, for instance, fit a 200MP camera in about 10mm of thickness on the special edition Galaxy Z Fold sold in Korea. The company is also behind an innovative all-lens-on-prism technology, which allows periscope-style zoom in a thinner camera module. Additionally, the recently introduced Sony LYTIA image sensors promise improved performance even from small pixel and sensor sizes.

These and other technological advancements should allow next-gen high-end phones to deliver solid camera performance without obnoxious camera islands. I hope some consider eliminating the island by making the rest of their phones thicker and fitting in larger batteries, like Redmagic did with its gaming phone.

2

Improved repairability

Because phones are more fragile than ever

Phones today may look beautiful with their glass-and-metal bodies, but most people hide these pretty looks behind a case. The reason is that phones break easily, and fixing them is difficult and expensive. Even if you baby your phone, its battery is bound to degrade after a few years. Most people lack the tools and skills needed to replace a battery.

Things might change in the coming years because of a push from the European Union to bring back easily replaceable batteries. I don’t know how manufacturers would design phones to comply with the EU’s demands, but they have until 2027 to figure it out. While the regulation applies within the EU only, it may have a global impact, as the push to switch to USB Type-C saw Apple drop Lightning instead of the universal connector.

I’m all for easily repairable phones, even if that makes them thicker. After all, what’s the point of seven years of software support if the hardware doesn’t last as long? Curiously, some manufacturers are actively developing easily repairable devices. The HMD Skyline has easy self-repair as a main selling point, and all Fairphones have been built with that philosophy in mind from the brand’s start.

1

Next-gen modularity

Thanks to Qi2 and compatible accessories

The modular phones Project Ara envisioned never got out of the research lab. Developing swappable processors, memory, and other hardware would have been revolutionary, enabling seamless upgrades and repairs. However, it faced too many roadblocks on technical and logistical levels. Motorola’s more realistic Moto Mods concept launched commercially, but the company abandoned the project a few years later.

Yet, the modular dream lives on. I believe we’ll quietly see modularity return to Android phones in a way you may not expect — with Qi2 adoption. Now, you’re probably thinking of Qi2 as tech built strictly for charging. That’s a key use case, but the magnets, if present on the phone, work for more than aligning the wireless charging coils for optimal efficiency.

In addition to magnetic wireless chargers, charging stands, and power banks, I expect to see a richer selection of accessories that take advantage of the technology. From magnetic rings, kickstands, and wallets, to fancier gear like camera grips, filming lights, tripods, and more. If only more Android phone makers would add Qi2 to their products.

What else is in the future of smartphone design?

I can’t say with certainty what phones will look like in 2030, but I expect any design changes that may come to be careful and subtle, unless new form factors are involved. Experimental designs may be fun, but they’re a costly investment that may not yield any returns. That’s likely one reason design innovation has slowed down in recent years. Today’s phones look good and function well enough, and people buy enough of them even when they barely change year over year. Still, I believe phone design will continue to evolve, no matter how gently, and I’m thrilled to see what the next few years will bring.