OPINION: There’s often a little bit of a lull within the smartphone market at the moment of yr, with few massive smartphones introduced this near Christmas and the tip of the yr.
As an alternative, the consensus amongst most smartphone producers appears to be to attend till the brand new yr to introduce their new choices packing the most recent processors from MediaTek and Qualcomm, this yr within the type of the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 and Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Somebody should’ve forgotten to move the memo on to Chinese language producers like Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo and OnePlus, nonetheless; the 4 producers have damaged the mould by launching next-gen flagship smartphones up to now week.
2025 telephones…arriving now
That features the much-anticipated Xiaomi 15 and Honor Magic 7 sequence’ teased at this yr’s Snapdragon Summit, together with the Oppo Discover X8 assortment teased on the Dimensity 9400 reveal and even the most recent OnePlus flagship, the OnePlus 13.
Now, strive to not get too excited right here; the releases in query are all China-only, that means we doubtless gained’t be seeing the most recent Honor or Xiaomi flagships within the UK or European markets earlier than the tip of the yr, however they do present us with our first official have a look at a few of the flagship tech we’ll be having fun with in 2025 – and so they look fairly rattling spectacular.
In actual fact, there are a couple of tendencies among the many first few 2025 flagships.
Essentially the most instantly notable is parity in megapixel depend throughout the rear lenses, with the Xiaomi 15 vary, Oppo Discover X8 vary and OnePlus 13 all providing a trio of 50MP rear lenses throughout their main, ultrawide and telephoto lenses. This could hopefully cut back the distinction in high quality between the differing lenses, making it much less apparent when switching between them.
There’s additionally what appears to be an enormous push within the show division to shut the hole between the perfect Android telephones and the premium display expertise on provide from Apple’s top-end iPhone 16 Professional Max.
In actual fact, each the Xiaomi 13 Professional and Oppo Discover X8 declare to have slimmer bezels than Apple’s top-end iPhone at 1.38mm and 1.45mm respectively.
2025 might also be the yr that we break the 5000mAh battery barrier; whereas we’ve seen a couple of in 2024 go over that mark, together with the 5600mAh Honor Magic 6 Professional and the 6500mAh RedMagic 9S Professional, it’s nonetheless fairly uncommon.
Nonetheless, with the Xiaomi 15 Professional providing a 6100mAh cell, the Magic 7 Professional clocking in at 5750mAh and the OnePlus 13 providing a whopping 6000mAh, it appears like we’ll be seeing a giant increase to battery life on smartphones throughout the board within the coming months.
That needs to be very true when paired with both the Dimensity 9400 or Snapdragon 8 Elite, with each chipset producers claiming an enormous increase to energy effectivity in comparison with earlier flagship chipsets.
All in regards to the efficiency
It’s not nearly effectivity both; 2025 flagship smartphones needs to be far more highly effective.
MediaTek claims that the Dimensity 9400 can hit scores of 9600 in Geekbench 6’s multi-core take a look at, whereas I noticed outcomes of 10,601 from the Snapdragon 8 Elite once I benchmarked a reference system just lately. These are each spectacular scores that go away the A18 Professional throughout the iPhone 16 Professional Max within the mud with scores of 8167.
For reference, the Xiaomi 15 assortment, Honor Magic 7 assortment and OnePlus 13 all sport the Snapdragon 8 Elite, whereas the Oppo Discover X8 sequence packs MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400, and all include no less than 12GB of RAM to play with, so anticipate speedy speeds throughout the board as soon as these gadgets begin showing within the Western market.
The true query is, when will that be? Nicely, the place Oppo is worried, we would not be ready all that lengthy. The model confirmed just lately that the Oppo Discover X8 assortment is certainly headed to the UK, Europe and different areas following its China reveal – it’s only a query of when.
The opposite three producers – OnePlus, Xiaomi and Honor – have all stayed comparatively quiet on once we’ll be seeing their newest flagship gadgets abroad, however we are able to look again at their 2024 launch schedules to get some concept.
The yr began with the discharge of the OnePlus 12 and OnePlus 12R at an occasion that happened on 23 January 2024, whereas each the Xiaomi 14 and Honor Magic 6 Professional launched at MWC on 25 February 2024.
Except the producers wish to deviate from these dates this yr, it suggests we’ll be seeing the OnePlus 13 in January 2025, adopted by the Xiaomi 15 and Honor Magic 6 Professional at MWC 2025, scheduled to kick off on 3 March.
Given the spectacular tech we’ve seen from these first few 2025 flagships, it’s gearing as much as be an thrilling yr within the smartphone market.
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