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Poco F9 Ultra Review: Great Sound, Grown-Up Design

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PROS:


  • Bose-tuned speaker remains a genuine standout

  • big , bright 185Hz display

  • Huge 8,050mAh battery

  • Great performance

CONS:


  • Relatively large and heavy body will not suit everyone

  • Ultrawide still does not feel especially wide

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The F9 Ultra feels like Poco growing into its strengths, with Bose-tuned sound still leading the experience.

The Poco F8 Ultra felt like a turning point for Poco. Up to that point, the brand had always been easy to understand. You bought a Poco for speed, sharp pricing, and a bit of swagger. The F8 series added something new to that formula with Bose-tuned speakers, and that changed the feel of the phone in a way a faster chip or brighter screen usually does not.

It was not just about volume or clarity. The whole device felt more built around entertainment. Games had more punch, films had more room to breathe, and even everyday audio felt less like an afterthought. The denim-inspired rear panel helped give the F8 Ultra a bit of tactile identity too, even if the finish was more denim-adjacent than truly fabric-like, but the thing that stayed with you was the sound.

Designer: POCO

The Poco F9 Ultra takes that idea and pushes it further. Rather than treating the Bose-tuned system as a one-off flourish, Poco seems to be building on it with more confidence this time, wrapping that sound-first approach in a package that feels bigger, more polished, and more ambitious. If the F8 Ultra introduced a new side of Poco, the F9 Ultra feels like the phone that tries to make it stick.

Aesthetics

If the Poco F8 Ultra leaned young and fashionable, the Poco F9 Ultra leans sophisticated. It keeps the brand’s taste for visual confidence, but expresses it in a more restrained way, swapping tactile playfulness for cleaner lines, flatter surfaces, and a more polished sense of control.

That shift is obvious the moment you look at the back. The denim-inspired treatment from the F8 Ultra is gone, replaced by a finish that feels more metallic and more architectural. The overall silhouette is simpler, but it does not come across as plain. Instead, it feels like Poco has traded novelty for composure, letting shape and proportion do more of the work.

The camera island design remains largely the same as its predecessor, but it feels more resolved here. A large rectangular module sits across the top portion of the phone, housing three cameras and an LED flash in a neat 2 by 2 arrangement, with the speaker grille set off to the right. It is still a bold layout, but one that now feels less experimental and more like a defining part of the phone’s identity.

New to the F9 Ultra is a dynamic light ring built around the speaker grille. It supports personalized visual effects for incoming calls, games, and music. The effect itself appears to be fairly simple, closer to a clean white LED accent than anything overly flashy, but that may be exactly the point. It feels like Poco’s way of keeping a hint of gaming-phone energy alive without letting it overwhelm the more sophisticated direction of the design.

The two colors also tell slightly different stories. The Dark Cherry finish is the more expressive option, bringing warmth and a bit of drama without tipping into flashiness. The Black version feels more understated and technical, especially with the red side-button accent adding a small but effective point of contrast. Both work, but they speak to different moods. One is richer and more characterful, while the other is cooler and more controlled.

Ergonomics

That more sophisticated look does come with a more substantial physical presence. At 235g, the Poco F9 Ultra is about 15g heavier than the F8 Ultra, and you feel that extra weight immediately. It sits firmly on the heavier side, especially in one-handed use, where its size and mass are hard to ignore.

Its dimensions, 163.49 x 77.94 x 8.74mm, are broadly in line with its predecessor, so the overall footprint will feel familiar if you are coming from the older model. It is still a wide phone, though, and not the easiest to manage with one hand. The curved edges do help soften the grip and make it feel less severe than the numbers suggest, but this is still a device that feels more at home in two-handed use.

The matte finish does its part as well. It feels premium, pleasant to touch, and better at disguising smudges than a glossier surface would be. Add in the familiar button placement and unchanged in-display fingerprint scanner, and the F9 Ultra ends up feeling less like a phone you need to relearn and more like one you simply need to get used to carrying.

Performance

The F9 Ultra runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the same flagship platform used in the F8 Ultra. Poco has also retained the VisionBoost D8, a dedicated chip aimed at improving gaming and video performance. In practice, that makes the F9 Ultra feel less like a leap in raw power and more like a refinement of an already capable performance formula.

The F9 Ultra pairs that gaming focus with a 6.9-inch 1.5K AMOLED display, and it is exactly the kind of panel you would want on a phone built around entertainment. It is large, sharp, and vibrant, with a refresh rate that gives the phone a clear performance edge in games that can actually take advantage of it. Outside of gaming, that same smoothness carries over into scrolling, animations, and general navigation, even if the practical difference becomes less dramatic in everyday use.

Brightness is another clear strength. Poco says this is the first global lineup to use the new M11 luminescent material, which helps the panel reach up to 4,500 nits in peak brightness and as high as 10,000 nits for HDR highlights. The numbers are extreme, but the more practical takeaway is that the screen stays very readable outdoors and gives bright scenes a stronger sense of punch and contrast without losing too much detail.

The F9 series is also Poco’s first to push to 185Hz, with support for 24 games running at a native 185fps. That sounds more dramatic than it always feels in practice, because the benefit depends heavily on the kind of game you are playing. In faster titles like Blood Strike, Crossfire: Legends, and Brawl Stars, the higher refresh rate does make a difference. Motion looks cleaner, visual updates come faster, and the game feels a little more immediate under your fingers. In slower games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, or Hearthstone, the gain is much smaller. You still get smoother animations and interface movement, but not the same kind of gameplay advantage.

In an hour-long session of Blood Strike at the highest graphic settings, the F9 Ultra was able to hold 185fps without any obvious frame drops. Just as importantly, it did not get uncomfortably hot, staying at around 40 degrees Celsius on the surface. There is clearly enough cooling here to keep performance from falling off over time, but the more important takeaway is that the phone stays consistent under load.

Main Camera, 1x

Portrait mode, Main Camera, 3.1x

The F9 Ultra is the second phone to come out of Poco’s partnership with Bose, which makes the collaboration feel less like a one-off experiment and more like part of the series identity. The Bose-tuned speaker system remains one of its most distinctive features, and also one of the easiest to appreciate in daily use. Poco says it has redesigned the acoustic port and upgraded the dual speakers for clearer sound and richer bass. It also keeps the sound profile presets and 10-band EQ introduced on the F8 Ultra, which means there is still plenty of room to tailor the sound to your liking.

Telephoto Camera, 5x

Telephoto Camera, 10x

In use, the speakers are easy to like. Just like the F8 Ultra, the F9 Ultra delivers some of the best smartphone audio you can get. The sound is fuller and more open than what most phones manage, with enough bass presence to give games, films, and music a bit more body. Dialogue comes through clearly, and the overall presentation feels less cramped than the average smartphone speaker setup.

Main Camera, 1x

Telephoto Camera, 5x

Telephoto Camera, 10x

The F9 Ultra upgrades the main camera from 50MP on the F8 Ultra to 200MP here, though the sensor itself is smaller, dropping from 1/1.31-inch to 1/1.56-inch. That makes it less a straightforward upgrade and more a different kind of tradeoff. The rest of the setup remains familiar, with a 50MP 5x telephoto, a 50MP ultrawide, and a 32MP front camera.

Poco has also made a subtle but useful change to the focal lengths. The F9 Ultra uses a 24mm-equivalent main camera and a 17mm-equivalent ultrawide, compared with 23mm and 18mm on the F8 Ultra. The shift is small, and the ultrawide still does not feel especially expansive, but the added separation between the two lenses makes the jump from main to ultrawide feel a little more purposeful.

Ultrawide Camera, 0.7x

Main Camera, 1x

Telephoto Camera, 10x

In use, the main camera captures photos with good detail, solid dynamic range, and vibrant color. The 5x telephoto is also capable, though it tends to produce images that look a bit more saturated and contrast-heavy. Video is solid too, with crisp footage and enough consistency to make the camera system feel dependable for everyday shooting.

Night Shot, Ultrawide Camera, 0.7x

Night Shot, Main Camera, 1x

Night Shot, Telephoto Camera, 5x

Night Shot, Telephoto Camera, 10x

Battery life remains one of the F9 Ultra’s biggest strengths. The 8,050mAh battery is enormous even by flagship standards, and it gives the phone a clear advantage in the kind of heavy use it is designed for. In my use, it was easy to stretch the phone across two days on a charge, which suits the F9 Ultra’s media-heavy, gaming-friendly character especially well.

Charging is just as capable, with 100W wired and 50W wireless support, plus 27W wired reverse charging and 22.5W wireless reverse charging. It is a battery setup that feels as well-rounded as the rest of the phone.

Sustainability

The F9 Ultra is not a phone that talks much about sustainability in the material-driven sense, but it does make a decent case for longevity. Its IP68 rating and Corning Gorilla Glass 7i should help it stand up to everyday wear, which is still one of the most practical ways a phone can stay useful for longer.

Poco also promises four major Android OS updates and six years of security patches, which gives the F9 Ultra a fairly credible long-term support story. That matters because software support plays a big role in whether a phone remains worth keeping. Poco may not be leading the conversation around recycled materials or repairability here, but the basics of durability and usable lifespan are in place.

Value

The F9 Ultra starts at $799 for the 12GB/256GB version, which puts it $70 above the F8 Ultra. That is still an increase, but not an especially aggressive one in the current climate, where similar phones have seen price jumps closer to $100. Some of that restraint may come from Poco reusing the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform, which likely helped balance out the rising cost of RAM and other components.

As an upgrade, though, the case is less convincing. If you already have the F8 Ultra, moving to the F9 Ultra does not make a lot of sense unless you specifically want the new design, the 185Hz display, or the 200MP main camera. As a fresh buy, however, it remains one of the best affordable flagship-level phones around. Poco may be edging upward in price, but it still knows how to deliver a lot of phone for the money.

Verdict

The Poco F9 Ultra feels like Poco settling into a formula that actually works. The design is more mature, the gaming side is still strong, and the Bose-tuned speakers remain one of the best reasons to care about the series in the first place. Add the huge battery and the 185Hz display, and you end up with a phone that feels very sure of what it wants to be.

If you already have the F8 Ultra, I do not think this is the upgrade to chase. The older phone is still good enough that the differences here feel more iterative than urgent. But if you are buying fresh, the F9 Ultra is still one of the better affordable flagship-level phones around, especially if you care as much about sound and gaming as you do about the usual specs.

The post Poco F9 Ultra Review: Great Sound, Grown-Up Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

MAKERphone 2.0 Assembles Like LEGO, Calls Like a Real 4G Phone

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Most phones arrive finished, sealed behind glass before you open the box. MAKERphone 2.0 flips that script. It ships as loose parts that only become a phone once you build it yourself: no soldering iron, no electronics background, just a screwdriver and about two hours. Once assembled, it’s a working 4G device that makes real calls and sends texts over a live network.

The build is what really sells the design. Every piece, from the board to the display to the numpad and to the joystick, clicks or screws into place. The entire endeavor is guided by an illustrated manual that reads like a LEGO instruction booklet, with video walkthroughs for anyone who gets stuck. By the time you finish, you’ve seen the processor, the modem, and the battery close, not used them.

Designer: CircuitMess

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $160 (24% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $300,000.

Pop in a nano-SIM and the phone comes alive on 4G networks, handling calls and texts like any device off a shelf. There’s a music player, a photo and video gallery, a calendar, notes, and a handful of retro games loaded onto that small color screen. What’s missing says as much: no app store, no social feed, nothing designed to keep anyone scrolling past bedtime.

That absence is the whole appeal for anyone shopping for a kid’s first phone. It calls and texts the people a child needs to reach, without opening the door to an internet’s worth of distraction. When a kid wants a new app or game, the answer isn’t downloading one; it’s building it. Screen time stops being something to limit and starts being something to spend making.

That building happens inside VibeBoy, the phone’s companion coding studio that runs on a computer. Describe an idea in plain English, like a taco dodging falling pickles, and the AI writes code sent to the phone with one click. The goal isn’t to let AI do all the thinking but to let VibeBoy teach users to read that code, question it, and eventually rewrite it.

That teaching happens across four stages built into the same app. Beginners describe what they want and watch it appear on-screen, before moving on to reading and tweaking the Python code the AI generates. Eventually, they write their own Python and C++ from a blank file. Nobody stays at one skill level long; the ladder is designed so most people climb it faster than expected.

Six snap-on modules turn the phone into something closer to a small hardware platform than a single-purpose device. A camera module captures pixelated stills and video, a bigger speaker adds volume, and a flashlight adds utility. An environment sensor reads temperature and humidity, an infrared module controls other devices, and a bare perforated board lets anyone solder a custom circuit and plug it in.

A companion smartwatch called MAKERband follows the same idea, arriving as a kit to assemble rather than a sealed gadget. Once built, it pairs with the phone over Bluetooth and also works with iOS and Android, running 15 watchfaces and five mini-games out of the box. It connects to VibeBoy, so a custom watchface, say, a pixel cat that naps after 9 PM, is a prompt away.

The company behind it, CircuitMess, has spent years building kits like this from a small studio in Croatia. It has shipped hundreds of thousands of units to customers across more than 100 countries, developed dozens of products, and earned coverage from outlets like Wired and The Verge. Just as important, the MAKERphone 2.0 isn’t a rendering or an early prototype: the hardware is finished and ready for production.

What sticks with you isn’t any single spec but the sequence. A pile of components turns into a working phone, and that phone turns into whatever its owner decides to code next. Somewhere between the last screw and the first successful call, the device stops feeling like something you bought and starts feeling like something you actually built, one working call at a time.

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $160 (24% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $300,000.

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iPod Classic emulator for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 finally gets the size and aspect ratio right

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Apple has the opportunity to do something really cool here! An emulator going by the name of Classipod has been doing the rounds on the Google Play Store, letting you run an iPod Classic style interface on any Android phone of your choosing. The only problem is that Apple never really made a 9:20 iPod Classic. Every iPod Classic had a short, stout design and as it stands, there are only two Android phones that currently fit this bill, and both fold.

A video on Instagram showed the Classipod interface on a Galaxy Z Fold8 and I can’t help but feel like this almost exactly looks like the classic iPod. The proportions are damn near perfect, the interface still makes me nostalgic, and those color options absolutely slap! The only real problem is that, like all good things, Classipod came to Android before it did to the iPhone Duo… but if someone from Apple’s software team is reading this (hey Craig!), just go ahead and give us an Apple Music skin that brings back the iPod Classic! Pretty please??

Designer: Adeeteya

Here’s what I find so funny about running Classipod on a Z Fold8 – sure, it almost matches the iPod Classic’s form factor, but even when folded shut, it’s still thinner than the iPod! I’m talking hinge, two sets of screens, two batteries, an entire processor, cameras galore, all that packed into something that measures 9.7mm thick while the iPod Classic, which is just a tiny screen, battery, SoC, and a massive flash drive, measures 10.5mm in thickness. Then again, the iPod Classic packs an aux input too, which you’ll never see on a foldable phone.

But hold the Z Fold8 in your hand and the Classipod definitely scratches the itch of owning vintage Apple gear. The weight and heft, the analog interface, and that gorgeous jogwheel that is sure to get your muscle memory kicking in instantly. You sideload music so it plays locally (no streaming), and you can do everything, from searching for artists to making playlists. And yes, if you’re asking, the jogwheel has haptic feedback so it actually does feel like the iPod of yesteryears.

There are a few iPod emulators on the App Store, but none as good as the Classipod. I guess someone could vibecode one overnight and run it on an iPhone Duo soon, but until then, turns out the most faithful recreation of an iPod Classic exists… just on an Android device!

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TECNO CAMON Slim 5G Review: Thinner than a Pencil, Tough as a Tank

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PROS:


  • Unbelievably slim and lightweight design

  • Striking and stylish art-inspired finish

  • Large 6,000mAh battery despite slim profile

  • Exceptional durability with quad-IP rating, supporting underwater photography

CONS:


  • Modest hardware specs

  • No dedicated telephoto camera

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Slim, art-inspired, and tougher than it looks, the TECNO CAMON Slim 5G packs a 6,000mAh battery into a body thin enough to turn heads.
award-icon

Slim phones have always come with a catch. Shave down the body and something else usually gets sacrificed: usually the battery, sometimes the durability, occasionally both. The TECNO CAMON Slim 5G doesn’t play by that old rulebook. At just 6.39mm thick, it still packs a 6,000mAh battery, 5G connectivity, and a durability rating most phones twice its thickness wouldn’t dare claim.

This review spent real time with the phone away from spec sheets, mostly to see if the design holds up once the initial wow wears off. That meant handling the Neo Mondrian finish TECNO sent for testing, carrying it through a normal week, testing the camera in situations that actually matter, and checking whether the durability claims survive contact with water and everyday clumsiness. The design conversation comes first.

Designer: TECNO

Aesthetics

Pull the CAMON Slim 5G out in public and watch what happens. People notice a phone this thin the way they’d notice a watch too elegant for its price tag, usually with a double take and a request to hold it. TECNO carried over the swan-neck curve from the CAMON 50 series, and on a body this slender, that curve reads like a signature rather than a spec sheet footnote.

TECNO sent the Neo Mondrian colorway for this review, and it’s the strongest argument for treating a phone back as an actual canvas. Expose the panel to sunlight and yellow, green, and cyan blocks slowly bloom out of white, forming the grid Piet Mondrian made famous a century ago. It’s a photochromic trick, but watching it happen feels less like a gimmick and more like a magic show.

Neo Mondrian isn’t the only finish doing something interesting. Van Gogh Blue uses similar light-reactive techniques to make its swirling nebula pattern look like it’s actually rotating as shadows shift across it, closer to a painting than a phone back. Matisse Black leans into fluorescent green or pink color blocks that echo the artist’s cut-out work, while Burgundy Red blends fiberglass and matte texture into a warm, understated finish. Rebel Pink keeps things simpler, pairing a black body with sharp pink accents for something a little more playful.

Phone backs used to be an afterthought, something to protect rather than admire, which is why so many people slapped an opaque case on day one without a second thought. That’s changing. As manufacturers invest more in finishes, textures, and light-reactive coatings, more owners are leaving their phones bare, treating the back panel the same way they’d treat a piece of art they paid good money to display.

Ergonomics

Carrying the CAMON Slim 5G is where the thin body actually pays off day to day. It slides into a front pocket without that telltale bulge, sits flat against a jacket without pulling on the fabric, and feels lighter in hand than the display size suggests. After a few days, reaching for a thicker phone almost feels like picking up a brick by comparison.

Those flat edges aren’t just a style choice borrowed from boxier design trends. They give fingers something to actually grip onto, instead of sliding off a rounded rim the way slippery slab phones tend to do. The matte texture on the Neo Mondrian panel adds even more confidence, and TECNO’s wet and oily finger recognition keeps the touchscreen responsive when hands aren’t exactly dry or clean.

Performance

The 6.78-inch AMOLED display runs at 1.5K resolution and 144Hz, and both numbers translate into a screen that looks sharp and feels fast under a thumb. Photos pop with the kind of contrast only AMOLED delivers, video looks great for a lunch break binge, and scrolling through a feed never feels like it’s fighting the hardware. TÜV Rheinland’s low blue light certification is a nice bonus for long reading sessions.

Under the hood sits a MediaTek Dimensity 7300e, a processor built for balance rather than benchmark bragging rights. It handles social apps, photo editing, and everyday multitasking without hiccups, though demanding 3D games will ask more of it than it’s built to give. The 8GB of RAM stretches to 24GB with virtual memory extension, which covers most multitasking habits without needing to close every open app.

The 50MP Sony LYTIA 700C handles most of the photography workload, and it earns that responsibility. A 1/1.56-inch sensor paired with an f/1.8 lens pulls in plenty of light for evening shots, while the closed-loop ball motor keeps focus locked even when subjects won’t sit still. The 8MP ultra-wide feels more like a footnote, and there’s no telephoto here, but the main camera rarely leaves you wanting one.

The real showstopper is the 6,000mAh battery, a number that seems almost impossible once you remember this phone measures 6.39mm thick. It comfortably carries a full day of camera use, video, and scrolling without the battery anxiety that usually comes with slim designs. That same waterproofing also unlocks a dedicated underwater photography mode, one that kicks in automatically the moment the phone senses it’s gone for a swim.

Sustainability

TECNO rates the CAMON Slim 5G at IP69K, IP69, IP68, and IP66, a combination that’s rare even among phones that don’t have to worry about staying thin. That covers everything from high-pressure water jets to dust particles to full submersion, which is a lot of technical armor for a phone this delicate-looking. Finding this rating on a 6.39mm body is the kind of detail that quietly impresses.

There’s also a MIL-STD-810 rating covering shock and drop resistance, which pairs nicely with features like Rain Touch and Waterproof Case Touch that keep the screen usable in a downpour or behind a case. This doesn’t read like a feature bolted on at the last minute. It feels like TECNO wanted this phone to survive actual daily chaos, not just look good sitting still on a shelf.

Longevity extends past the hardware, too. TECNO promises three major OS upgrades and five years of security patches, plus a 60-month smoothness certification from TÜV SÜD. That’s a meaningful commitment in a market where phones often get abandoned after two update cycles. A well-built object is worth keeping around, and TECNO seems to be betting that owners will want to hold onto this one for a while.

Value

TECNO hasn’t confirmed global pricing yet, but early indications point to somewhere around $400. At that number, buyers get a phone with genuine art-inspired finishes, a 6.78-inch 144Hz AMOLED screen, a Sony-backed 50MP camera with real stabilization, a 6,000mAh battery, and a durability rating that most phones twice the price don’t bother chasing. That’s a fairly generous list for a phone that costs less than most flagships.

Most phones in this price range make you pick a lane. Go thin, and the battery usually suffers, or the body skips water resistance entirely, or the software support runs out after a couple of years. TECNO’s five-year update promise and its layered durability ratings quietly add up to lower long-term cost, since a phone built and supported to last half a decade doesn’t need replacing as often.

This phone makes the most sense for people who are tired of carrying an identical black slab and want something that says a little more about them. It’s not the right pick for hardcore mobile gamers chasing max frame rates, or photographers who need optical zoom on tap. For nearly everyone else, it covers daily needs while looking like it belongs on a gallery shelf.

Verdict

After a few days of actual use, the 6,000mAh battery and the quad-IP rating stop feeling like marketing footnotes and start feeling like the whole point. TECNO built a phone that looks like it belongs in a design museum and still survives a rainy commute or a splash at the sink. The Neo Mondrian panel alone gives it a personality that’s genuinely hard to find anywhere near this price.

Plenty of phones ask you to choose between something beautiful and something dependable, and most buyers have quietly accepted that trade-off as the cost of owning a nice-looking device. The CAMON Slim 5G makes a strong case that the choice was never as necessary as the industry made it seem. It’s a phone that looks good on a café table and still works fine after falling off of one.

The post TECNO CAMON Slim 5G Review: Thinner than a Pencil, Tough as a Tank first appeared on Yanko Design.

MOFT’s Snap Fold Fits 5 Cards and a Stand on the iPhone Duo’s Back

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Foldable phones solved the screen problem and immediately created a smaller, weirder one: there’s barely any flat space left on the back to stick anything useful. The MOFT Snap Fold for iPhone Duo tackles that head-on, built specifically for the Duo’s cramped rear panel rather than shrunk down from an existing wallet design. It still manages to hold five cards and fold into a stand, which shouldn’t be possible given how little room it actually has to work with.

Getting that footprint right meant working around obstacles most phone wallets never have to consider. The camera module on a folding phone sits somewhere that would normally get covered by a standard card holder, so the Snap Fold’s shape clears that housing entirely while staying tucked within the phone’s own edges. Nothing overhangs the sides or risks catching on a pocket, which matters more on a folding device than a rigid one.

Designer: MOFT

Holding five cards in that reduced space is the part worth pausing on. Most compact MagSafe wallets top out around two or three cards specifically because slim profiles and card capacity fight each other, and every additional card usually means added thickness. Fitting five into a footprint already constrained by a camera cutout suggests the internal card layout was rebuilt from scratch rather than adapted from a wallet meant for a flat, uninterrupted phone back.

The stand half of the equation runs on the same origami folding logic MOFT has used across its laptop stands and tablet covers for years, just reworked to survive a much smaller starting shape. Unfolding the wallet reveals multiple viewing positions rather than a single fixed angle, letting the same flat card holder become a way to prop the phone up for a video call or a recipe on the counter without needing a separate stand taking up space in a bag.

That dual identity only works if neither function undercuts the other, and this is where the tight design tolerances actually pay off. Card capacity doesn’t shrink to make room for the folding mechanism, and the stand doesn’t wobble because there wasn’t space left for a sturdy hinge. Both jobs get done inside the same limited footprint, which is a harder balance to strike than building either function alone.

Priced at $49.99, the Snap Fold sits closer to the premium end of MOFT’s wallet lineup, reflecting the added engineering that comes with fitting five cards and a folding stand around a camera cutout instead of across an open, flat surface. That price also positions it as a companion piece bought alongside a foldable phone already carrying its own premium, rather than a casual accessory picked up as an afterthought.

Building for a folding phone means redesigning assumptions that held up fine on every rigid iPhone before it. The Snap Fold treats that constraint as the actual design brief instead of an inconvenience, and the result carries more cards and more stand positions than the smaller back panel should reasonably allow.

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Caviar’s $15,990 iPhone Duo contains a piece of Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck

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Caviar is taking pre-orders for iPhone Duo starting at $15,990, well ahead of the official availability of the new phone form factor Apple unveiled earlier this month. Apple gave us a glimpse of its first foldable iPhone on September 9, with deliveries slated to start in mid-October. But Caviar already has a Jobs-inspired take on the iPhone Duo (as the foldable iPhone is called), and it’s really a peach to behold.

For this one, Caviar has gone a little ahead of leather and other trims it usually uses for pimping up the smartphones, borrowing a scrap from Steve Jobs black turtleneck. Making it more than a collector’s item: a piece of historical significance that you would want to own as an Apple and Jobs fan.

Designer: Caviar

As you would have guessed already, this is not a run-of-the-mill creation. It’s a limited-edition build, and the company says only nine of these Jobs iPhone Duo editions will be made. Each of them will be made to order and will be shipped with a personalized international certificate of authenticity. Production of the iPhone Duo will start in the Caviar workshop only after the full payment has been received against the device. The order will then be fully crafted and completed by technicians before being dispatched your way within four days of your order.

Caviar suggests its customized iPhone Duo is for collectors and those who appreciate artifacts and historic memorabilia. But if you’re a Jobs fan with a deep pocket, I don’t see why you would need another reason to get hands on this Duo engraved with the autograph of the man himself: Steve Jobs, if you will.

Each iPhone Duo with Caviar antics will cost at least $15,990, almost eight times the price of the otherwise expensive iPhone Duo, which Apple confirmed it will sell starting at $1,999. A tribute to Jobs and his lasting influence on Apple as a company, the device wears a three-dimensional Apple logo in the middle of its back panel, while a fragment of Jobs’ black turtleneck sits on it.

This rare detail is complemented by Jobs’ engraved signature in metal just below the letters reading 50 Anniversary Edition. The surface of the central panel is black in color and is made from PVD-coated titanium. The upper panel, the frame, and the decorative elements are made from polished titanium and feature guilloché engraving, Caviar notes.

Caviar refrains from making any changes to the hardware of the iPhone Duo. So, despite the Jobs-inspired Caviar treatment, the phone still has the same (displayed) 5.4-inch Super Retina XDR screen on the outside and an inner display, which folds out to become a 7.6-inch slate. It’s the biggest display on an iPhone ever. The Caviar Jobs iPhone Duo comes with specially designed “Supreme Packaging.” This comprises a lockable outer case with 24K gold plating and a blue gift box made from leather and wood. It includes a Caviar coin plated with 24K gold.

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realme Built a Harry Potter Phone That Ships Inside Harry’s Own Trunk

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Some phone collaborations slap a logo on a box and call it a day. This one goes further, treating a smartphone like a prop pulled straight from the wizarding world rather than a branded accessory bolted onto existing hardware. The realme 16 Pro Harry Potter Edition rebuilds its entire back panel around Hogwarts iconography, then wraps the whole package in a trunk replica that plays the role of Harry’s own school luggage.

Underneath the theming sits the same hardware found in the standard realme 16 Pro: a Dimensity 7300 Max chipset, a 144Hz AMOLED display rated at 6,500 nits of peak brightness, and a 7,000mAh battery supporting 80W wired charging along with bypass and reverse charging. None of that changes here. What changes is how all of it gets dressed up, and that’s where the real story starts.

Designer: realme

A Back Panel Built Like a Wizard’s Chessboard

Flip the phone over, and the design leans on texture before it leans on imagery. A brown, leather-textured back panel carries an Argyle pattern lifted from the Wizard’s Chess scene, giving the surface a woven, tactile quality instead of a flat printed graphic. The Hogwarts Crests sit subtly at the center, small enough to reward a second look rather than shouting for attention from across a room.

The camera module gets its own quiet reinterpretation. Built on the standard 16 Pro’s Metal Mirror Camera Deco, the ring here is reshaped to resemble Hedwig’s eyes, turning a purely functional component into a character reference without needing an explicit illustration to sell the idea. It’s a detail that rewards fans who know the franchise while staying subtle enough not to alienate anyone who doesn’t.

A Frame That Whispers Instead of Shouts

The metallic mid-frame carries a laser-engraved “Welcome to Hogwarts” slogan, placed where a hand would naturally wrap around the device during a call or a photo. That kind of detail only reveals itself through use, not through a glance at a product photo, which fits the restrained tone running through the rest of the design.

Nothing about the theming interferes with how the phone actually functions day to day. The engraving, the crest, the camera ring reshape, all of it layers onto hardware that still charges fast and still displays at a brightness most phones can’t match outdoors. The fantasy stays skin-deep in the best possible way, present without slowing anything down.

A Trunk Instead of a Box

The packaging might be the boldest swing in the whole release. Instead of a standard retail box, this edition ships in a school-style trunk built as a 1:1 replica of Harry’s own luggage, the kind of object that turns unboxing into a small ceremony rather than a chore done over a kitchen counter. Only 5,000 units exist worldwide, immediately treating the box as collectible.

Open it, and the trunk holds a Hogwarts Welcome Pack rather than plastic filler. An acceptance letter and train ticket recreate the moment of becoming a first-year student, while house-crest bookmarks let a fan pick their allegiance and character postcards recreate Harry, Hermione, and Ron’s first steps into the castle. A logo-embossed phone case and a phone pin round out a set built for shelf display as much as daily use.

Merchandise That Understands Its Audience

None of these objects function as phone accessories in the traditional sense. The bookmarks and postcards exist purely as collectible ephemera, while the case is the one item pulling double duty as protection and display piece. That split matters because it treats the box as a keepsake first, with the phone itself as the technological anchor holding the theme together.

That approach reflects a broader shift in how phone makers court younger buyers who grew up with the franchise rather than discovering it as adults. Pairing a genuinely capable mid-range chipset and fast charging with a story-driven unboxing experience gives this edition a reason to exist beyond a seasonal marketing push, aimed at a generation that treats favorite franchises as identity rather than nostalgia.

The post realme Built a Harry Potter Phone That Ships Inside Harry’s Own Trunk first appeared on Yanko Design.

realme Built a Harry Potter Phone That Ships Inside Harry’s Own Trunk

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Some phone collaborations slap a logo on a box and call it a day. This one goes further, treating a smartphone like a prop pulled straight from the wizarding world rather than a branded accessory bolted onto existing hardware. The realme 16 Pro Harry Potter Edition rebuilds its entire back panel around Hogwarts iconography, then wraps the whole package in a trunk replica that plays the role of Harry’s own school luggage.

Underneath the theming sits the same hardware found in the standard realme 16 Pro: a Dimensity 7300 Max chipset, a 144Hz AMOLED display rated at 6,500 nits of peak brightness, and a 7,000mAh battery supporting 80W wired charging along with bypass and reverse charging. None of that changes here. What changes is how all of it gets dressed up, and that’s where the real story starts.

Designer: realme

A Back Panel Built Like a Wizard’s Chessboard

Flip the phone over, and the design leans on texture before it leans on imagery. A brown, leather-textured back panel carries an Argyle pattern lifted from the Wizard’s Chess scene, giving the surface a woven, tactile quality instead of a flat printed graphic. The Hogwarts Crests sit subtly at the center, small enough to reward a second look rather than shouting for attention from across a room.

The camera module gets its own quiet reinterpretation. Built on the standard 16 Pro’s Metal Mirror Camera Deco, the ring here is reshaped to resemble Hedwig’s eyes, turning a purely functional component into a character reference without needing an explicit illustration to sell the idea. It’s a detail that rewards fans who know the franchise while staying subtle enough not to alienate anyone who doesn’t.

A Frame That Whispers Instead of Shouts

The metallic mid-frame carries a laser-engraved “Welcome to Hogwarts” slogan, placed where a hand would naturally wrap around the device during a call or a photo. That kind of detail only reveals itself through use, not through a glance at a product photo, which fits the restrained tone running through the rest of the design.

Nothing about the theming interferes with how the phone actually functions day to day. The engraving, the crest, the camera ring reshape, all of it layers onto hardware that still charges fast and still displays at a brightness most phones can’t match outdoors. The fantasy stays skin-deep in the best possible way, present without slowing anything down.

A Trunk Instead of a Box

The packaging might be the boldest swing in the whole release. Instead of a standard retail box, this edition ships in a school-style trunk built as a 1:1 replica of Harry’s own luggage, the kind of object that turns unboxing into a small ceremony rather than a chore done over a kitchen counter. Only 5,000 units exist worldwide, immediately treating the box as collectible.

Open it, and the trunk holds a Hogwarts Welcome Pack rather than plastic filler. An acceptance letter and train ticket recreate the moment of becoming a first-year student, while house-crest bookmarks let a fan pick their allegiance and character postcards recreate Harry, Hermione, and Ron’s first steps into the castle. A logo-embossed phone case and a phone pin round out a set built for shelf display as much as daily use.

Merchandise That Understands Its Audience

None of these objects function as phone accessories in the traditional sense. The bookmarks and postcards exist purely as collectible ephemera, while the case is the one item pulling double duty as protection and display piece. That split matters because it treats the box as a keepsake first, with the phone itself as the technological anchor holding the theme together.

That approach reflects a broader shift in how phone makers court younger buyers who grew up with the franchise rather than discovering it as adults. Pairing a genuinely capable mid-range chipset and fast charging with a story-driven unboxing experience gives this edition a reason to exist beyond a seasonal marketing push, aimed at a generation that treats favorite franchises as identity rather than nostalgia.

The post realme Built a Harry Potter Phone That Ships Inside Harry’s Own Trunk first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple’s $1,999 iPhone Duo Costs the Same as a Budget MacBook, iPhone, Watch, and AirPods Combined

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Price comparison between the iPhone Duo, MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Watch SE3, and AirPods Pro 3

Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, costs $1,999 for 256GB. That same money also buys four other Apple products with change left over: a 512GB MacBook Neo at $799, an iPhone 17e at $699, an Apple Watch SE 3 at $249, and AirPods Pro 3 at $249. Add it up and you land on $1,996, which is three dollars short of one folding phone. I ran the numbers twice because it looked like a typo. It’s not a typo, it is Apple’s live price list as of September 2026, and the distance between the cheapest thing Apple makes and the most expensive thing Apple makes has never been this wide.

Nobody at Apple decided the phone should cost more than the computer. It happened the way most design inversions happen, one component at a time. Folding glass, a custom hinge, titanium, a second display and a 2nm A20 Pro stack up until you arrive at $1,999 and call it a flagship. Meanwhile the MacBook Neo shed Touch ID, MagSafe and a backlit keyboard to reach $599 in March, before creeping to $699 in June. One product was optimized upward until it became jewelry, the other was optimized downward until it became a school supply, and the two now sit in the same online store 1,300 dollars apart.

The Ladder Apple Built Backwards

The iPhone Duo, MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Watch SE3, and AirPods Pro 3 placed on a wooden table, eye level shot

For most of the iPhone’s history, the price ladder ran in a predictable direction. Laptops cost more than phones, because laptops did more work and carried more metal, glass and cooling hardware. The first MacBook launched in May 2006 at $1,099, which is roughly $1,750 today after inflation, while phones were largely carrier freebies bundled into two-year contracts. That relationship held, loosely, for two decades. It just quietly broke, and the break happened inside a single product lineup rather than across the industry.

What makes the inversion worth dwelling on is that Apple built both ends of it on purpose. The MacBook Neo was engineered down to a price, stripped of the backlit keyboard, fast charging and MagSafe that would normally be standard on a $700 laptop, so that Apple could compete with Chromebooks and entry Windows machines. The iPhone Duo was engineered up to a price, layered with every expensive material Apple had available, and our own coverage of the Duo’s launch called it the biggest redesign of the iPhone since the home button disappeared in 2017. The Apple Watch SE 3, meanwhile, is the one product in this stack that got frozen in place, launched alongside the Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 last September and left untouched at this year’s keynote entirely.

What $1,996 Actually Buys

The iPhone Duo, MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Watch SE3, and AirPods Pro 3 placed on a wooden table.

Run the alternative stack and it holds together as a genuinely complete kit rather than a novelty math exercise. The 512GB MacBook Neo gives you a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an A18 Pro chip, and up to 16 hours of battery in a recycled aluminum shell, for $799. The iPhone 17e covers the phone slot at $699, currently the cheapest new iPhone Apple sells after the rest of the lineup went up $100 on September 9. The Apple Watch SE 3 adds a wrist device with an always-on display and 18-hour battery for $249, and AirPods Pro 3 close the loop at $249 with active noise cancellation, a custom heart rate sensor, and live translation built in.

That is a laptop, a phone, a watch and a pair of earbuds, touching every screen size Apple makes, for three dollars less than one folding phone. It is worth being honest about what that stack gives up. None of those four devices fold, none of them run the A20 Pro, and the SE 3 skips the electrocardiogram and blood oxygen sensors that the pricier Apple Watch Series 12 carries. But as a snapshot of how far Apple’s floor and ceiling have drifted apart, it is hard to beat, and it is proprietary math nobody else appears to have bothered running.

The Hinge Is Doing the Expensive Work

The thing actually driving the $1,999 sticker is not marketing, it is the hinge, and Apple spent real engineering years proving it. The folding display uses a scratch-resistant coating, a polymer cover layer Apple says is up to 40% stiffer than materials used for similar applications, multiple layers of high-strength glass, and a titanium plate underneath, all wrapped around a custom hinge designed to minimize the crease that plagues rival foldables. That is a lot of material science stacked into one seam, and it is the primary reason a Duo cannot be priced anywhere near a Neo.

Apple paired that hinge with an A20 Pro built on a 2-nanometer process, its first chip at that node, delivering what Apple claims is 35% higher sustained performance than the iPhone 17 Pro thanks to a new cooling system built for a thinner chassis. None of that is padding. A folding OLED stack with a titanium frame genuinely costs more to manufacture than a fixed aluminum body, and first-generation folding hardware from any brand has always carried a premium while yields improve. The fair comparison is not Duo versus cheap Apple gear, it is Duo versus other folding flagships, and our own breakdown of what the Duo got right that Samsung still hasn’t found it costing exactly $100 more than the Galaxy Z Fold8’s $1,899.

Nobody Asked For a Missing Middle

What turns this from an interesting price gap into a strange one is what Apple left out of the September 9 keynote entirely. There is no standard iPhone 18, no iPhone 18e, no iPhone Air 2, all reportedly pushed to spring 2027. Anyone who wants a new iPhone before then chooses between $1,199 for the Pro and $1,999 for the Duo, with nothing built to sit between those two numbers this year. Apple has effectively removed the middle rung of its own ladder at the exact moment the top and bottom rungs drifted furthest apart.

That gap is where the $1,996 stack might just appeal to the Apple fan who has a strict budget to work with. It fills the space Apple’s own lineup left empty, assembling a complete household of devices for less than the price of the one device Apple actually wants you looking at this fall. None of that makes the Duo a bad phone, and folding glass this durable was never going to be cheap. It does mean that for one more season, the most interesting purchase decision at Apple has nothing to do with which iPhone to buy, and everything to do with whether you buy an iPhone at all.

The post Apple’s $1,999 iPhone Duo Costs the Same as a Budget MacBook, iPhone, Watch, and AirPods Combined first appeared on Yanko Design.

MagSafe Drone Lets You Attach An iPhone For Perfect Hands-free Selfies And Videos

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Flying Gimbal Drone concept with an iPhone mounted on it

Google’s Add Me is one of the stranger things a phone has ever done. Introduced on the Pixel 9, it takes a photo of your family, then hands the phone to somebody in that photo, who takes a second shot of you standing where the gap was. The phone stitches the two together and produces a group picture that never existed, of a moment where everybody was never actually in the room at once. It works remarkably well. It is also, if you think about it for longer than four seconds, deeply odd, a family portrait assembled in post like a Marvel crowd scene.

Flafa proposes the analog answer to the same question. A concept from Kaiyuan Liu and four classmates at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, it’s a small quadcopter that carries your phone into the air so the camera can hold its own position while every human stays put. The phone snaps onto a magnetic pad below four fully enclosed rotors, hangs face-out, and records while the drone flies itself. It won its category at the 2025 European Product Design Award. Same problem, opposite philosophy: Google removes the photographer with software, Flafa removes them with lift.

Designers: Kaiyuan Liu, Qiushi Wang, Yan Wang, Shiqi Liu & Xiaoyi Chen

Family posing in front of a drone with an iPhone mounted on it

Selfie drones have failed so many times that the category has a graveyard. AirSelfie tried in 2017. Snap’s Pixy launched in 2022, died four months later, and was recalled in 2024 because the batteries caught fire. They all lost for the same reason. A drone light enough to fly indoors cannot carry a camera that beats the phone already in your pocket, so you buy a flying camera, fly it twice, and quietly retire it to a drawer. Flafa declines that fight entirely by bringing no camera at all.

Mounting an iPhone onto a Drone Gimbal using MagSafe

Two small sensor windows sit on the front propeller shrouds, giving the drone its own eyes for navigation while your phone dedicates itself to recording. That division of labor is the smartest thing in the whole project. Most flying cameras ask one sensor to handle obstacle avoidance, subject tracking, and image capture simultaneously, and it shows in the footage. Here the quadcopter worries about the ceiling fan and the phone worries about your kid’s face, which is roughly how you’d split the job if you had two people.

Somebody on this team understood that a drone meant to hover near a toddler cannot look like drone. The renders show warm oat cream, soft radii, matte surfaces, and not one visible screw, putting Flafa closer to a Muji humidifier than to anything DJI has shipped. Consumer drones are almost universally styled for a man in sunglasses on a cliff, all black plastic and angular vents. That grammar makes sense in a camera bag. It makes none in a living room during a birthday party.

The mount deserves credit for paranoia. A magnetic puck holds the phone, and a hinged brace folds along the handset’s edge as mechanical backup, which suggests the team thought hard about a thousand dollars of glass becoming a lawn dart. That said, the physics remains the open question. An iPhone Pro Max weighs around 233 grams, heavier than an entire DJI Neo, and hanging that mass below the center of lift makes a pendulum. The project is called a flying gimbal, but the renders show a hinge rather than an actuated axis.

Student concepts are allowed to be ahead of their batteries. What Flafa gets right is the framing of the problem, and that part is free. Every family album has one person missing, and it’s whoever picked up the camera. Google’s answer is to invent them back in afterward. This one just sends the camera upstairs for a minute.

The post MagSafe Drone Lets You Attach An iPhone For Perfect Hands-free Selfies And Videos first appeared on Yanko Design.