Tag Archives: phones

Nothing Phone (4b): Not Exciting, But Hard to Fault

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PROS:


  • Distinctive design that still feels recognizably Nothing

  • Large 120Hz AMOLED display is good for the price

  • Solid all–day battery life

CONS:


  • No telephoto camera

  • Noticeable bezel

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

Not especially thrilling, but thoughtfully balanced, the Nothing Phone (4b) is an affordable phone that knows its priorities.

It’s no secret that rising memory prices have become a major challenge for tech companies of every size. Some brands have responded by simply raising prices. Others have had to rethink their product strategy entirely. You know the situation is serious when a company decides not to release a successor to one of its most popular series because it cannot build a phone that feels good enough for its target audience at the right price.

With no CMF phone upgrade arriving this year, the Nothing Phone (4b) becomes the company’s new affordable entry point. Rather than pushing ahead with a compromised CMF successor in a difficult market, Nothing has brought that mission back under its main label. It is an entry-level phone by positioning, but one that still tries to carry the visual character and brand personality that make a Nothing device feel distinct. Of course, affordability in a market like this never comes without tradeoffs. The question is whether Nothing has chosen the right ones. Has it cut back in ways most users can accept, while still delivering a phone that feels stylish, capable, and true to the brand?

Designer: Nothing

Aesthetics

Nothing has built its reputation on a strong and instantly recognizable design identity. That identity first emerged with the Nothing Ear (1), the company’s debut wireless earbuds, whose transparent look immediately gave the brand a distinct visual signature. When Nothing later expanded into smartphones, it introduced the Glyph design as a new defining element of its phone lineup. Since then, the company’s design language has continued to evolve, sometimes through refinement, sometimes through experimentation, but never by standing still.

At a glance, the Phone (4b) still feels part of that family. It carries over familiar cues such as exposed screw details, geometric panel treatment, and a transparent-inspired camera bump that gives the rear a sense of structure rather than mere decoration. The phone is offered in White, Black, and Blue, and its unibody design helps the overall form feel more cohesive. All three colorways use black buttons, which create a subtle contrast, especially on the lighter finishes. The rear itself has a dual-tone look, with a more solid lower section and a transparent-inspired camera bump above it. On that bump, two vertically stacked cameras sit alongside the flash and a Glyph Bar that echoes the Phone (4a).

It is not as fun or as visually exciting as some other Nothing phones, especially the earlier ones. The design feels more restrained, with less of the playful boldness that once made the brand’s devices feel genuinely surprising. Even so, for a budget phone, Nothing has balanced design ambition and cost control well, preserving enough character to keep the Phone (4b) from fading into the background.

Ergonomics

Measuring 164.4 x 78.2 x 8.6 mm and weighing 210 g, the Nothing Phone (4b) is very much a modern big-screen budget phone. Its unibody construction helps it feel solid and cohesive in the hand, and the weight distribution is even enough that it does not come across as awkward or top-heavy. The matte texture is a nice touch visually and helps the phone avoid looking overly glossy, though it does not completely translate into a secure grip.

For me, the biggest issue is the width. At 78.2 mm, it is just a bit too wide to handle comfortably with one hand, especially when trying to reach across the display for interface elements or app icons. The handling can also feel a little slippery at times, so simple actions such as pulling down menus or tapping controls near the opposite edge can require a grip adjustment. As a result, the Phone (4b) feels more natural in two-handed use than in quick one-handed moments.

The fingerprint scanner placement does not help much either. It sits near the bottom of the display, which makes the unlock motion feel less seamless than it should. Once the phone is unlocked, your thumb is already positioned too low, so moving directly into navigation feels less natural than it would with a scanner placed slightly higher. It is a small ergonomic detail, but one that becomes easier to notice in everyday use.

Performance

The Nothing Phone (4b) is powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, paired with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. That places it firmly in the lower mid-range rather than the true bargain-bin tier, and in daily use, that positioning feels about right. This is not a phone that tries to impress with raw speed or benchmark theatrics. Instead, it aims for a level of performance that feels dependable enough for the people most likely to buy it.

In everyday tasks, the Phone (4b) holds up well. Navigating the interface, switching between common apps, browsing the web, replying to messages, and scrolling through social media all feel smooth enough that the phone rarely calls attention to its limitations. Gaming is where its limits become clearer. Casual titles should run without much trouble, and lighter 3D games are likely to be perfectly playable, but this is not a device built for demanding graphics or long sessions at high settings. Heavier games will almost certainly require reduced visual quality to maintain consistency, and even then, this is not the sort of phone that feels eager to push beyond its class.

The software experience plays a big role in making the Phone (4b) feel more polished than its hardware might otherwise suggest. Nothing’s interface has generally been one of the company’s strengths, and that remains true here. Notably, Nothing has not held back too much on software features, with AI tools and Essential Space both making their way to the Phone (4b). The software is also relatively clean, with only a small amount of pre-installed bloatware, something that remains surprisingly rare at this end of the market.

The Glyph interface is still here, though in reduced form as the rear Glyph Bar rather than the fuller system found on more expensive Nothing phones. It supports practical functions such as timers, charging progress, notifications, recording indicators, and one of my personal favorites, the camera countdown, so it is more than just a visual gimmick. Still, this pared-down implementation feels more like a modest nod to Nothing’s identity than a feature that adds much excitement to the experience.

The Phone (4b) features a large 6.77-inch AMOLED display with a 1080 x 2344 resolution, a pixel density of 381ppi, and a 120Hz refresh rate. Nothing also claims a peak brightness of 2,000 nits and 1,300 nits in outdoor brightness mode. It is a solid display package for the segment, offering the kind of size and fluidity that most users will immediately appreciate in daily use.

Visually, the panel does not do much to surprise. The bezels are relatively thick all around, with a more noticeable chin at the bottom, so it lacks the sleek edge-to-edge impression of more expensive phones. Even so, this is still a good screen for the price. The AMOLED panel gives the Phone (4b) the contrast and richness you would hope for, while the 120Hz refresh rate helps the interface feel smoother and more modern.

Main Camera, 2x

Main Camera, 1x

The speaker quality follows a similar pattern. It is still not especially impressive, but it is better than merely acceptable. The stereo speaker setup gives the Phone (4b) a more balanced audio presentation, and the sound avoids becoming muddy. It is not a standout for richness or power, but for everyday listening, the result is solid for the class.

Main Camera 2x (B&W Film Filter), Main Camera 2x (Normal)

Main Camera 2x (Portrait Mode)

The camera system is another area where expectations need to stay grounded. On the back, the Phone (4b) pairs a 50MP main camera, using a 1/2.76-inch sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and OIS, with an 8MP ultra-wide camera that uses a 1/4-inch sensor and an f/2.2 aperture. Up front, there is a 16MP selfie camera. This is a fairly typical camera setup for the segment, with the main sensor doing most of the meaningful work.

Ultra-wide 0.6x

Main Camera 1x

In good daylight, the results are generally solid. The main camera captures decent detail, pleasing contrast, and images that are more than good enough for social sharing. The phone can zoom up to 10x, but image quality starts to fall off noticeably beyond 2x, so that upper range is more there for flexibility than for genuinely reliable output. Low-light performance is also fairly good overall, though white balance can become a little wonky in certain scenes. For video, the main camera can record at up to 4K 30fps, while the ultra-wide and front-facing cameras are limited to 1080p, with the former capped at 30fps and the latter able to reach 60fps.

Main Camera 2x

Main Camera 5x

Main Camera 10x

Battery life should be one of the Phone (4b)’s more dependable strengths. The global version packs a 5,200mAh battery, and when paired with a relatively modest chipset and efficient software, the phone is clearly tuned for endurance rather than excess. In my use, it lasted a full day easily, which is exactly what most buyers in this category will want. Charging is less exciting. Wired charging tops out at 33W, which is not especially fast by current standards, but the inclusion of 5.5W reverse wired charging is still a welcome extra.

Sustainability

Sustainability is rarely a major talking point in the smartphone market, which is why Nothing deserves credit here. The company puts details such as the Phone (4b)’s carbon footprint and packaging composition directly on the product page instead of burying them elsewhere. That kind of transparency is still uncommon, and it makes the sustainability effort feel more concrete.

There is also a practical side to the story. The Phone (4b) has an IP64 rating for dust and splash resistance, while its unibody construction should help with structural strength. Software support is solid, with three years of Android updates and six years of security patches.

Nothing lists the Phone (4b)’s carbon footprint at 54.7 kg CO₂e, and says more than 99 percent of the packaging is plastic-free, excluding the PET-paper composite label. These are not the kind of details most buyers will focus on first, but they are useful to have. More importantly, this level of disclosure is worth praising and reflects a company that is at least willing to treat environmental responsibility as part of the product conversation.

Value

At £299, or about $400, the Nothing Phone (4b) is not trying to be the absolute cheapest option. Instead, it aims to offer a more polished and distinctive experience than many budget phones at this price. That gives it a slightly different kind of value proposition.

That mostly works in its favor. You get a recognizably Nothing design, a large 120Hz AMOLED display, clean software, stereo speakers, solid battery life, and dependable everyday performance. The phone is not without compromises, especially in its chipset choice and the lack of a telephoto camera.

The Phone (4b) may not be the obvious bargain pick, but it still offers solid value. It feels less like a phone built to win on one headline feature and more like one shaped by careful compromise. For buyers who want an affordable phone with personality and few major weaknesses, it makes a convincing case for itself.

Verdict

The Nothing Phone (4b) is a sensible response to a difficult market. Rather than forcing out a compromised CMF successor, Nothing has created a new affordable entry point under its main brand. The result is a phone that feels carefully judged rather than boldly ambitious.

It is not an especially exciting device, and some compromises are easy to notice. The chin bezel, modest chipset, and limited camera versatility all remind you where costs have been kept in check. Even the Glyph Bar feels more like a restrained nod to Nothing’s identity than a standout feature.

Still, the Phone (4b) gets the fundamentals right. It offers a good display, clean software, solid battery life, stereo speakers, dependable everyday performance, and a design that still feels recognizably Nothing. For buyers who want an affordable phone with personality and few major weaknesses, it makes a convincing case for itself.

The post Nothing Phone (4b): Not Exciting, But Hard to Fault first appeared on Yanko Design.

This $13,130 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Has Messi in 24K Gold

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The World Cup is officially over and some people are still having a well-documented hangover from the 39-day football tournament. While Argentina failed to win their fourth star, the GOAT Lionel Messi did manage to break several records in the 2026 edition after winning the 2022 crown. What makes this all the more memorable is that it is probably the 39-year-old’s swan song from representing his country after a tumultuous and memorable stint for the national team.

If you want to have something to keep your memories of Messi in an Argentina jersey alive and you have $13k lying around, this special edition Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra from Caviar is something for you. Aside from the exquisite design that comes with the phone, the device was listed and shown on the Caviar website nearly a week before Samsung officially unveiled their new device, so that means some of the features were “accidentally” leaked through the images on the product page.

Designer: Caviar

Leaks aside, if you’re a true football and Messi fan, you probably wouldn’t notice that, as you’ll be focused on how beautiful the luxury custom phone looks. Messi’s likeness in an Argentina jersey is handcrafted onto the phone using the intricate, centuries-old technique of cloisonné enamel, rendered in the traditional blue-and-white colors of the Albiceleste. Elements like the frame, key contours, Messi’s iconic number 10 jersey, national symbols, and framing details are highlighted with 24k gold.

To make it even more official looking, you get official badges like the FIFA badge for Argentina’s 2022 World Cup-winning run, the Adidas logo, and the official national crest. It also comes with custom packaging, as it is encased in a royal blue custom box with 24-karat gold plating and a signature Caviar Key. Of course, with all these details, you can’t expect this to be cheap. The $13,130 price tag is 5x the expected price tag of the yet-to-be-officially-announced Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. And even if you have $13k to spend, there will only be 19 pieces available, so you’ll have to be early to shell out that money.

What’s particularly impressive is that Caviar didn’t just slap Messi’s face on a phone and call it a day. The luxury atelier has built a reputation for transforming high-end devices into genuine works of art, and this piece is no exception. The cloisonné enamel technique used here is the same method found in fine jewelry and ancient decorative arts. It involves painstakingly separating colored enamels using thin metal wires before firing them at high temperatures. The result is a vivid, jewel-like finish that no digital print or laser engraving could ever replicate. Holding this phone feels less like holding a gadget and more like cradling a piece of history in the palm of your hand.

That sense of history is exactly what makes this edition so compelling. Messi’s journey with the Argentine national team has been nothing short of a rollercoaster, from heartbreaking World Cup final losses to the ultimate redemption in Qatar in 2022. Watching him grace the global stage one final time in 2026 was an emotional farewell that millions felt deeply. This phone captures that entire arc: the number 10, the Albiceleste colors, the World Cup crest, all immortalized in gold and enamel.

For collectors, the rarity factor alone is enough to justify the price. Only 19 units will ever be made, which means this phone will likely appreciate in value over time. Think of it less as buying a smartphone and more as acquiring a limited-edition sculpture that also happens to fold in half. And with storage options ranging from 256GB up to 1TB, the Samsung Z Fold 8 Ultra underneath the artistry is still a powerhouse device worth using, if you can bring yourself to take it out of the box.

Whether you’re a die-hard Messi fan, a tech enthusiast with a taste for the extraordinary, or a collector hunting for the next great statement piece, the Caviar Lionel Messi Samsung Z-Fold8 Ultra checks every box. It is, quite literally, 24-karat iconic.

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A $299 Flip Phone That Does What Screen Time Apps Never Actually Did

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Flip phones never really disappeared. They just got sidelined once smartphones made everything available in a single touchscreen slab. Now they’re back in two very different forms: the foldable flagship, where a large touchscreen folds in half and costs over a thousand dollars, and a growing category of deliberately simpler devices that use the clamshell form to keep things from spiraling into the same habits smartphones enabled.

The Light Flip lands firmly in that second camp. It’s a 5G clamshell built around the same philosophy that has driven Light’s earlier devices, giving people the connectivity they need without the features that compete for attention. Fold it open, and you get a 2.8-inch matte OLED display and a physical keypad. Close it, and there’s no outer screen to glance at, no notification count, nothing pulling you back.

Designer: Light Phone

That absence of an outer display is a deliberate one. Most modern flip phones make the external screen a selling point, showing you messages and notifications without opening the phone. The Light Flip skips that entirely, which means the act of opening it is the only way in. It’s a small friction that turns out to make a meaningful difference in how often you reach for the phone by instinct rather than by intention.

Calls, texts, T9 predictive input, voice-to-text, and audio messaging cover the communication basics. Beyond that, LightOS includes a focused set of tools: directions, a music and podcast player, hotspot, calendar, weather, notes, a timer, and an authenticator for two-factor logins. The tools are genuinely useful and show up only when you need them. There’s no app store, no browser, and no social feeds anywhere in the operating system.

The hardware is honest about where the money went. The body is plastic, 160g, and uses a MediaTek MT8873 processor with 128 GB of storage and a 1,800 mAh battery that lands around 1.5 days. The camera uses a 50-megapixel rear sensor to produce 12-megapixel images. There’s no selfie camera, no NFC reader, and no touchscreen, which is how Light kept the price to $299. A 3.5mm headphone jack and a swappable battery are both present, which makes the trade-off feel more deliberate than arbitrary.

Connectivity covers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, and 5G across a wide band range. The phone ships with a nano SIM slot and an eSIM option, and Light offers its own service plan at $39 a month for unlimited calls and texts with 1 GB of data, available in the US on a two-year contract. The unlocked version works on compatible carriers worldwide.

There’s a growing audience for devices that sit somewhere between a dumbphone and a smartphone. The Light Flip fills a specific niche with modern hardware and a considered software layer that adds without overwhelming. For anyone who’s tried screen time apps and focus modes on a smartphone and found them too easy to undo, a phone that simply doesn’t have those functions built in offers a different kind of answer to the same problem.

The post A $299 Flip Phone That Does What Screen Time Apps Never Actually Did first appeared on Yanko Design.

Lenovo Just Made a $44 Kid Phone That Kills TikTok and the Browser

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Most phones marketed at kids are really just smartphones in disguise, dressed down with monitoring apps and screen-time limits that parents set and children quietly find ways around. The tension between staying connected and staying focused has pushed many families toward patchwork fixes: a shared phone, an old handset with most apps deleted, or a prepaid SIM dropped into hardware never meant for the job.

Lenovo’s answer to that problem is the AI Student Phone L1, which we covered at launch in China in late June 2026 for 299 yuan, or about $44. It looks like a compact candy-bar phone with a 1.83-inch touchscreen and 4G connectivity, but it behaves far more like a purpose-built study companion. There’s no browser, no social media, no games, and based on current reporting, sideloading isn’t an option.

Designer: Lenovo

What makes the L1 interesting from a design standpoint isn’t what’s missing; it’s what Lenovo chose to keep and why. The phone reportedly features a compact body built with Panda glass, a material meant to handle the daily punishment a backpack full of school supplies tends to deliver. That choice isn’t a premium flourish; it’s a quiet signal about who this device is actually built for.

The most telling design decision is the dedicated physical AI button reportedly built into the side of the L1. In most other phones, the AI assistant lives inside software, hidden behind a long press or buried in settings. A hardware button changes that, making help a fixed and visible part of the object. A child doesn’t need to find the feature; the button is it.

Press it, and the L1 reportedly connects to an AI assistant that can help with homework, language learning, and subject lookups. The simplicity is the point. Instead of opening a browser and disappearing down a rabbit hole, the student gets a focused answer and moves on. The phone isn’t trying to replace a teacher; it’s trying to stay out of a teacher’s way.

The feature most coverage tends to bury is the reported QR-code payment system with parent-set spending limits. A child can reportedly take the bus, grab lunch, or pay for a snack without a full smartphone or a physical wallet. GPS tracking and an SOS button reportedly keep parents in the loop. Parents set a cap, the child spends within it, and that’s the end of the negotiation.

That said, the L1 isn’t without its compromises. A 1.83-inch screen is genuinely small, and while that probably discourages mindless scrolling, it also makes extended interaction feel a bit cramped. If handwriting input is included, as some reports suggest, the novelty may wear off quickly. Restraint is a valid design philosophy, but it still has to feel comfortable enough to use every day.

(Image courtesy of @Technology)

For parents in the US or Europe, the L1 is unfortunately a China-only device for now. Products like the Gabb Phone, Pinwheel, and Bark Phone all tackle the same distraction problem, but by restricting a conventional smartphone from the inside. The L1 appears to start from a narrower behavioral premise, building limits into the hardware rather than patching them in through software.

That distinction is worth sitting with. Handing a child their first phone has always been about balancing independence and oversight, and software-based restrictions have always felt like a workaround. The Lenovo AI Student Phone L1 raises the question of whether you can get closer to that balance by designing the object differently from the start, and that’s probably the right conversation to be having.

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5 E Ink Phones in 2026 Ranked by What They Still Ask You to Give Up

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E Ink phones have spent years selling one idea: a calmer screen, a longer battery, and a slower relationship with your phone. That promise has almost always come with a catch. You’d get the paper-like display but lose the processing power. You’d get the focus-friendly software but sacrifice half the apps you actually need. The category thrived on convincing buyers that every compromise was worth making.

Bigme’s HiBreak Dual 2 doesn’t improve on the E Ink formula. It changes the question entirely. Pairing a 6.13-inch color E Ink front panel with a 5-inch LCD on the back and running Android 16 on a Dimensity 8300 chip, it removes the old forced choice between paper-like calm and normal smartphone capability. That shift forces every rival to explain what they’re still asking you to give up.

Bigme HiBreak Dual 2

It’s a refreshingly practical premise. When E Ink handles the task, reading, taking notes with the optional stylus, or checking messages, the front panel does the work quietly. When it can’t, the 5-inch LCD on the back handles video calls, maps, or anything that moves too fast for a paper display. You’re not forced to pick a lane. The phone picks it based on what you’re actually doing.

Designer: Bigme

The familiar trade-offs don’t apply anymore. With 12GB of RAM, a 50MP camera, dual SIM 5G, NFC, and Google Play on Android 16, the Dual 2 closes every gap this category used to own. What it still costs is simplicity. A two-screen phone with an optional stylus isn’t a minimalist object, but that’s the honest bargain. The sacrifice shifted from capability to preference, and at $574, that’s an easier trade.

Minimal Phone

Before the HiBreak Dual 2, the Minimal Phone offered what felt like a reasonable compromise: a full Android 14 experience on a 4.3-inch E Ink touchscreen grounded by a physical QWERTY keyboard. Google Play works out of the box, NFC and wireless charging are onboard, and battery life is strong enough that charging feels less urgent. It starts at $499 for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Designer: Minimal

The keyboard is the whole identity, and that’s either the appeal or the limitation, depending on who you are. If you prefer typing with actual resistance, this phone still makes a strong case. But after Bigme, the keyboard has to work harder as a justification. It’s no longer the pragmatic path through the category. It’s a deliberate preference, which means it now belongs to a more specific kind of buyer.

Mudita Kompakt

The Mudita Kompakt doesn’t compete on specs and isn’t trying to. It runs a custom OS stripped down to calls, texts, offline maps, music, and not much else. There’s no app store, no browser built for scrolling, just a 4.3-inch E Ink display, a 3,300 mAh battery with up to six days of life, and a phone that genuinely expects to be set down often. It’s available for $399.

Designer: Mudita

What Mudita charges you is breadth. The Offline+ Mode disables every signal at once, including GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, camera, and microphone, which sounds drastic until you realize that’s exactly the point. The trade-off goes beyond app access. It’s the assumption that a phone should keep expanding. For anyone exhausted by that expectation, the Kompakt feels less like a device with missing features and more like one that refused them deliberately.

Light Phone III

The Light Phone III is the most philosophically clear product here, and the only one without E Ink. It runs a 3.2-inch OLED in grayscale, no app store, no browser, and a proprietary OS with a short, curated list of tools. What it does carry is 5G, NFC, and the kind of calm that comes from removing things rather than restraining them. At $799, it’s priced like a considered commitment.

Designer: Light

That clarity is also its challenge. After Bigme, the Light Phone III’s restrictions no longer read as a necessary cost of the category. They read as a position statement. You’re not settling for less because less is all that exists. You’re paying more for less because you’ve decided that’s the better way to live. That’s a meaningful shift, and it makes the Light Phone III a conviction purchase, nothing more.

BOOX Palma 2 Pro

The BOOX Palma 2 Pro sits in its own corner of this category. It’s a 6.13-inch Kaleido 3 color E Ink device running Android 15 with full Google Play access and 8GB of RAM. A hybrid SIM provides 5G data, so you can run messaging apps, make VoIP calls, and browse freely. Native cellular calls and SMS aren’t officially supported, though some users have found workarounds that get reasonably close.

Designer: BOOX

Phone legitimacy is the sacrifice here, which is a harder ask than anything else on this list. But the Palma 2 Pro delivers the best E Ink reading experience in a pocketable form right now. If your communication needs fit through apps like WhatsApp or Google Voice, and you’ve always wanted a reading device that travels independently, it’s a compelling choice at $399 that doesn’t fit any category neatly.

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nubia Just Built the World’s First Phone That Does Things on Its Own

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Smartphone makers have been adding AI features for a few years now, and at this point, the marketing language around them has become fairly predictable. A phone summarizes your messages, suggests reply text, cleans up your photos, and maybe transcribes a meeting. These are genuinely useful tools, but they’re still responding to individual requests. The phone doesn’t actually do anything on its own. Someone still has to ask.

The nubia NaviX Ultra is making a more ambitious claim. Unveiled at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, it’s being positioned as the world’s first AI agent smartphone, and the distinction matters. An AI agent doesn’t just respond to prompts; it operates across apps and services on behalf of the user, handling multi-step tasks without being asked to execute each one individually. Nubia is calling this system-level integration rather than a feature layer.

Designer: nubia

That distinction isn’t entirely hypothetical for nubia. The NaviX Ultra’s predecessor, the nubia M153 with Doubao AI assistant, debuted earlier this year in partnership with ByteDance and sold out its initial 30,000-unit batch on launch day in China. The NaviX Ultra is the commercial follow-up to that limited run, now carrying the Doubao assistant at a system level that nubia describes as enabling autonomous cross-platform operation. The phone also received the 2026 SAIL Award ahead of its unveiling.

The hardware specifics haven’t been fully confirmed yet. What nubia has revealed ahead of launch is the design: a metal-framed body with exceptionally narrow bezels, a triple rear camera arranged in a horizontal Pixel-style bar, and a dedicated AI button on the frame. The phone comes in four colorways: Blue Horizon, Black, Dreamscape, and White. Whether the internal hardware matches the ambition of the software positioning is still an open question until full specs are released.

What’s interesting about the NaviX Ultra’s framing isn’t just the technical claim. It’s what the AI agent model implies about how people actually use their phones. The friction of switching between apps, re-entering context, and manually chaining tasks together is real, and it’s something that feature-level AI has only partially addressed. A phone that can hold that context across apps and act on it changes the interaction model rather than just adding a new tool to an existing one.

Nubia’s Doubao partnership with ByteDance gives the NaviX Ultra’s AI ambitions a specific cultural and software context. Doubao is one of the most widely used AI assistants in China, which gives this particular agent integration a large user base to learn from. Whether the system-level AI agent lives up to the label is something that will only be testable after the full device is in hand, but nubia is at least asking a more interesting question than most of its competitors have been willing to pose publicly.

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Infinix HOT 70 Series Review: Designed Like a Flagship, Not Priced Like One

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PROS:


  • Eye-catching designs that deliver a strong visual identity

  • Color-changing Thermo Orange opens DIY possibilities

  • Clous de Paris-inspired button makes AI more tactile and personal

  • Decent performance and strong value for its price

CONS:


  • No dedicated telephoto or ultra-wide cameras

  • Infinix HOT 70 (non-Pro) is limited to 4G networks only

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The Infinix HOT 70 is proof that expressive, design-forward smartphones don't have to cost a fortune.
award-icon

The affordable smartphone market has long operated on an unspoken rule: you get your camera, your processor, and a solid battery, but genuine design ambition is a luxury reserved for pricier tiers. Walk into any mid-range phone aisle, and you’re likely to face the same predictable cycle, gradient blues and purples on glass-and-plastic slabs that look almost indistinguishable from one another, functional but rarely intentional.

Infinix is trying to challenge that assumption with the HOT 70 series with its Industry-First 12-Colorway Dynamic Shine Design. It comes in two distinct flavors: the HOT 70 and the HOT 70 Pro 5G. Both arrived for this review, the HOT 70 in Quiet Violet and the HOT 70 Pro 5G in Thermo Orange and Mirage Green, and all announced themselves as something genuinely

Designer: Infinix

Click Here to Buy Now: HOT 70 | HOT 70 Pro 5G

Aesthetics

Infinix has long understood something that a lot of phone brands still haven’t fully caught on to: young users aren’t shopping for specs alone, they’re buying something that reflects who they are and what they’re about. The HOT 70 series is the brand’s clearest statement on that front, organized around a “Colorful, Versatile, Fun” philosophy that treats aesthetic identity and personal expression as core design priorities, not afterthoughts.

Both phones share a design language Infinix calls the Dynamic Shine Aesthetic Design, and the common thread across both models is a Baby-Smooth Finish, a surface with an advanced anti-fingerprint coating. That silky, finely soft in-hand texture genuinely holds up in practice. After time with both phones, fingerprints and grease smudges are noticeably less of a nuisance than on most others in this price category, which counts for a lot.

Infinix HOT 70

The HOT 70 arrives in six colorways: Thermo Orange, Night Pulse, Silver Dancer, Dive Blue, Green Texture, and the Quiet Violet reviewed here. Where most phones at this price simply pick a color and commit to it, the Quiet Violet does something more considered. The Lumina Flare Dynamic Flame Texture layers micro-textures beneath the surface, creating a shifting light-and-shadow effect that reads differently depending on where you are.

The Crystal Mood Island camera ring is where the craftsmanship gets more deliberate. It sits around the camera bump as a decorative ring that catches light and bends it into iridescent gloss, shifting tone with every viewing angle. On paper, that sounds like a marketing detail, but in practice, it adds genuine visual contrast between the ring and the rest of the panel behind it.

Then there’s the Active Halo, the light ring surrounding the camera area that pulses softly for calls, messages, charging status, and game launches. It’s tempting to dismiss this as a gimmick, but there’s a genuinely useful case for it: the phone is face down, silent, and the Halo quietly signals an incoming call without making you reach for it every few minutes.

Infinix HOT 70 Pro 5G

The HOT 70 Pro 5G is available in six colorways: Thermo Orange, Mirage Green, Silk Glow Purple, Night Pulse, Dive Blue, and the limited edition Depth Ring White. The Thermo Orange commands the most attention, and rightly so. Its Dual-way Thermo Sensing Skin technology physically shifts between a deeper orange below 0°C and a lighter tone above 65°C, and crucially, holds that state until the temperature resets it.

What the Thermo Orange also enables is DIY customization: cool the phone to its deep state, then press a heated stamp or trace with a hot glue pen at around 65°C to create patterns directly onto the back. The concept is genuinely novel for this price tier, and it’s quite fascinating to see the phone come out of the freezer with a different shade of orange. It also opens up possibilities for DIY designs with the stencils and the careful use of a glue gun to heat up only certain areas, creating eye-catching contrasts of light and dark areas you’d think the phone was designed with originally. Given that you are exposing the phone to extreme cold and hot temperatures, however, proper care should still be taken.

Mirage Green, exclusive to the Pro model, offers a more subtle yet equally stunning color-changing effect. Nearly-invisible luminous particles embedded in the leather-like finish on the back of the phone absorb light during the day. Once the sun sets, these dots glow like stars dots scattered against a dark green night sky. It’s a visual that is both premium and calming, perfectly reflecting its design.

The remaining hero finishes deserve more than a footnote. Silk Glow Purple builds its color from nano-scale structural layers rather than pigment, which means the purple actually shifts and travels across the surface as the angle changes. The Limited Edition Depth Ring White goes further, using a micro-lens array to create what reads as a floating 3D ring against an otherwise flat back panel.

The Active Matrix Cube is the Pro’s most distinctive rear-surface detail, a programmable light matrix that’s a flagship-level feature from Infinix’s premium product lineup. It handles status alerts, ambient lighting, mini-games, and custom pattern displays, and can even share those creations via NFC with a single tap. It turns the back of the phone into a secondary surface that communicates something, even when the screen is dark.

Ergonomics

At just 7.49mm thin and 195g light, the HOT 70’s pocket-favourite design offers effortless portability, slipping easily into pockets or small bags and ensuring smooth one-handed handling for commuting, travel, and everyday use. The HOT 70 Pro 5G is marginally heavier at 204g and slightly thicker at 7.85mm to 7.95mm, depending on the colorway, differences that don’t read as particularly significant in everyday handling.

The One-Tap AI Button on both phones is inspired by the Clous de Paris design, with a three-dimensional textured surface that delivers a refined, premium tactile feel. Its customizable shortcut logic enables One-Tap AI FlashMemo with a short press and activates Folax AI assistant with a long press, allowing intuitive control and more efficient smart interaction by streamlining everyday tasks. That physical anchor makes AI feel genuinely accessible rather than buried in software menus.

Both phones use punch-hole displays with narrow bezels, giving a clean, open canvas for everyday use. The HOT 70 and HOT 70 Pro 5G have very similar screen sizes at 6.78 and 6.76 inches, respectively, so the real ergonomic difference lies in the refresh rate. The HOT 70 Pro 5G’s 144Hz high refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate deliver ultra-smooth scrolling without ghosting while browsing and streaming, while the HOT 70’s 120Hz panel handles daily navigation comfortably. The smooth visuals help ease eye strain while also improving the overall user experience.

Performance

AI is quite the trend these days, and Infinix isn’t one to be left behind. The HOT 70 Series delivers a full AI experience upgrade featuring a physical One-Tap AI Button, with a dedicated AI Button that supports intelligent intent recognition, enabling one-tap capture of ideas, meetings, emails, and more, with auto archiving and smart schedule creation based on content type. Long-pressing the button activates Folax, Infinix’s custom AI assistant, which answers questions based on whatever is on screen, from displayed text to a live camera view, with access to five or more AI models simultaneously. Between FlashMemo’s capture-and-organize logic and Folax’s any-screen contextual awareness, the two together cover most of what people actually reach for their phones to do throughout the day.

Battery anxiety is real, especially among the younger generation, so Infinix naturally has a solution. Both models offer a 15% larger battery capacity than the previous generation, featuring a 6,000 mAh single-cell design or 5,600 mAh in certain regional markets, a capacity difference driven by local regulatory requirements rather than any hardware compromise. Fortunately, both capacities support 45W Lightning FastCharge, and in Super Fast Charging mode, which allowed us to hit 50% in half an hour and fully charge in an hour. Bypass charging routes power directly from the charger to keep the phone cooler during heavy use, a critical safety measure when gaming or using the phone for navigation.

The Infinix HOT 70 runs on a MediaTek Helio G100 Ultimate, a powerful octa-core gaming processor designed for smoother daily use, multitasking, and light gaming. That said, the Helio G100 is a 4G-only chip, which means the HOT 70 can’t connect to 5G networks. The HOT 70 Pro 5G steps up to a MediaTek Dimensity 7100 with 5G support, a meaningfully stronger chip that pushes AnTuTu V11 scores above 780,000, delivers up to 90 fps in supported games, and brings faster 5G connectivity tuned for crowded real-world conditions.

The display difference between the two models is more significant than the size gap suggests. The HOT 70’s 6.78-inch 120Hz Eye-Care Display reaches 700 nits of HBM brightness for sunlight readability. The HOT 70 Pro 5G’s 6.76-inch FHD+ panel pushes that to 950 nits of HBM brightness, a genuine sunlight-legibility advantage, and the jump to Full HD+ resolution adds sharpness that becomes particularly noticeable when reading text or watching video.

Camera setups share a foundation but diverge meaningfully at the Pro tier. Both phones use a 50MP main sensor, with AI Live Photo on both automatically filtering out shaky frames from a burst. The HOT 70 Pro 5G’s imaging toolkit, however, rests on a 50MP Sony IMX882 with a large 1/1.95-inch sensor, f/1.8 aperture, and full-pixel autofocus, plus a 2x lossless zoom shortcut, giving it stronger low-light performance.

In both cases, both images and videos come out clear, detailed, and vibrant, punching above their price tier. Sadly, the lack of a dedicated telephoto or ultra-wide cameras will make you miss out on decent close-ups and breath-taking panoramas. It isn’t the series’s strongest suit, but it at least won’t let you down when you need to preserve important moments and scenes.

Sustainability

The HOT 70 carries an IP65 rating, featuring six-level full dustproofing and IP65 splash resistance, blocking dust, rain, and sweat effectively for safer daily commutes and outdoor use. It also boasts military-grade durability with an SGS-certified 5-star drop protection. The HOT 70 Pro 5G steps up to IP68, Infinix’s highest rating to date, rated for up to 2 meters of fresh water for 30 minutes, with screen and camera protected throughout, and further adds MIL-STD-810 military-grade certification for durability across more demanding conditions.

Both phones deliver long-term OS support, keeping the device smooth, secure, and reliable for years, with guaranteed three years of major XOS version upgrades (only for models with 6GB RAM or more) starting with factory-installed XOS 16, continuously updating to XOS 17, XOS 18, and XOS 19. Three OS upgrades aren’t quite on par with what some flagship brands now offer, but it’s a genuinely generous commitment for this price tier, where software longevity is rarely treated as a selling point at all. One caveat is that certain XOS features only apply if your configuration has 6GB of RAM or more.

Value

The Infinix HOT 70 starts at around $120, depending on configuration and market, and the package it delivers at that price is hard to dismiss. Tactile finishes, a physical AI shortcut, a generous battery, and a sunlight-readable display aren’t common at this tier. The Lumina Flare texture and Crystal Mood Island add visual differentiation that most competitors simply don’t bother attempting.

The Infinix HOT 70 Pro 5G starts at around $200, and the step up from the base HOT 70 is justified on multiple fronts. A faster 5G chip, a sharper and faster display, a more capable Sony camera sensor, full IP68 waterproofing alongside military certification, and the Active Matrix Cube add up to a meaningfully more capable and expressive package.

Neither phone asks for a premium price to deliver a premium-feeling design, and that’s genuinely rare. At comparable price points, the alternatives in this category tend to compete primarily on camera megapixels or battery size, without investing much thought into what the phone feels like to hold, look at, or interact with. The HOT 70 series treats those questions as worth answering, which puts it in a different conversation entirely.

Verdict

The HOT 70 makes a case for what affordable phone design can look like when treated as an actual discipline. The Lumina Flare texture, the Crystal Mood Island camera ring, the Active Halo, and the Baby-Smooth Finish come together in a device that rewards closer attention. It gets noticed on a table or out of a pocket, not because it’s loud, but because it clearly has a point of view. The HOT 70 Pro 5G takes that design ambition further into something genuinely experimental, with four optical behaviors across its colorways, a 5G chip with real gaming headroom, a Sony camera sensor that performs above expectations, and IP68 waterproofing for more demanding conditions.

Together, both phones say something interesting about where considered, expressive design is heading at the more accessible end of the smartphone market. At a price tier where “design” usually means picking between black, blue, or midnight black, the Infinix HOT 70 series is quietly raising the bar for what a phone at this price is allowed to look and feel like.

Click Here to Buy Now: HOT 70 | HOT 70 Pro 5G

The post Infinix HOT 70 Series Review: Designed Like a Flagship, Not Priced Like One first appeared on Yanko Design.

Google Pixel 11 Amazon Leak: $899-$1899 Price Range, New Colors, and a Surprise ‘Pixel Tag’ Tracker

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At this point, a Google hardware leak ahead of launch feels almost ceremonial. Long before the keynote lights come up, the phones usually arrive in fragments through retailer pages, spec sheets, teaser campaigns, and the wider rumor mill. The Pixel 11 now seems to be following that familiar script, with Amazon reportedly revealing major details early and introducing an unexpected side character in the form of a Pixel Tag tracker ahead of Google’s August 12 event.

The leaked lineup already sketches out Google’s fall hardware palette in surprising detail. The base Pixel 11 appears in Obsidian, Frost, Hibiscus, and Pistachio, with 256GB storage priced at $899. The Pro shifts to Canyon and Obsidian, the Pro XL climbs from $1,299, and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold stretches the range to $1,899 in Obsidian with an Olive variant that may also be tied to the name Pine. Taken together, the colors feel as intentional as the pricing, and the Pixel Tag mention adds one more clue that Google may be building a broader visual ecosystem around the phones rather than treating accessories as an afterthought.

Image Credits: Android Authority

Google appears to be making 256GB the new base storage tier across the Pixel 11 family, which is probably overdue given how aggressively on-device AI has been eating into storage headroom. Droid Life also spotted a 512GB variant priced at $1,019, all but confirming that Google is dropping the longstanding 128GB entry-level option entirely. That’s a sensible call on paper, but it also means buyers have fewer options to quietly trade down on storage to save money at the baseline.

Then the pricing hits, and it hits hard. The Pixel 11 Pro reportedly starts at $1,099 for 256GB in Canyon, with the 1TB configuration reaching $1,449. The Pro XL tops out at $1,649 for 1TB. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold reportedly opens at $1,899 and climbs to $2,249 for a 1TB model. These are numbers that would have seemed audacious five years ago, and in 2026, with the broader economy and RAM shortage doing what it’s doing, I don’t blame you for still wondering what nightmarish timeline we live in. Google is clearly betting that its AI-forward software story justifies the ask, but at nearly $1,900 just to get into Fold territory, it really does feel like Google isn’t betting on this one selling like hot-cakes.

Image Credits: Android Authority

The Pro models also carry an unusual RAM decision I couldn’t help but notice. The 256GB Pixel 11 Pro will reportedly ship with 12GB of RAM, while the 512GB and 1TB variants retain 16GB, a departure from the Pixel 10 Pro lineup where every storage configuration included 16GB. It creates a situation where the least expensive Pro is also the most memory-limited, which sends a strange signal in a product cycle so heavily defined by AI features that depend on RAM headroom to run locally.

One detail on the Fold worth watching is the listed 4,750mAh battery, which would actually be smaller than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s 5,015mAh pack. Given that several other listing details appear unfinished, it’s possible this battery figure is also placeholder information. Still, the kind of number that makes you squint twice before scrolling on.

Image Credits: Android Authority

Through all of this, Pixel Tag stays the most intriguing footnote. A first-party tracker from Google would put the company directly in AirTag territory, and while tracker specs are almost beside the point, design language very much is not. Whatever Pixel Tag looks like, it will need to feel at home on a keyring and inside a product lineup simultaneously. If August 12 brings a formal reveal, the smallest object on stage may end up carrying the largest story.

The post Google Pixel 11 Amazon Leak: $899-$1899 Price Range, New Colors, and a Surprise ‘Pixel Tag’ Tracker first appeared on Yanko Design.

Motorola Just Built the Android Phone Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Almost Was

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Wireless charging on Android has been a bit of a mess. Most phones support it, but the speeds tend to lag behind proprietary fast-charging standards, and the Qi2 situation has been particularly awkward. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series supports Qi2 speeds but skips the built-in magnets, meaning you still need a special case to get the alignment right. Other Android phones that did include magnets weren’t hitting the full 25W Qi2 ceiling. It was always one or the other.

The Motorola Edge 70 Max closes that gap. It’s the first mainstream Android phone outside of Google’s Pixel line to offer true Qi2 wireless charging with built-in magnets and the full 25W MPP25 speed, no magnetic case required, no extra ring to stick on the back. Drop it on a Qi2 pad, and it snaps into position and charges at the maximum rate the standard allows. That’s a more meaningful distinction than it might sound.

Designer: Motorola

For anyone who keeps a charging pad on a nightstand or desk, alignment has always been the friction point of wireless charging. Miss the coil slightly, and speeds drop, or charging stops entirely without any notification. Built-in magnets solve that by locking the phone into position automatically, the same way MagSafe works on an iPhone. Android users have had to use workarounds for years to get the same result, and most still don’t bother.

Beyond the charging story, the Edge 70 Max arrives with serious hardware throughout. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip delivers a 36% CPU improvement and 11% GPU improvement over its predecessor, and a vapor chamber cooling system with liquid metal and a 5,500 mm² chamber keeps temperatures in check during sustained loads. Up to 12 GB of LPDDR5X memory and up to 1 TB of storage round out the platform.

The 7100 mAh silicon-carbon battery earned a DXOMARK Gold Label with 160 points, and 90W TurboPower wired charging adds enough for a full day in just six minutes. The 50MP Sony LYTIA 710 main camera handles photography with AI-assisted processing, and the phone debuts Motorola Qira, a unified AI system shared across Lenovo PCs and tablets that carries context between devices.

The Quad HD+ (2K) display is rated as the brightest in its category, and the build is aircraft-grade aluminum framed with matte premium glass and MIL-STD-810H certification. Motorola has also made clear that the packaging is fully recyclable and printed with soy-based inks, a detail that reflects the broader Lenovo sustainability push rather than just a spec-sheet line.

The Android wireless charging ecosystem has needed a phone willing to commit fully to Qi2 rather than taking the halfway approach that most manufacturers have favored. The Edge 70 Max is the first non-Pixel Android flagship to do it without compromise, and with the rest of the hardware backing it up, the charging system stops being a headline curiosity and becomes a genuinely practical reason to pick one platform over another.

The post Motorola Just Built the Android Phone Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Almost Was first appeared on Yanko Design.

This $79 Kids’ Wi-Fi Phone Brings Back the Ability to Slam Down a Receiver Like It’s 1995

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The landline died because of the wire, not because of the idea. A physical phone tethered to a wall socket made sense in 1985 and made increasingly less sense every year after, until entire households simply stopped bothering to replace them. Pinwheel’s new release makes the case that the object itself, the tactile handset, the dedicated cradle, the single purpose design, was worth keeping around long after the copper wiring became a liability. Strip out the jack and run the whole thing over Wi-Fi instead, and suddenly a nostalgia object becomes a genuinely practical piece of furniture again. That is the quiet design insight buried inside what looks, at first glance, like a novelty throwback.

Called Pinwheel Home, the device targets kids aged 5 to 10 who need a way to reach approved contacts without inheriting a full smartphone. It plugs into any outlet and pairs with Wi-Fi, meaning it can sit on a kitchen counter or a bedroom shelf without a technician ever showing up. Two versions exist, the smaller Home Spark at 68 dollars and the larger, more decorated Home Classic at 79 dollars, both sold directly through Pinwheel ahead of an Amazon release this fall. Parents control the whole experience through Pinwheel’s Caregiver Portal, approving every contact and setting the hours calls are allowed. The company already makes kid smartwatches, so this slots into a lineup built specifically around delaying smartphone ownership.

Designer: Pinwheel

That oversized handset is not just a styling choice, it is the entire emotional payload of the product. Somewhere in the last two decades, ending a phone call turned into touching a red icon on glass, a gesture with all the drama of dismissing a notification. Home Classic hands a kid an actual weighted receiver and an actual spring loaded cradle, and the moment a call ends, physics takes over. Slam it down hard enough after telling a sibling they are wrong about something, and the whole base rattles. Rest it gently after a call with grandma, and it clicks shut soft as a whisper. That range, from petty dramatic slam to quiet contented click, is a form of emotional expression a swipe gesture has never once offered a five year old, and Pinwheel built the entire handset geometry around making that range possible.

Calling another Pinwheel Home device is free, routed through the company’s own Circle network using a short internal code instead of a standard phone number. Reaching an actual mobile number, like a grandparent’s cell phone, requires a subscription, either 6.99 dollars monthly for a real 10-digit number and five approved contacts, or 9.99 dollars monthly to remove that contact ceiling. Emergency calling stays free no matter what plan a family is on, which is the one place Pinwheel clearly refused to charge across. Home Classic’s stickers might be the hook that gets a kid excited, but the free-versus-paid split is the part parents will actually feel every month.

Pinwheel has already teased three-way calling and tighter integration with its kids’ smartwatches, hinting that a child’s number and approved contacts could eventually follow them from the countertop straight onto their wrist as they get older. That continuity is the real long game here, not the retro shell. A phone that lets a kid slam down a receiver like they mean it sounds like a gimmick, until you realize it might be the only piece of hardware left teaching an entire generation how satisfying hanging up used to feel.

The post This $79 Kids’ Wi-Fi Phone Brings Back the Ability to Slam Down a Receiver Like It’s 1995 first appeared on Yanko Design.