It's easy to think that the best phones in 2025 are growing stale. The product category has matured over the past two decades, and many updates are incremental. For instance, the newest Samsung Galaxy S25 series looks like the Galaxy S24 lineup with a few tweaks. Similar things can be said about the latest iPhones and newest Pixels, to a lesser degree.
In fact, Android Central's resident phone expert, Nicholas Sutrich, previewed the market for smartphones in 2025 at the end of last year with an outlook that could be described as depressing. He's right. For most phone buyers in North America, this year will be just like the last one — filled with incremental updates, rising prices, and little variety.
Here's the thing: it doesn't have to be this way. Smartphone buyers in the U.S. specifically silo themselves when buying their handsets, often sticking to a handful of mobile carriers and even fewer phone brands. It's a phenomenon that seems to only exist in North America.
Put simply, buying smartphones through carrier contracts is a bad idea. It limits your options, restricts your flexibility, and can end up costing you more in the long run. It's easy to see how.
Samsung routinely offers boosted trade-in values for phones, but you can't take advantage of them unless your phone is paid off. Want to pay your phone off early to maximize your trade-in value? You'll likely lose all the discounts and promotions you got when you bought your current phone from your carrier.
A similar situation occurs if you break your phone and don't have insurance. Say your phone is too damaged to fix and you need a new one — you could be hit with a massive bill that includes the amount needed to pay off your current phone, plus the price of a new one and any carrier fees that apply.
Those are just a few reasons that you might want to consider buying a phone outright in 2025 rather than purchasing it from a mobile network provider — like AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon. But there are other reasons, like the availability of more phone brands and models beyond what you see in your carrier stores. Based on what I've seen from the phone market in late 2024 and early 2025, there are lots of exciting and fun smartphones available if you look beyond the restrictions imposed by carriers.
The OnePlus 13 and OnePlus 13R are two great phones to start with because they're sensible options. The OnePlus 13 is a $900 phone with hardware that can match or beat the $1,299 Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which is pretty exciting to me. On top of that, the phone has IP68 and IP69 protection against dust and water ingress. In other words, you can stick the OnePlus 13 in a dishwasher, and it should survive (though we don't recommend you try it).
The OnePlus 13 isn't the only phone in 2025 that can survive a dishwasher run. The Honor Magic 7 Pro is dishwasher-safe as well, and I saw it used as a cutting board, too. If that isn't fun, I honestly don't know what is.
Back to the sensible nature of this section, it's hard to forget the OnePlus 13R. It delivers flagship specs for $600, and that's downright cool. I think there are many people in North America that have been conditioned by Apple and Samsung to think that flagships have to cost $1,000 or above. In 2025, that couldn't be more wrong. There has never been a time when $500 or $600 could get you more in a smartphone.
As a phone reviewer, I often test out a variety of review units each year. But I also buy way too many phones and other gadgets with my own money, and I've never been more conflicted about which one to buy. The OnePlus 13 is the sensible option, like I said, although there are many others that fit the "fun" bill better.
One of those devices is the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro. It came to the U.S. in January and is simply a beastly and unique gaming phone. The ROG Phone 9 Pro has a loud design with nods to ASUS' gaming aesthetic, but things really get crazy with "Anime Vision." That's what ASUS calls the LED display on the back of ROG Phone 9 Pro, which includes 648 individual white and red LEDs.
You can put logos, text, and other designs on the back of your smartphone with the ROG Phone 9 Pro. If you're not impressed yet, the ROG Phone 9 Pro's back LED display can actually be used to play retro-style mini-games and show your phone's battery percentage. From a hardware perspective, the ROG Phone 9 Pro has a 3.5mm headphone jack and two USB-C ports designed to connect to accessories like controllers or a cooling fan.
Seriously, anyone who thinks phones aren't fun nowadays isn't looking hard enough. The ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro is one of the most fun devices I've ever seen, and I might pay over $1,000 just to get my hands on one.
Finally, I think it's worth emphasizing how much flair and customization can be added to phones, especially those sold outside the U.S. For example, the TECNO Spark 30 Bumblebee Edition is designed like a Transformer, which is insanely cool for robot nerds like myself. If superheroes are more your style, there's the Poco X7 Pro Iron Man edition, which needs no introduction.
No matter what kind of smartphone buyer you are, there's a "fun" device for you in 2025. Like a super durable smartphone? The OnePlus 13 is right for you. Need a flagship on a budget? Don't count out the OnePlus 13R. Want a phone so cool it gets into ludicrous hardware territory? That's the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro, plain and simple. Want to express your fandoms without a case or skin? The Bumblebee or Iron Man phones are insanely neat.
It's true that the best Android phones from brands like Samsung or Google can get boring. However, it would be a mistake to limit yourself to those companies or to whatever your cellular carrier offers. There's a whole lot of phones out there, and they're more fun than ever.
