Technologies

Your Next Phone Will Likely Be Smarter, Faster and More Bendy

Annual phone upgrades often feel mundane, but in 2023, phone-makers found new ways to make mobile devices fresh and interesting.

Your phone could get a major upgrade in 2024 — and it could go beyond the routine camera and processor changes we’ve seen in mobile devices over the past decade.

New AI-fueled features could make phones much smarter, potentially turning them into capable personal assistants rather than pocket-sized portals to the internet. In addition, foldable phones are inching closer to their breakout moment thanks to clever design improvements, cementing their place in the smartphone market. Taken together, these changes could make your next phone feel like much more than just another rectangle made of glass and metal.

«That newness … is really key,» said Peter Jarich, head of mobile industry research firm GSMA Intelligence. «And I think folding form factors are part of that.»

While AI and foldable screens may be crucial to where smartphones are going, we’re also seeing notable leaps in areas that directly affect how you use your phone today. Charging speeds are faster, meaning you no longer have to carve out as much time to top off your phone. Tech companies are also making their products more sustainable in ways that could potentially make your phone last longer, lessening their impact on the environment and possibly benefiting your wallet.

These jolts of excitement are much needed for an industry that’s been in decline. In 2022, low demand combined with economic challenges resulted in a smartphone market that saw its lowest annual shipment total since 2013, according to the International Data Corporation. Data from insurance provider Assurant also suggests that phone owners are holding onto their devices for longer, although that could be a testament to how phones have improved over the last decade. Analysis from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners tells a similar story, indicating that more people upgraded from iPhones that were at least 3 years old in 2023 compared with 2019, when the majority of upgraders came from 2-year-old devices.

«People were really struggling to see the value,» said Aaron West, senior analyst for market research firm Omdia. «Why upgrade when my phone from two years ago is almost identical?»

Now that smartphones have become ubiquitous and are more utilitarian than novel, it takes more to impress audiences. That held true in 2023, when it became clear that smartphones were starting to regain their wow factor. More recent data from the IDC suggests smartphone shipments started picking up again as 2023 drew to a close, perhaps signaling that new phones are catching our interest again.

AI is coming for your phone in 2024

Artificial intelligence has played an important part in smartphones for years, particularly when it comes to features like facial recognition, photography and language translation. However, generative AI — the tech that powers ChatGPT and creates answers based on training data in response to prompts — brings new capabilities that go beyond unlocking your phone or blurring the background of a photo. Instead of working passively in situations like these, generative AI-powered features are meant to be used in more proactive ways.

«It’s not behind the scenes,» West said. «It’s really obvious that your phone is actually doing something and generating something new and original.»

Google showcased this with the October launch of its Pixel 8 lineup, which uses AI to power new photo editing tricks, like moving and resizing individual subjects and altering facial expressions. Google’s new phones can also generate fresh wallpaper based on specific themes from scratch, and the search giant is injecting Google Assistant with generative AI. Called Google Assistant with Bard, the upgraded virtual helper will be able to handle tasks such as summarizing important points from your email inbox and writing social media captions for your photos. It’ll be available for both Android devices and iPhones.

Qualcomm, which creates the chips that power phones from companies including Samsung and OnePlus, designed its new mobile processor around generative AI. The Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro, the latest flagship devices from the world’s third-largest phone manufacturer, according to IDC, are among the first devices to be powered by this new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. We’re expecting to see Qualcomm’s latest processor in more phones throughout the year.

A teaser video showing Qualcomm’s vision for generative AI on smartphones provides a few examples of how the tech could manifest in mobile devices, such as a virtual assistant that can extract key points from a phone call and create a bulleted summary.

The new chip will also make it possible to zoom out on an image taken on your phone and generate details to expand the frame, making it look like you took the photo using an ultrawide lens. Features like these are more than just photo-editing tools; they help create entirely new photos that weren’t possible at the time of capture.

«It changes how we think about the devices, the [operating system] and the apps, and how you actually define a user experience,» Cristiano Amon, CEO and president of Qualcomm, said on stage during the company’s Snapdragon Summit in October.

We could get an even closer look at how AI will change smartphones as early as this month on Jan. 17, when Samsung will announce its next major phone, presumably called the Galaxy S24. Samsung hasn’t said much about its future product lineup, but it did recently announce a new AI experience for phones called Galaxy AI and its own generative AI model. Galaxy AI will include a feature called AI Live Translate Call that can translate audio in real time, although the company hasn’t revealed many details yet.

Apple is expected to infuse its next major iPhone update, likely arriving in September, with new AI features too, according to Bloomberg. That could entail auto-generated playlists in Apple Music and more generative AI features in Messages and Siri.

If generative AI lives up to the hype, it could make phones more like smart personal assistants and less like tiny laptops with touchscreens, West said.

«It’s like actually being able to preempt your needs before you actually ask for them,» he said.

Foldable phones may be inching toward their breakout moment

It’s not just the brains of our phones that are evolving; it’s their shapes, too. Phones that can fold in half have been widely available since 2019, yet they still only account for a fraction of smartphone usage. But in the US, companies including Samsung, Google, Motorola and OnePlus made efforts to change that throughout 2023, resulting in a banner year for foldable phones.

While Samsung used to be the only major player in the foldable phone market, nearly every smartphone-maker now offers one. Google released its first foldable phone in June, while OnePlus introduced its inaugural foldable device in October, meaning those interested in foldables now have more than twice as many options as they did in 2022.

Beyond more choice, the quality of foldable phones improved in 2023, too — particularly when it came to flip phones. The Motorola Razr Plus and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 each gained a larger external cover screen, making them more useful when closed and further justifying their premium prices. As I wrote after reviewing both devices, these new flip phones prove the promise of having phones with two screens that can serve different purposes, which is more compelling than simply being able to fold your device in half.

The biggest barrier keeping foldable phones from wider adoption is their high prices, with the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Motorola Razr Plus each regularly priced at $1,000 in the US. If you want a foldable device that combines the experience of using a tablet and a phone, you’ll have to cough up an eye-watering $1,800 for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 or Google Pixel Fold.

But foldables took a step toward becoming more affordable in 2023, which could go a long way toward making them more accessible. Motorola launched a cheaper Razr this year that’s regularly priced at $700, putting it on par with nonfolding phones.

In 2024 and beyond, foldable phones are expected to grow in popularity, with shipments forecasted to surpass 100 million units by 2027, according to Counterpoint Research. That’s compared with roughly 20 million units expected to ship in 2023, as the IDC reports. The growth comes at a time when the overall smartphone market has been shrinking, with the IDC reporting a 0.1% decline in shipments in the third quarter of 2023.

«The industry had just been selling black glass slabs, with maybe a different back or a different color and different camera capabilities, but they were really very much similar devices,» Jarich said. «And for your average consumer, foldables give you a new reason to engage.»

Phones that can charge faster and last longer

Foldable screens and smarter AI assistants aren’t all that useful if your phone’s battery can’t make it through the day. While battery life largely remained the same in 2023 compared with previous years, some smartphone-makers shortened the time it takes to replenish your phone’s battery.

One such example comes from the new Xiaomi 14 phone, which has faster 90-watt charging compared with the previous version’s 67-watt charging.

Android cult favorite OnePlus typically stands out for its speedy charging, and 2023 was no exception. The OnePlus 11 supports 80-watt charging in the US and 100 watts in the UK, a significant upgrade from the OnePlus 10 Pro’s respective 65- and 80-watt charging speeds. The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola also impressed us with its 68-watt fast charging that takes it from empty to 92% in 30 minutes, as my colleague Patrick Holland discovered when reviewing it.

Faster charging combined with more energy-efficient chips helped make up for any lack of progress in battery technology, Jarich said.

«And so from a battery perspective, it’s not like that’s no longer an issue,» he said. «But the same issues are being solved in different places.»

With new premium smartphones from companies such as Apple and Samsung costing upward of $1,000, brand-new mobile devices should be built to last. While there’s still a lot of progress to be made in this area, smartphones took small but important strides in 2023.

Apple and Samsung, for example, each expanded their self-repair programs. Apple broadened its program to include the iPhone 14 and 15 lineup while Samsung spread its program to countries including Brazil, Mexico and Korea. Samsung also added its latest foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5, to the self-repair program in late 2023. It’s a positive sign even for those who aren’t tech savvy enough to fix their own phones.

«They recognize it’s probably a bit beyond them, but it does make it easier for third parties to do it,» Jarich said of self-repair programs and more repairable designs.

The iPhone 15 also has a new internal chassis structure that makes it more repairable.

Amsterdam-based sustainable tech company Fairphone launched a new phone in 2023 for the first time in two years, proving there are options out there for those who value repairability and sustainably sourced materials in a phone. With eight years of software updates and a five-year warranty, Fairphone is raising the bar for what it means to build a long-lasting phone.

Google also extended software support for its new Pixel phones and will now provide seven years of Android operating system and security updates. That’s a big jump from the three years of Android updates and five years of security updates it previously offered, and it could push other phone-makers to do the same.

We’ll have to wait and see whether technologies like generative AI and foldable screens will make a big impact on mobile devices. Before ChatGPT’s arrival in November 2022, the tech world was enamored with the metaverse, not generative AI. And before 2019, the idea of a foldable phone seemed like little more than a futuristic concept.

But if one thing is certain, it’s that phone-makers are thinking more broadly about how to push the smartphone experience forward beyond just improving the camera or increasing the screen size.

Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post.

Technologies

CNET Daily Tariff Price Tracker: I’m Watching 11 Key Products for Changes, Here’s What’s Happened

The deadline for the start of Trump’s heaviest tariffs has been delayed until next month, leaving consumers stuck with more uncertainty over prices.

For the last three months, tariffs have been a hot topic, leaving consumers and businesses alike worried: Will they hike prices and by how much? It’s a question more relevant than ever this week, as President Trump punts another major deadline down the road and price-slashing Amazon’s Prime Day sales wind down as the week ends.

Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I’ve come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon.

To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products — including Apple’s popular AirPods and printer ink — have gone on sale for brief periods.

CNET Tariff Tracker Index

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month.

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

iPhone 16, 128GB
Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
Xbox Series X
Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
HP 962 CMY Printer Ink
Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
Bose TV speaker
Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.

Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.

After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. For most of the year, they’ve hovered around $199, but ahead of Prime Day sales this week they are currently on sale for $149.

HP 962 CMY printer ink

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick.

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers.

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. You can currently get this model at a healthy discount for Prime Day, down to $200 from $280.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

While this product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, there is a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.»

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Other products

As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:

Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.

Technologies

Download All of Netflix in One Second? Researchers in Japan Just Broke the Internet Speed Record

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for July 12 #496

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for July 12 No. 496.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

If you love attending baseball games in summer, you’ll hit a home run with today’s NYT Strands puzzle. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: In the ballpark.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Play ball!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

TEER, MEER, MEET, TEEM, ROAD, STALL, TALL, BEST, PEAT, LUNH, CULT, BUMP, BILE, PEAL, METE, BULL, STUN, NUTS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: