Are phones boring now?

Hi everyone,

Back in the days of devices like the Nokia 3310, Motorola Razr V3, BlackBerry Bold 9900, or even early smartphones like the iPhone 4 and HTC One M7, it felt like every new release brought something totally different, new shapes, keyboards, trackballs, sliding mechanisms, crazy designs, and bold experiments.

I used to own the Nokia N95 which had a cool slide feature that revealed the keyboard!



Now, most phones seem to follow the same formula:

• Big rectangular slab
• Glass front and back
• Minimal bezels
• Slightly better camera every year
• Even across brands, many devices look and feel nearly identical

Do you think modern smartphones are less exciting than older handsets?
Was there more personality and innovation in the 2000s/early 2010s?
Or are today’s phones actually better or just in less visible, more mature ways?
Are foldables bringing back that excitement?

Would love to hear your thoughts, especially from people who’ve owned both classic feature phones and modern flagships!

Martin That was the N95

My first phone (pictured,yep I still have it) was with BT Cellnet,bought from TJ Hughes, redeem a coupon to get air time that effectively covered the price of the phone. Brown plastic flip phone, at the time it was the first WAP phone around. Mitsubishi Trium it was.
I took out a contract with Talk Talk, got that (N95) for around £100 plus contract. I lasted a weekend with it. Hated it. Sold it in work and got my money back,went back to using Sony Ericsson k800i.
Sharp GX10 (my first camera phone) then GX30, k800 to k800i then iPhone 3G (and subsequent iPhones since) onwards from 2009.

Don’t think it’s about the hardware of a phone now, it’s all about the software and what you can do with them. And what they do for us. In 2026, where else is there to go software wise?

I just upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 512GB, only because the trade in deal and discount were so tempting. I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 512GB which I've been very happy with. I was tempted to go for the Xiami Ultra17 because of the camera, but I just could not justify paying double just to get a superior camera.