5 upcoming Android phones that are worth waiting for
Stop, don’t pull the trigger on that new Android phone just yet. There are some amazing phones coming out in the next few weeks and months. The last thing you want is to drop hundreds on a new device or sign up for a two-year contract only to feel behind the times a few days later.
Let’s figure out what’s worth waiting for and when you’ll see it.
Sony Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact
You might be thinking that Sony only just announced the Z4, and you’re technically correct. The best kind of correct. Practically, though, this phone does not exist. Sony announced a version of the Z4 in Japan, then gave it a bit of lip service elsewhere. Already Sony looks to be moving on in hopes of creating something that actually sells.
The Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact have leaked a few times, and they look legit. The standard Z5 will reportedly be around 5-inches and the Z5 Compact will be 4.6-4.7-inches. The two should share most of the same internals, and it’s possible that might include a Snapdragon 820 instead of the 810 that has made the Z4 less than desirable. That chip is expected in early 2016, so that’s a reasonably time to expect the Z5. You can also expect 3GB of RAM, a fingerprint sensor, and a 20.7MP camera.
As far as Android software goes, Sony does a good job. It’s skin has a number of cool features, a theme engine, and very little bloat. Sony tends not to have a good relationship with the big US carriers. Verizon sometimes sells Sony phones with heavy modifications several months late, and T-Mobile will have a few around in the back someplace if you ask nicely. If you wait for this one, you might have to buy it as a full price unlocked device from Sony.
Moto X Style
Motorola’s last two flagships have been great phones that really didn’t get the appreciation they deserved. Maybe with the 2015 model, the new Lenovo subsidiary will convince buyers to skip the Galaxy and pick up something from Moto Maker. The Moto X Style (known as Moto X Pure in the US) will be the largest Moto X yet, and it fully embraces the direct to consumer model
The specs for the new Moto X include a 5.7-inch QHD LCD, 3GB of RAM, a 3000mAh battery, and a snapdragon 808 (instead of the warmer 810). As for the camera, which has traditionally been a weak point for Motorola, but it’s going with a 21MP sensor that is getting high marks in early preview testing. The Moto X Style/Pure will have Moto Maker customizations with wood, leather, and plastic backs. There are also different metal accent colors available.
Motorola’s build of Android is almost completely stock, but Motorola then adds genuinely useful features on top of it. For example, there’s Moto Display to wake up the screen in power saving mode to tell you when you’ve got new notifications. You can dismiss them right on the spot without waking the phone up, or you can launch them all from Moto Display.
The new round of Motorola devices are being sold only via Motorola, so no carrier subsidies or payment plans. It will retail for $399, but Motorola has its own payment plan options. The Moto X Pure in the US will be unlocked and functional on all major carriers. You can expect this one in the next few weeks.
Project Ara seemed like an elaborate joke when it was first announced. Was it April 1st? No? Huh. The Ara modular phone was inherited by Google when it took over Motorola’s ATAP group before selling the rest of the company off to Lenovo, and it’s not hard to see why it held onto this division. Ara is one of those moonshot things Google loves so much, but Google has been talking about Ara becoming a real product in early 2015.I don’t know about that, but it’s almost certainly making an appearance at Google I/O 2015 in May.
The core of Ara will have a screen attached to a frame which accommodates a variety of hardware modules for RAM, storage, batteries, cameras, and more. Even wacky niche stuff like projectors could be attached. You will be able to build the phone you want, and upgrade it as new modules come out. To make this work, Google is developing a special branch of Android 5.0 that will support hot-swapping most of these components.
Project Ara will come in several sizes, including small form factors that could cost as little as $15 (before modules). This could be the next big thing.
OnePlus Mystery Phone
Chinese smartphone startup OnePlus has already announced the OnePlus 2, and it’s shipping to some countries already. However, the company has confirmed that another phone is slated for release later this year. We don’t know exactly what it will be, but we do know it won’t be a successor to the OnePlus 2 already. This is something different.
The smart money is currently on a smaller, less expensive phone. This segment of the market is exploding right now as inexpensive hardware catches up to the software requirements. Phones in the $200-250 range are finally good purchases, and OnePlus already has experience getting costs down to provide a premium device at a low price. It might be able to do the same for a “budget” phone.
The real selling point here isn’t that the phone will be cheap, but that it’s probably going to be smaller. The OnePlus 2 is 5.7-inches, as is the new Moto X. The OnePlus mystery phone is expected in late 2015.
The Next Nexus
This time last year we weren’t even sure there would be another Nexus phone, but now it looks like Google is fully back on the Nexus hype train with Project Fi and the Google Store. This year there might be not one, but two Nexus phones. This is still all rumor, but one devices is said to be from LG and in the 5.2-inch range, and the other is a Huawei phone with a 5.7-inch panel.
It’s possible that only one or the other of these phones will be launched as Google’s flagship, but if it’s pushing Project Fi, having more Nexus-style unlocked phones is a good idea. If the Huawei device comes out, earlier reports claimed it would be based on a Snapdragon 810 and a 1440p screen. The smaller LG device is still hazy, but it might be running a Snapdragon 808. Any and all Nexus phones that come out in 2015 will probably be running the latest and greatest version of the platform, expected to be the M build unveiled at Google I/O.
Google tends to announce new Nexus phones in the late fall — October or November. They’ve previously been modestly priced devices, but the Nexus 6 was very spendy. If Google intends to continue working with carriers, the next devices will have to be expensive too. They won’t want Google undercutting their prices on the same device.
