What’s the best smartphone design, in your opinion?

Short of small cosmetic tweaks like color, texture, physical corner shape (sharp corners vs rounded corners, etc.), camera island shape, and construction materials there are not alot of design elements to set one phone apart from another and still remain usable in the practical sense and/or avoid being flat gaudy and/or ugly. I think is so done could create a foldable that was truly creasless and had a screen that was as durable as current gorilla glass or similar screen technology phones and that when folded were about 33% thiner that the current Samsung Fold 5 then we would have somthing that would truly shake up the phone industry. Of course there also is the holographic phone that appears in the 90° spot between your thumb and pointer finger we see in some sci-fi movies but I think we are a far way off from cracking that technology nut today.

The best for me, assuming the foldable screen lasts as long as the rest of the phone, is a foldable like the OnePlus Open (which I have)! Not only does it have a great candy-bar front screen that accepts a PEN, but it also replaces a tablet foe me! Two birds with one stone!

Now if the foldable screen craps out on me....well, I will be back to the standard slab and never buy another foldable ever!

iPhone 5/5S. It felt great, it was flat on the back, no extra crap in the design. Timeless.

The modern traditional slate design has been perfected to a fine point of the potential design space these days, so I do not see much difference between most phones of this variety; however, I find that among foldables, I definitely prefer flip designs to fold designs. The old flip phone was a comforting, even if limiting, design, and now, with the advent of folding, creaseless screens that can accommodate the full screen models, I find the Motorola razr 2023 to be quite compelling, and more so each time I continue to consider it. I think some time in the new year, I will probably be trying to pick one up from Cricket... they are out of stock right now, hopefully they are back some time soon.

The new Razer Plus is great, even though the hinges of these things are giving me shots of anxiety every time I open and close them. By the way, there was a slider concept design on MWC this year, the Moto Rizr rollable slider. In my opinion, it's a great and very usable design. Not only does the back part of the screen act like a mirror for selfies with the main camera or small display for video calls (making the front punch hole camera unnecessary), but you can use the phone in compact form most of the time and it looks quite comfortable. Check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXtV_zCSF30&ab_channel=GSMDome

Seriously, phone design has been dead to me for a decade. It's like every new model is just a bigger screen with nothing new in terms of looks or materials.

Back in the day, phone makers could get creative with different materials and styles, but now it's like they've given up on that.

It also appears that design is not a buying factor anymore. What else could explain the last three series of iPhones or Galaxy S phones..

For a long time a "good" phone design was one that doesn't hinder your user experience at any point. I, at least, can say that task has finally been achieved across most, if not all of the market, even with budget phones. What I want, and would consider "good" from now on is a phone that's designed to help the user avoid excessive use.

Of course, how much time we spend on our phones depends on us at the end of the day, and there are implemented systems to regulate your screen-on time, but I can't help but feel like there should be a more serious effort to push on this.

Maybe this opinion can qualify as a "hot take" and I am being naive here, but at the very least I think it would be an interesting challenge for manufacturers, making them explore ways to upgrade their devices not necessarily through hardware and higher performance, but from a more humanistic point of view.

LG G4 had best design. He was perfect for palm, and had great back curve. Phone as phone was not so perfect, but that is some other topic.

The original Motorola Moto X. It was just hand holding friendly. The different ways you could customize it using the Moto Maker was amazing. Having a phone you created with a wood back cover or red or yellow accents on the power buttons. Even at one time leather & football(it might have been a basketball material) back. The phone was your creation completely. And for a time made in the USA.🫡

Also, I liked the titanium and ceramic feel of the Essential Phone. It had a nice size, weight, and feel also. I loved the bronze colored one.