Every year, Digital Trends editors hand pick the most exciting products we’ve had the privilege of handling this year. Make sure to check out award winners in categories from cars to computers, plus the overall best product of 2017! Read on for the mobile products that floored us this year.
It has been a spectacular year for smartphones, from the Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30 to the Google Pixel 2 and OnePlus 5T. Modern phones look great, perform brilliantly, and have cameras that take stunning photos — but only one rolls off every tongue: The iPhone X.
Most phones released this year are iterative improvements over 2016, but the iPhone X is a whole new beast, and the changes introduced set the bar for the next decade of iPhones. Gone are the chunky edges flanking the screen, and the iconic home button. In their place, say hello to a gorgeous bezel-less OLED screen, and Face ID, a futuristic and far more secure way to unlock your phone. It’s not as convenient as Touch ID yet, but it is improving day by day.
Face ID makes interactions with your phone seamless, from unlocking the screen to accessing secure apps and making payments. The iPhone X is also sandwiched by glass, which allows support for wireless charging. While both of these technologies have been on other phones before, expect them to be a highlighted feature in smartphones next year.
But the iPhone X isn’t just the best because it’s so different from its predecessors — it maintains the crown in key areas. The A11 Bionic processor is a powerhouse that easily bests the Android competition. ARKit, Apple’s augmented reality platform, uses this processor to bring the world around you to life, and there’s a respectable growing list of apps that are actually useful.
When Apple implements a feature, expect it to become standard.
iOS 11 introduced a drastic and great redesign of the App Store, a faster way to send money through Messages with Apple Pay Cash, and more. It’s all better on the iPhone X, because of the new way to fluidly interact with the operating system with gestures. The animations are slick and satisfying.
Throw in immediate iOS version and security updates for quite a few years, a great camera with fun Portrait Lighting features on both the front and rear lenses, as well as excellent customer support, and the iPhone X a phone that’s nearly unmatched.
The iPhone X is revolutionary. When Apple implements a feature, expect it to become standard not just for the smartphone industry, but for many others: Bezel-less screens, wireless charging, and facial unlocking are the future, and so is the iPhone X.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.