7 Of The Coolest Looking Android Phones Ever Made

Over the long history of Android, Google's OS has become the most popular on the planet, even beating out Windows. That's because it's been powering thousands of devices in various shapes and sizes, all made from different manufacturers over the years. From simple candy bar-style slab phones to folding screens, and extending into the realm of truly bizarre devices, Android can be made to work with nearly any form factor. But while the majority of Android devices range from boring to weird, every so often a truly impressive device is released that blows people's socks off from the very first look.

Since Apple only releases a few iPhones each year, it doesn't have much room to deviate from the norm. But in the world of Android, there are a number of companies ranging from massive sales to niche enthusiast devices, meaning there's a lot more incentive for companies to make devices that stand out from the crowd. However, while making a phone weird is one thing, making it look cool at the same time is much harder. You're more likely to make an ugly duckling like the LG Wing than you are a technological work of art like the Nothing Phone.

Here is a list of the coolest looking Android phones ever made. Some come from the early days of the platform, while others are still shiny and new. But what they all have in common is a design that stands the test of time.

The Robin, a short-lived phone from short-lived company Nextbit, had a solid idea. Its premise was that in an increasingly cloud-based computing paradigm, who needs local phone storage anymore? Well, as it turns out, more people than you'd think, which is part of why Nextbit and the Robin failed. But whatever the flaws in its conceit, the Robin was a gorgeous bit of eye candy. It quickly funded its Kickstarter campaign and became a real product, releasing in February 2016.

It's hard to overstate the design work that went into the Robin. In his review for SlashGear, Chris Burns noted the Nextbit Robin hardware was partially designed by one of the same people who worked on the original HTC One, another phone on this list. Even though that phone was metal and this one is plastic, the Robin still looks every bit as premium. It's a big box of a phone, which made it look imposing when gaming hardware company Razer reused the design for the Razer Phone, but the soft blue colors make the Robin look inviting. True to its name, the plastic chassis was a robin egg blue which contrasted with a sky blue at the top and bottom.

Unfortunately, the Robin only came with 32 GB of internal storage. The idea was to promote the included free 100 GB of cloud storage, but even in its launch year of 2016, that wasn't enough for most people. A second phone never arrived.

While a number of the brands in this list are somewhat defunct when it comes to smartphones, Nothing is a newer brand that's still going strong. Launched by Carl Pei, the former director of OnePlus, Nothing has so far produced two phones worthy of this list. The attention-grabbing design of Nothing's phones, named Phone 1 and Phone 2, have helped them stand out from a sea of boring glass slabs in the current smartphone market. The retro-futuristic designs make even more sense once you know that Nothing teamed up with Teenage Engineering, the too-cool-for-school design firm that recently collaborated to design the Rabbit R1 AI gadget.

A fair criticism of Nothing phones might be that they look a lot like iPhones if you squint at them, but these bespoke designs have a lot going on in the trunk. The best example is the Glyph system, a series of lights on the backside of the Nothing Phone that alert the user to different notifications, charging status, and even how close an Uber is. The lights are scattered among a transparent design that lets the user see through to the phone's internals, while the flat metal rails along the sides give the device a somewhat boxy look. From the front, however, the Nothing Phone 1 and Phone 2 both look pretty standard. Only once you turn them on do you see the matrix-dot-inspired black-and-white skin Nothing has built for its version of Android.

There was a time when HTC's dominance of the Android market was next to unquestionable. The company was consistently producing unique smartphones that blended interesting ideas with eye-catching designs. HTC's crown jewel came in 2014, with the HTC One M8. Even now, an entire decade later, the One M8 still looks every bit as sleek, futuristic, and premium as the day it hit store shelves.

The One M8 may look a little dated with a pair of Boom Sound speakers flanking its screen from the top and bottom, but they were a selling point at a time when most phones had lackluster sound. The rest of the One M8 was where it really shined. The device's back and sides were a unibody aluminum frame that curved in your hand.

And it isn't just gorgeous on the outside. In an era where Android software was often ugly, HTC's Sense software was tasteful, packed with thoughtful features like customizable themes, a news feed, and a gallery. For the Google superfans, there was a version running stock Android.

Unfortunately, while the One M8 represented a pinnacle of HTC's smartphone design, it turned out to be more of a cliff than a peak. HTC did release a followup to the One M8 the next year, but then the company's smartphone fortunes took a massive tumble. Eventually, HTC faded into a distant memory, but its classic designs do live on since Google acquired HTC's design team to make Pixel phones.