In Summary
- 2025 was a year in which most gadget manufacturers seemed content with incremental spec updates rather than radical innovation.
- The year, however, still saw some innovative products that defied conventions and tried to add a new touch to our tech lives.
- As 2025 comes to an end, we take a look at ten gadgets (and one more) that came with a cool factor in what was generally a rather lukewarm year in terms of innovation.
There are bestselling gadgets. There are revolutionary gadgets. And then there are the cool ones. The ones that might not set cash registers ringing or rewrite their segments, but just turn heads and make users go “wow” when they use them. There is no objective measure of coolness, just a vibe, a sensation that makes you nod and say “cool.”
And in 2025, a year marked by spec rather than special upgrades, these 10 gadgets made us utter that magic word. They were not always the latest and greatest or, in some cases, even the best in their segment, but they were cool as autofocus in our books.
So, as 2025 winds down, here are our cool gadgets of 2025 in no particular order:
Table of Contents
SanDisk Creator Phone SSD: 1 TB in 50 grams of magnetic, water-resistant brilliance!
This is hands down one of the neatest portable storage solutions we have seen in years. The square-shaped Creator Phone SSD from SanDisk, packed in 1 TB or 2 TB of storage and weighing a mere 55 grams, was important because we could literally stick it to the back of our phone! The SSD comes with MagSafe support, so one could stick it onto the back of one’s phone (works with Pixels and iPhones), and also has a cable with which one could transfer data back and forth to and from it from the phone (it works with tablets and notebooks too, but heck, this was made for phones).
What’s more, data transfer speeds on it are good enough for one to shoot video on the phone and save it to this drive directly. Easily the best 1 TB / 2 TB storage upgrade to the iPhone (or any other phone) you can get. And it is splash-resistant too. Cute, cool, and packed with bytes. Oh, and it comes in blue.
Nothing Headphone (1): Head turners on your head!
We used our fair share of headphones in 2025, but none of them got as much attention as the first over-ear headphones from Nothing. Although bulky and a little on the heavy side, the Headphone (1) were easily the most eye-catching headphones of the year, borrowing Nothing’s faux transparent design and even having cassette-like designs on the earcups.
They came with button controls and a unique volume roller, adding a wonderfully whimsical touch to the interface. They did need a fair bit of tuning to sound right, but these headphones were still head-turners in 2025.
Infinix GT 30 Pro: The gaming phone that looked like…a gaming phone!
2025 saw a lot of phones that were super at gaming. But the only one of them that actually looked like a gaming phone was the Infinix GT 30 Pro. It was targeted at the premium mid-segment, and so did not have those insane specs that some flagships did, but what it did bring to the table was a design that screamed “gaming.”
It had a back panel with distinct patterns (not the randomness on some phones) with RGB lighting that ran through them, which changed as per the gaming scenarios and could also work as a notification light for calls, messages, and other notifications. Add to that shoulder triggers for better gaming, and this was one of the coolest phones of the year.
JBL Tour One M3 Smart TX and Tour Pro 3: Holy touchscreen connectivity, with great audio, Batman!
JBL pretty much took the title of most innovative headphone and TWS brand of the year with this rather stunning Tour duo. The rather elaborately named Tour One M3 Smart TX and the Tour Pro 3 came with the usual sleek and clean design that is a trademark of premium headphones and TWS. And they sounded pretty good too, with super ANC and call handling, but what made them insanely cool was the presence of touchscreens – on the case of the Tour Pro 3 and on an accompanying transmitter with the Tour One M3.
They allowed us to control the buds and headphones from a distance, without fiddling with on-device controls. There was more – both case and transmitter could be connected to any device with a cable, and we could get audio from the device on the headphones and buds wirelessly. Basically, we could use these wirelessly with any device that had a 3.5 mm audio jack – TV, aircraft entertainment, notebook, audio system…sound sorcery this was.
Poco F7: Made of mad, finally
It started out as a brand that was aimed at geeks who wanted edgy design and performance, but Poco has increasingly become a mainstream brand in recent times, entering spec-price ratio wars. With the F7, however, it showed us that some insanity still lurked beneath that seemingly normal surface.
The F7 did boast some very impressive specs, but it pretty much hit it out of the geek park in terms of design, with subtle green highlights on the camera unit, and a totally in-your-face upper back on its Silver Rydr edition that looked like an engineer’s version of tech heaven, complete with screws and grids. Even the “normal” looking units had dual-tone backs and those striped camera units. The fact that it worked darned well, too, made it pretty much the most edgy-looking and geeky-looking phone of the year for us!
Xiaomi 15 Ultra: Shoots like a Leica, looks like a Leica
2025 was the year of cameraphones with the likes of Oppo, Realme, and Vivo coming out with super innovative phones, all with tie-ups with big names in photography, and some even with cigar-shaped telephoto attachments. But the coolest camera phone of them all was the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. The brand has had a tie-up with Leica for a while now, using lenses and filters developed by the legendary German brand.
With the 15 Ultra, however, it borrowed another Leica feature – the design. The phone came with the dual tone blend of black and metal that marked the Leica M series and even had a tiny Leica logo just next to the lens. Of course, it came with an array of Leica shooting options as well as a one-inch sensor, but it was the first phone with Leica lenses that actually looked like a Leica. As any photographer will tell you, it does not get cooler than that.
Logitech MX Master 4: You don’t have to be Mickey to be a super mouse
As 2025 drew to an end, Logitech gently reminded the world that while smartphones, notebooks, and consoles might grab most of the attention, the humble mouse can be uber cool as well. It did this through the excellent MX Master 4 mouse, which is a multi-tasker’s delight, and in some ways, pretty much a tiny computer in our hand. There is everything here – two scroll wheels (one in the middle, and one on the side), eight buttons, and even a haptic feedback panel.
If you are the type that likes to totally micro-manage their mouse (it’s a geek thing), there are endless possibilities here, from customising the kind of haptic feedback you want to setting shortcuts around the cursor to tweaking scrolling speeds. This is a big mouse with a slightly unusual shape, but those metallic scroll wheels look glorious, and the fact that the mouse can work on almost any surface without much noise gives it a very Bond-like, understated elegance.
Asus ZenBook A14: The Zen master of notebooks
It has been a while since we have slapped the “cool” label on a non-gaming Windows notebook – we think the OG Surface was the last one to get that tag more than a decade ago. That changed this year with the Asus ZenBook A14. Yes, the specs were good – AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip, plenty of RAM and storage, and staggering battery life – but what really got it into the cool zone was the design.
It was not loud, but supremely elegant, with a new material ceraluminium (a blend of ceramic and aluminium) giving it a smooth, almost marble-like feel. And it weighed less than a kilo, which is amazing considering its size. There was a lot of muttering about app compatibility with the new Qualcomm platform, but this was pretty much the best notebook to be seen with in 2025.
iPhone Air: Imperfectly, delightfully cool
We know this was the year of the Cosmic Orange dual-toned iPhone 17 Pro series, but the iPhone that really grabbed attention was the very Two-Faced iPhone Air. Its price tag was eye-watering, and much was made of its having only one camera and only one speaker, but in terms of sheer coolness, this was the iPhone of the year. Although it did have a rather prominent camera bump, it was a crazy 5.6 mm thin for the most part and oozed class with a titanium frame and Ceramic Shield glass on the front and back.
The camera bump had only one camera, but what made geeks sigh with delight was the fact that it also housed almost everything other than the battery, with the lower portion of the phone being left mainly for the battery. It was perhaps the most innovatively designed phone inside and outside, and while it was not perfect (which first-gen tech hardly ever is), it was one sharp looker that reeked of uber cool tech. It was also the only iPhone with a pro-level chip available in black.
Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless (80th Anniversary Edition): Sennheiser “throwies” a retro curve ball
One generally associates Sennheiser with efficiency rather than flair, but in 2025, the brand showed it had a fun side with a special 80th Anniversary Edition of the bestselling Momentum 4 Wireless. This was basically the Momentum 4 Wireless but souped up with some retro design. It paid tribute to the legendary HD414, whose yellow foam earpads made them famous in 1968, by adding a number of bright yellow headlights, from yellow padding on the headband to bright yellow illustrations on the earcups.
And most stunning of all is the throwie art with bubble-shaped letters that was an integral part of the graffiti in New York in the 1970s. There are even illustrations inside the earcups. Cold German efficiency met cool New York vibe, and the result was one of the funkiest-looking earphones you could find. Oh, and they sound wonderful too!
And one more thing…
Luminous Edge GO 1500 – Charge up your world…and rock it too!
There are power banks that keep your phone and even notebook going…and then there are portable power stations like the Edge GO 1500 from Luminous. It is about as big and as heavy as a packed suitcase (about 15 kg) and comes with its own handle as well as a bag to carry it around. Why would you want to carry it around?
Well, because it pretty much powers up everything you have, with its 200W output and 1120Wh battery capacity. From laptops to drones to routes to projectors to consoles and even mini-fridges, this power station can charge them all. It even packs in two wireless microphones and comes with its own 90W audio system and support for live guitar inputs. It does not come cheap (almost Rs 1,00,000), but its sheer portability and versatility, combined with a very cool design, make it the perfect power backup for content creators on the move. Plug in every gadget you have to this charger, and sing away while they charge – and they charge pretty fast too!
