Seven things we want for 2015

Reviews Editor Alan Lu thinks 2015 will be another year of sliding prices and technological refinement rather than dramatic breakthroughs, but he's hopeful of a few major advances too

Better smartphone battery life

Smartphones are great, but their big weakness is short battery life. While manufacturers have mitigated this with more energy-efficient processors and a host of power-saving software tricks, these techniques can only do so much. What’s needed are new types of batteries that last for days, not hours.

Motorola Moto X (second generation)

The leather-backed phone you can control hands-free

With most smartphones there’s little you can do to customise their appearance, aside from adding a case of your choice. The new Moto X breaks the mould in this respect. When bought directly online from Motorola, each phone is made to order so you can customise the colours (front and back). For £20 extra you can even go for a leather or wooden rear (see image). This sounds tacky but actually looks very classy in the flesh, though you can’t choose to have a photo on the rear casing, which is a disappointing omission.

Nokia Lumia 830

A sleek and powerful Windows Phone

Windows Phone 8.1 is a slick and well-designed mobile operating system, but until now almost all of the new phones which come with it pre-installed have been pretty mediocre. That’s all changed with the Nokia Lumia 830. Although it looks very similar to the Lumia 930, it actually has lower specifications. However, several refinements in the 830’s design help make it the best Windows Phone yet.

Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact

The waterproof Android mini tablet with superb battery life

The Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet was one of our favourite Android tablets of 2013. This makes it all the more puzzling that Sony has decided against updating that 10in model and has instead released a smaller 8in version. The Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact (not to be confused with the Xperia Z3 smartphone), squeezes the best features of its larger stablemate into a more compact device that easily rivals Google’s Nexus 9.