The coolest smartphone brand partnerships, ranked

Realme recently released one Smartphone with Coca-Cola theme, the latest in a long line of collaborations between phone brands and companies outside the tech sphere. There have been a ton of these smartphone partnerships over the years, which have given us some cool (and sometimes not-so-cool) products. But which collabs resulted in the best phones and/or accessories? We’ve ranked the coolest smartphone-brand partnerships.

(To clarify, we’re not looking at camera-related partnerships like Nokia and ZEISS or HUAWEI and Leica, but ties between mobile companies and other brands in general.)

This wasn’t the first case of a smartphone brand collaborating with a car manufacturer, as we’ve seen HUAWEI/Porsche and OPPO/Lamborghini before. But OnePlus and McLaren have certainly delivered solid products during their collaboration.

The pairing only produced two McLaren Edition phones, namely the OnePlus 6T McLaren and the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren models. Both devices delivered a unique aesthetic in black and orange colors, but the OnePlus 6T model undoubtedly brought more to the table. We’ve got 30W of wired charging here (compared to 20W in the standard 6T) and 10GB of RAM (versus 6GB to 8GB). Throw in a special plaque, a black-and-orange charger and a booklet of the car brand’s history, and it wasn’t half bad for $699 at launch.

HUAWEI’s partnership with Porsche Design began in 2017 with the Mate 10 series. However, this was often one of the more disappointing brand partnerships, as Huawei’s Porsche brand flagships usually only had a different design and a sky-high price. But we sometimes saw more than a token effort.

Perhaps the pinnacle of this deal was the one from 2018 Size RS. This handset had a huge price bump over the P20 Pro, but you got wireless charging, a QHD+ screen, two fingerprint scanners (one unreliable sensor on the screen and one on the rear), more storage and a thin bezel instead of a notch. Otherwise, the most you could hope for on subsequent Porsche releases was an improved secondary camera with a wider aperture. Still, the Mate RS makes up for the otherwise overhyped partnership.

The Xiaomi Civi series of smartphones is largely aimed at women, so the combination of the latest Civi 2 handset and a cute brand like Hello Kitty makes sense. And the China-only Xiaomi Civi 2 Hello Kitty Edition certainly works in practice.

A bunch of Hello Kitty faces graced the back of this phone, turning red in sunlight thanks to a photochromic back cover. It’s not the first time we’ve seen back covers change when exposed to sunlight, but it’s still very useful. You also get a themed case and stickers, so it’s not the most impressive special edition overall, but the phone itself is unique.

Samsung joined forces with Pokémon in 2022 and released various useful accessories to consumers. For starters, we have a really cool Poké Ball carrying case for Galaxy Buds earbuds. But we also have accessories such as a Pokémon cover for the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and a watch strap for the Galaxy Watch 5.

The main downside to this proposal is that we didn’t get any real special edition phones here. It would have been nice to see a Pikachu-themed Galaxy Z Flip 4 or a PokéDex-style Galaxy Z Fold 4. However, some argue that a protective case is a much better idea.

Our most recent collaboration between smartphone and brand came about via Realme and Coca Cola earlier this year. This took the form of a budget Realme 10 Pro 5G with a two-tone black and red color scheme on the back. But the software tweaks make it really stand out thanks to a custom user interface, custom ringtones, and even the sound of a Coke can opening as a camera shutter effect.

The extras are nothing to write home about, such as a custom SIM card holder in the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle cap, the Realmeow mascot and stickers. But it’s still a great special edition phone for the ~$255 price tag.

OnePlus has collaborated with Marvel on at least two phones over the years. We have the OnePlus 6 Avengers Edition back in 2016, featuring a glass back with a Kevlar-like pattern underneath, as well as a great-looking Iron Man case and a random coin.

however, the OnePlus 10T Marvel Edition stepped things up by including a similar Iron Man case, as well as a Captain America Shield Pop-Socket and a Black Panther phone stand. Neat. Just a shame the actual phone itself didn’t look like anything special.

There are token brand partnerships and there are links beyond that. Fortunately, the latter is exactly what we saw Samsung and Star Wars in 2019.

Samsung offered one Star Wars Edition Galaxy Note 10 Plus in a red and black color scheme, complete with Kylo Ren graphics and a Light Saber-esque S Pen. And yes, the phone made a Light Saber sound effect when you took the S Pen out of the storage slot. This tweak extended to the software, giving us a custom UI, wallpapers, and more. The addition of extras like a case and custom Galaxy Buds only sweetened the deal.

There were many more partnerships over the years, with OnePlus and Cyberpunk, Iqoo and BMW, and OPPO and Gundam as three honorable mentions. What is your favorite collaboration?