- Dreame debuted a pair of Aurora phones at Dreame Next
- The standard model boasts some impressive modular attachments
- The Lux designs look more like fashion statements than smartphones
Following its rocket car debut on day 1, and its army of armed smart home appliances on day 2, Dreame Next day 3 has showcased a pair of smartphones — and I don’t know if I love the design, or if I need to go throw up.
I’m not talking about the more standard Dreame Aurora model with its Nex attachments — this thing looks pretty neat. Borrowing the sort of giant circular camera bump you’d find on the Oppo Find X9 Ultra or OnePlus 13 Pro, this thing boasts a 200MP camera with a 1-inch sensor.
Plus, with a 7,000 mAh battery, I expect this phone actually to live up to its all-day battery promise.
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The standout aspect of the design, however, is the Aurora Nex add-ons. A kind of mag-safe like attachment collection with various uses: there’s the 50MP action camera with lightning-fast autofocus, the 50MP telephoto snapper with LOFIC sensors for one-shot HDR, a satellite communication module to stay connected no matter where you are, a cooling module (a.k.a. a fan) to keep your phone cool during intense gaming sessions, and the Agent module which looks like an AI companion of sorts — though details were a little limited on exactly what its support would look like.
Dreame suggested other add-ons might launch down the line, and it’s an interesting approach to smartphone modularity — though we’ll have to try these discs out to determine if they live up to the promise.
Luxury, or ugly
Where things start to get a little sickly is the Dreame Aurora Lux — intricately designed smartphones coated in vibrant prints, jewels, and effects that they look more like a purse than a smartphone.
With names like Imperial Totem, Regalia Shield, and Axiom Geometry (yes, these are real phone names, not JRPG ultimate attacks), there’s an undeniable pomp to these designs that definitely stands out from the crowd of iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones of the world. However, they aren’t to my taste personally.
We also got a look at the Aurora OS 1.0. A stand at the show gave me an early impression of the OS, and right now it seems a little like a work in progress — the Android 16 underlying architecture is very plain to see, still making the OS feel more like an aesthetic theme than its own true take on Android.
There was also talk of AI and the usual personal context assistance all phone companies have been promising — combining data between apps to help organize your real and digital lives — but again, the presentation felt light on specific details of how this would be achieved.
Additionally, two key details are also lacking: price and release date.
Dreame Next has been an odd showcase, and the lack of firm commitments on when this tech will be available has put a dampener on the festivities — it’s tough to get excited about tech I might never get to really try.
If you’re after a gaudy phone, keep your fingers crossed that the Dreame Aurora devices see the light of day soon, though for now you might need to settle for the blingy iPhone case.
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