3D smartphones have come and gone a few times over the years. HTC and LG tried making 3D phones the next big thing in 2011 with little success. Amazon’s Fire Phone attempted to resurrect the 3D phone craze in 2014, and, perhaps most infamous, the Red Hydrogen One tried again in 2018.
We haven’t seen any 3D phones since then, but it looks like that’s set to change. At CES 2025, I had a private demo session with Leia, a company that converts 2D displays into 3D ones. My demo session began by seeing how this works on monitors, laptops, and tablets — including one launched last February.
My final demo, the one I was waiting for, was with a prototype of Leia’s 3D tech on a smartphone. If you ask Leia, the prototype resembles how it thinks all smartphones should work in the future.
Leia creates its 3D images using clever trickery of your eyes. When 3D imagery is enabled on a Leia device, you’re really seeing two sets of the same image. However, using a camera and eye-tracking, Leia is able to only show your right eye one image and your left eye the other — resulting in a glasses-free 3D viewing experience.
My first few demos on 4K and 8K monitors were particularly impressive. I played Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lies of P, and Tunic — all in 3D — and they all looked surprisingly good. For me, it was less about the images popping out of the screen and more about the extra depth the 3D added to each game.
I’ve spent hours running around Tunic, and seeing that world transformed into a 3D landscape was quite something. I’m generally not the biggest 3D fan, but it was something I could see myself spending a lot of hours with. Playing these games in 3D made me feel like I was part of the game world; like I was looking directly into it rather than just a movie picture on a screen. It’s not something you can show on camera or in pictures, but the end result is a lot more impressive than I had anticipated.
Read more at: Digital Trends