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Determining the "best" Android phone can vary based on individual needs and preferences. As of my last update, some top contenders included the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra for its powerful performance and versatile camera system, the Google Pixel 6 Pro for its clean software experience and impressive camera capabilities, and the OnePlus 9 Pro for its smooth performance and fast charging. Other notable mentions include devices from Xiaomi, Oppo, and Sony, each offering unique features catering to different user requirements. It's essential to consider factors like budget, camera quality, display preferences, and software experience when choosing the best Android phone for you.
Android phones come in assorted sizes and at various prices, ranging from cheap handsets with modest screens to expensive foldable models that can turn from a tablet into a phone.
After spending hundreds of hours testing Android smartphones, we’ve concluded that the Google Pixel 8—which sits in the sweet spot of competitive pricing and great hardware—is the best Android phone for most people.
It offers outstanding software and camera performance, and it costs less than other high-end handsets. It will receive guaranteed software updates for longer than most Android phones, too.
Google’s Pixel smartphones have always offered the best Android software experience, but the Google Pixel 8 proves that Google is doubling down on hardware. It has a crisp 6.2-inch OLED screen and a solid wrap-around aluminum frame. The Pixel 8 also offers the best camera performance of any Android phone save for its sibling, the Pixel 8 Pro, and Google’s custom Tensor G3 processor holds its own against the high-end chips in other phones. In addition, the Pixel 8 is more likely to remain secure for years longer than most Android phones thanks to its seven years of guaranteed monthly patches. And at $700, it costs hundreds less than other Android phones that won’t last as long or perform as well (though we don’t love Google’s decision to raise the prices of its latest Pixel models across the board).
The Pixel 8 Pro takes the Pixel 8 and adds a bigger, better screen and more camera features, but it’s more expensive than previous Pro models.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro has a larger OLED screen than the Pixel 8, with a higher resolution and refresh rate, as well as a 5x telephoto camera. The improvements bump this phone’s price up to $1,000, so the value isn’t quite as strong as with the Pixel 8. But the Pixel 8 Pro is a more capable phone with the same excellent software and seven years of update support.
Though Google’s Pixel 7a is hundreds of dollars cheaper than the Pixel 8, you don’t sacrifice many features in choosing this model. The Pixel 7a runs on Google’s Tensor G2 processor and has an improved 64-megapixel camera sensor, wireless charging, Face Unlock, and an upgraded 1080p display with a smooth 90 Hz refresh rate. The Pixel 7a has a plastic body, an aluminum frame, and a dual-camera setup on the rear, and it will receive many of the same Android 14 features that the higher-end Pixel models will. The one downside: The Pixel 7a will receive software updates for only five years, rather than the seven years of updates that Google has promised for the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra retains nearly everything great about the previous Ultra model, offering a large and beautiful OLED screen, an included S Pen stylus, and a 200-megapixel primary camera. The S24 Ultra also has a new titanium frame for added durability, and its OLED screen is brighter with flat instead of curved edges, as on an iPhone 15 Pro. It has the latest Snapdragon chip and offers new AI features; it also promises seven years of software updates.
As for the camera, the S24 Ultra swaps the S23 Ultra’s 10x “periscope” zoom for a shorter, 5x zoom with higher resolution. Though the S24 Ultra takes excellent pictures, the Pixel 8 Pro produces better images for a lot less money. Samsung’s top-end Galaxy phone has always been expensive, and the price increase to $1,300 on the S24 Ultra—if you don’t trade in an older Samsung device or buy it on sale—is a hard pill to swallow.
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Roderick Scott, a staff writer at Wirecutter, has been reviewing tech, including Android phones, for more than a decade. He has used every Android phone—from the HTC G1 and the Google Nexus line to Samsung’s first Galaxy S model and Motorola’s Droid phones, and all the way to current models.
Previous versions of this guide were written by Ryan Whitwam, who reviewed Android phones for Wirecutter from 2015 to 2023.
We’ve tested dozens of Android phones over the past few years, and most suffer from poor software, sluggish performance, terrible design choices, or some combination of all three. Here are the criteria we use to decide which phones are worth buying:
If you’re happy with your current phone, don’t get a new one yet. On the other hand, if you use your phone constantly throughout the day, and it isn’t serving you well anymore, buy a new one.
Another reason to consider an upgrade is if your current phone no longer receives software updates. All software has bugs that lead to security vulnerabilities, and if your phone isn’t getting updates, it isn’t getting fixes, either. Plus, without updates, the phone won’t be able to take advantage of apps that require features present only in the latest OS.
If you’re happy with your current phone, don’t get a new one yet.
If your phone is more than a year or two old and your biggest complaint is that the battery life sucks, consider replacing the battery before replacing the phone. Most recent phones use a sealed-in battery, but you can usually pay the manufacturer or a third-party service to replace it. Although that’s a hassle, it costs a lot less.
When it’s time to buy a new phone, we recommend choosing the best-rated, newest phone you can afford. We don’t recommend saving money by settling for whatever cheap phone your carrier offers. Those inexpensive phones often have some combination of substandard specs, poor build quality, a bad interface, and an outdated, crufty version of Android that will never see updates again. Chances are, you’d feel the difference in quality and usability every day, and because those cheap phones are often already a year or two old when you buy them, yours would be three or four years old by the time you pay it off—long past the last software update it would get. You’re almost always better off paying a bit more for a newer and better phone that you’ll enjoy using for at least two years.
Another popular option is to buy an unlocked phone outright. For many of the best Android phones, however, that means paying $600 or more all at once (the Pixel 7a aside). If that’s too much for your budget, you can buy a great Android phone unlocked—which means it’ll work on any compatible carrier—for $200 to $300, or even less if you’re willing to sacrifice a few features. We cover those phones in a separate guide to the best budget Android phones.
Photo: Connie Park
The Pixel 8 offers the best version of Android, with guaranteed security updates through fall 2030, and it has one of the best smartphone cameras we’ve ever tested. It also has excellent build quality and costs less than Apple’s latest iPhones.
May be out of stock
The $700 Google Pixel 8 is a great phone that offers a premium Android flagship experience and excellent bang for your buck. Google slightly redesigned the new Pixel, giving it a smaller display, rounded corners, a thinner bezel, and a narrower profile. The Pixel 8 also has a brighter OLED screen, a new Tensor chip, a sharper 50-megapixel main camera, and useful AI features. The Pixel 8 is the first Android smartphone guaranteed to receive software updates until late 2030.
It has a brighter display with a higher refresh rate. The new model still has a nearly bezel-free, 1080×2400-resolution OLED display with deep blacks and excellent contrast, and it still has a reliable optical fingerprint scanner under the screen. But scrolling is smoother, and gaming is now faster on the Pixel 8’s screen with its variable refresh rate, which ranges from 60 Hz to 120 Hz, an improvement over the Pixel 7’s 90 Hz display. Google has also boosted the maximum outdoor brightness to up to 2,000 nits for an ideal brightness level in almost any situation. (A nit is the unit of measurement that describes the brightness of a screen—the higher the number of nits, the brighter the display.) The screen is slightly smaller, shrinking from 6.3 inches to 6.2 inches, but with the phone’s smaller bezel, flat screen, and narrower frame, the difference is barely noticeable.
A new chip enables AI features that we really like. The Tensor G3 chip is powerful enough to handle gaming, image processing, speech recognition, multitasking, and Google Assistant features. (The phone did still get slightly warm to the touch when we were gaming or using apps like Zoom or Google Maps over an extended period of time.)
But the new chip also powers a cool new feature called Audio Magic Eraser, which lives up to its name by cutting out unwanted noise in your videos, as long as they’re at least one second long and under two minutes. The processor scans the video and separates the audio by noise, wind, nature, or speech, after which the Pixel 8 gives you the option to reduce or remove audio as desired. However, if the video has an equal amount of background and foreground noise, the feature doesn’t work as well.
The latest Pixel lineup takes the best photos. The Pixel 8 keeps the Pixel 7’s 50-megapixel main camera, but it now captures more light, and it has an upgraded 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, too. The Pixel line’s cameras remain our favorite phone cameras in terms of color temperature, reliability, polish, and ease of use. Thanks to the main camera’s lower aperture, photos captured on the Pixel 8 are as colorful and sharp as ever. Night Sight continues to give Pixel phones the advantage in low-light photos with sharp and visible images, though the competition is slowly catching up. The new ultrawide camera adds autofocus, so the Pixel 8 can capture tack-sharp macro photos.
New photo features such as Best Take are especially useful. The Pixel 8 uses AI to take multiple photos and stitch together the best possible result. If someone blinks, looks away, or makes an inappropriate face or gesture, for example, the feature creates a composite, blending the faces from similar photos into one. For this feature to work, you need to take multiple photos with at least two people in your shot. We found that it works extremely well.
Google also introduced the Magic Editor feature, which lets you move subjects around an image or change the background. You can make the edits yourself in Google Photos, or the software can offer suggestions on how to improve the photo. In our tests, it worked well, but at times it could take up to several seconds to generate a set of results.
The photography features aren’t exclusive to the Pixel 8, however—other Android phones and older Pixel phones will get them, too.
Both the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro will get updates for seven years. This is a major benefit, because one of the key reasons people upgrade to a new phone is that their old one is no longer supported. Google is promising that the Pixel 8 series will receive software, security, and feature updates from now until the fall of 2030.
The battery life is still solid, and the Pixel 8 charges faster. The Pixel 8 has a marginally larger 4,575 mAh battery, a boost over the Pixel 7’s 4,355 mAh pack. The new battery supports the brighter and faster display yet still offers all-day battery life. Similar to last year’s model, the Pixel 8 charges up to 50% in 30 minutes, but only when you use a 30 W charger. The Pixel 8 charges slightly faster than the Pixel 7, reaching charging speeds up to 27 W as opposed to the previous model’s 20 W speeds on a 30 W charging brick.
The Pixel lineup gives you the best version of Android 14. Google’s latest OS offers more lock-screen customizations and monochromatic theme options; in addition, the Recorder app now supports switching through multiple languages, and the At A Glance widget adds travel updates and event tickets. The Call Screen feature, which monitors unknown calls for spam, now sounds more human and conversational instead of like a bot. The improved Clear Calling feature blocks out more background noise on your caller’s end to make phone conversations more clear. Google Assistant can now summarize content or read websites aloud to you on command. The Personal Safety app adds a Safety Check feature, which allows you to set a timer for your phone to confirm that you are safe when traveling, and it shares your location with your emergency contacts if you don’t respond.
For individuals who are blind or have low vision, a photography feature called Guided Frame, which helps you frame your shots with your voice, has gained support for both the front and rear cameras and can now detect food and pets along with faces. A Magnifier app uses the camera to enhance small text or object details or to zoom in to make text and objects more visible.
It’s more expensive. The Pixel lineup used to be affordable in comparison with Apple and Samsung flagship phones, but Google has hiked the prices of the Pixel 8 lineup, making these models $100 more than last year’s phones. The $700 Pixel 8 is now just $100 less than the base-model Apple iPhone 15 and Samsung Galaxy S24, so it’s no longer the steal it once was.
Its videos leave something to be desired. The results can often look grainy, though you’ll still see good color reproduction.
Upgrade pick
The Pixel 8 Pro takes the Pixel 8 and adds a bigger, better screen and more camera features, but it’s more expensive than previous Pro models.
Google’s Pixel 8 Pro is a larger, more high-end version of the Pixel 8, and it costs $300 more. It has all the same features as the Pixel 8, including the AI-based photo- and video-editing tools, but also offers a bigger and brighter 6.7-inch OLED display, a larger battery, a matte-glass back, a 5x optical zoom lens, professional camera controls, and a temperature sensor.
It takes the best photos of any Android phone. Google upgraded the Pro’s camera array, as it now includes a sharper and brighter 50-megapixel main lens, a higher-resolution 48-megapixel ultrawide lens, and a 48-megapixel telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom and faster autofocus. Photos captured with the main lens and ultrawide turn out sharper than ever, and when you don’t have a ton of light, Google’s powerful low-light Night Sight feature comes to the rescue. The new ultrawide sensor also takes detailed macro photos for capturing tiny objects. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra still has the best telephoto lens, with a 5x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom; the Pixel 8 Pro takes great zoomed-in images with enough light, but results can turn grainy at 5x, in both photos and videos, without adequate lighting. The sweet spot is slightly more than 3x, which keeps the graininess to a minimum. The 10-megapixel front-facing camera gains autofocus, which helps keep your selfies looking crisp.
In addition to upgraded camera hardware, the Pixel 8 Pro offers manual controls within the Camera settings, allowing you to adjust the white balance, focus, shutter speed, and ISO to get more creative with your photos.
It has slightly better video quality than the Pixel 8. Google added a feature called Video Boost with Night Sight Video in a post-launch software update to the Pixel 8 Pro. Video Boost uses AI to process your videos, adding HDR+, Night Sight, and Unblur to improve your video’s details, colors, and stabilization. Using Video Boost within good-to-moderate lighting, we noticed richer colors and slightly sharper details. In low-light scenarios, the feature added more pops of color, more details, and overall brighter footage.
The downside: You have to select the Video Boost option within the video settings every time you open the camera app before capturing footage. Also, rather than processing the videos on your device (as it does for your Pixel photos), the feature uploads your files for processing in the cloud via Google Photos. The overall process can take several minutes or even more than an hour to complete, depending on the length of the video, and it’s limited to videos shot with the rear-facing camera. Video Boost can provide great results, but it needs more work to compete with the video quality of Apple’s and Samsung’s flagship phones.
It has an excellent screen that’s smooth and ultra-bright. We prefer the flatter edges on the Pixel 8 Pro, and its edge-to-edge, 1344×2992-resolution OLED display offers high-quality contrast and deep blacks. And like the Pixel 8, the Pixel 8 Pro has a variable refresh rate ranging up to 120 Hz for smoother scrolling and faster animations. The Pro version also has one of the brightest displays you can find on an Android phone, capable of up to 2,400 nits of maximum outdoor brightness (the Pixel 8 and iPhone 15 go up to 2,000 nits). But at 6.7 inches diagonal, the Pixel 8 Pro is a massive phone, and it may be too large for some people to use one-handed or on the go.
It has the best battery life of any Pixel phone. The Pixel 8 Pro has a 5,050 mAh battery pack, in contrast to the Pixel 7 Pro’s 5,000 mAh battery, and although we were concerned that the phone’s brighter screen and new features might drain the battery faster in comparison with Pixels past, that turned out not to be the case. The Pixel 8 Pro can’t last for two days with heavy use, but it can easily last all day: Even after participating in a one-hour Zoom call with the screen on, streaming over an hour of YouTube content, messaging on Telegram, and playing Call of Duty: Mobile for 20 minutes, we still had a 10% charge on the Pixel 8 Pro before going to bed. Like the Pixel 7 Pro, the Pixel 8 Pro charges up to 50% in 30 minutes and can fully charge to 100% in around two hours, as long as you’re using a 30 W charging brick.
The temperature sensor is a gimmick. The Pixel 8 Pro allows you to measure the temperature of various objects and materials, such as food, liquids, glass, or cast iron. Google added the ability to measure body temperature, but the feature doesn’t seem useful because it’s awkward to use effectively; the process requires swiping the phone’s camera across your forehead while keeping the phone’s screen facing away from you.
Budget pick
The Pixel 7a has a higher price tag than Google’s budget phones usually do, but it offers more features for the cost. The 7a offers a better display, an improved camera, Face Unlock, and Google’s custom Tensor G2 processor in a plastic body. It’s not as premium as a flagship Pixel model, but you get plenty for your money.
The Google Pixel 7a looks exactly like the Pixel 6a, save for a few new color options. However, the Pixel 7a has plenty of features that add up to a worthwhile upgrade, especially if you’re using an older Android phone. The $500 Pixel 7a bridges the gap between budget and high-end, and now that Google has raised the prices of its flagship Pixel 8 lineup by $100, the Pixel 7a is an even better deal: For $200 less than a Pixel 8, it gives you plenty of premium features.
It can capture extremely detailed photos. Because the Pixel 7a’s 64-megapixel main camera lens produces slightly larger photos than those captured with the Pixel 7 Pro’s 50-megapixel sensor, it gives you more detail. In comparing images captured with the Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 7a, we found almost no differences. Results from its AI-assisted digital zoom are almost as good as what you can get from phones with dedicated telephoto lenses, and in night-mode photography the Pixel 7a bests everything other than the pricier Pixel handsets.
It runs the latest version of Android, and it’ll receive updates for years. Most phone makers customize the Android OS to some extent, almost always to the detriment of the phone’s performance, whether they’re adding features and extra apps or merely adjusting the style and branding. Google’s phones have their fair share of software modifications, but they avoid cluttering the experience or slowing the device down. The Android operating system on the Pixel 7a is almost identical to the experience on the Pixel 7, with features such as the on-device Google Assistant, which speeds things up by doing more voice processing on the phone rather than waiting for Google’s servers to handle it. You can also have Google Assistant screen your calls for spam or wait on hold for you.
With three years of OS updates and five years of security patches, the phone is guaranteed to get Android 14, 15, and 16 and security fixes through summer 2028. In addition, these updates will arrive on the Pixel 7a soon after release, whereas other phones often make you wait months, if they receive a new software version at all. Samsung phones get one additional year of security updates (four total), but those updates take longer to arrive.
The 7a delivers powerful performance for an affordable phone. Like the Pixel 7, the Pixel 7a is powered by Google's Tensor G2 processor, so it can easily handle various tasks that rely on machine learning and speech recognition, such as the camera’s Face Unblur and Motion Mode features and a system-wide closed captioning feature called Live Caption. With an upgrade in RAM from 6 GB to 8 GB, the Pixel 7a can now efficiently handle more background apps and tasks without any lags or delays.
You have multiple ways to unlock the Pixel 7a. A fingerprint reader is located under the display, and although it isn’t the fastest scanner on a smartphone, it is faster than that of the Pixel 6a. Google has also added support for Face Unlock, as on the other Pixel 7 phones. It’s a useful and just-as-fast secondary option for unlocking the phone, provided that sufficient lighting is available.
Its battery life is solid, except when it’s running power-hungry apps. The Pixel 7a has a slightly larger battery than the Pixel 7, and when we lived with the Pixel 7a as our main daily driver, we found that it easily lasted a full 24 hours with moderate usage. However, when playing demanding games like Call of Duty: Mobile or relying on Google Maps continuously during a 50-minute road trip, we found that the battery drained quickly, sometimes barely making it to the end of the day. The Pixel 7a supports only 18 W wired charging, a slower rate than on other Android devices, many of which support faster wired charging of up to 45 W.
It doesn’t feel as high-end as a Pixel 7 or Pixel 8. The Pixel 7a resembles the Pixel 7 but lacks the wrap-around metal frame for the camera bar, and the back is recycled plastic instead of Gorilla Glass. The Pixel 7a has a 6.1-inch, 1080p OLED display that is plenty bright, though not as bright as the flagship Pixel phones. A software feature, high-brightness mode, replicates higher peak brightness for outdoor viewing, which is useful. The display has also been improved with a faster 90 Hz refresh rate, an upgrade from the Pixel 6a’s 60 Hz panel. This means the screen will scroll more smoothly without a noticeable hit to battery life.
The Pixel 7a is available from the Google Store unlocked, and it should work out of the box on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The Pixel 7a has the same support for 5G frequencies as the Pixel 7—and it also omits support for millimeter-wave 5G, unless you purchase it from Verizon.
Also great
The S24 Ultra, which combines a top-tier display, a powerful processor, a stylus, and new AI features, is the best Samsung phone. But considering its high price, you should buy it only if it’s on sale.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is Samsung’s best phone—and one of the best phones you can buy, period—but it will cost you.
The S24 Ultra has a new, iPhone-like design with a large, brilliant OLED display. Samsung has added AI-based software features such as Circle to Search, which lets you circle any item and Google it, as well as real-time transcription, translation, and photo-editing features, which work well—until they don’t. The advanced camera system, powered by a 200-megapixel main sensor, also produces great results. However, the S24 Ultra is still a massive phone with a $1,300 price tag, which represents a $100 price increase over the S23 Ultra.
Samsung is all in on AI, and one of the new features is actually really good. Samsung partnered with Google for the new Circle to Search feature, which allows you to search on images, text, or videos simply by long-pressing the Home button and then using your finger (or stylus) to circle whatever you want to look up. The feature is powered by Google Lens, and it’s easy to use and mostly just works. But Circle to Search is also available on Google’s Pixel 8 phones and Samsung’s other Galaxy S24 models, so you don’t need to buy an S24 Ultra just to use it.
Another new AI feature called Chat Assist mirrors the Magic Compose feature on the Pixel phones, allowing you to write a text-message reply and then use AI to change the tone, such as making it professional or casual or adding emojis. It can translate text from one of 13 supported languages, including Chinese, English, French, and Portuguese.
Live Translate is a new AI feature that translates phone calls in different languages in real time on the device. I tested it by having a conversation in English with a friend who was speaking Spanish, and Live Translate did a good job of keeping up, but in our testing the feature didn’t handle casual translations, long conversations, or pauses well—it's better suited for shorter convos, such as making a reservation at a restaurant when you’re visiting another country. Also included is the Interpreter feature, which can translate a conversation in real time when two people are together, so you can view the translated text on two cards: one for what you’re saying and the other for whoever is speaking or texting. You can easily access it from the Quick Settings menu by swiping down twice from the notifications shade.
On top of that, the S24 Ultra has a new Transcript Assist feature, which can transcribe, summarize, and translate within the default Phone app and the Samsung Voice Recorder app. The summarize portion offers a synopsis of highlighted text, transcripts, or web pages. When we used Samsung’s Voice Recorder app side by side with Google’s Pixel Recorder, Samsung’s feature was able to get pretty close to Google’s in its execution, including multiple speakers and a proper summary. This function may be useful if you record lectures for school, interviews, or meetings for work.
But the new AI-powered photo-editing features can be hit-or-miss. Samsung’s version of Google’s Magic Editor, called Generative Edit, allows you to move, tilt, and remove objects from photos. It can move and tilt objects relatively well (unless you look closely). We found Samsung’s object selection and removal to be faster than Google’s, but the feature occasionally replaced objects we removed with unnecessary ones. For example, we took a picture of an empty water bottle next to a toy microphone and attempted to remove the water bottle. Instead of completely removing the bottle, the AI editor replaced it with a foreign object on top of a straw.
Samsung’s Instant Slo-Mo feature uses AI processing to transform any video into a 120 fps slow-motion video, but it doesn’t work with 8K or videos under 720p. The process is simple, activated when you long-press the desired video within the Gallery, but higher original frame rates yield better results. Also, certain kinds of footage, such as a subject moving back and forth against a static foreground like signs or grass, can yield some questionable results.
The titanium frame is more durable, but also heavy. Like Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro phones, the Galaxy S24 Ultra sports a titanium frame, which improves its durability. But unlike the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the S24 Ultra doesn’t feel any lighter in comparison with its predecessor. Samsung ditched the curved edges and added a flatter screen, so it’s easier to hold in your hand, but it’s still heavier than the similarly sized Pixel 8 Pro.
It has a huge, bright screen. The Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 6.8-inch OLED display has a 1440×3120 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate, which means it basically feels like a small 4K OLED TV in your pocket. It produces rich, accurate colors and sharp, detailed images, and Samsung boosted its peak outdoor brightness from the S23 Ultra’s 1,700 nits to up to 2,600 nits. The S24 Ultra also has an always-on lock screen, which dims the wallpaper and highlights selected widgets without taking a huge toll on the battery.
All three Galaxy S24 models will get updates for seven years. Samsung has followed in Google’s footsteps in offering extended software and security support on its flagship devices, and the S24 devices will receive these updates until early 2031.
It has an excellent camera system but sacrifices zoom quality. The S24 Ultra retains the S23 Ultra’s 200-megapixel main sensor and 12-megapixel ultrawide lens, but it replaces one of the two 10-megapixel telephoto zoom lenses with a 50-megapixel sensor. We still like the Pixel 8 for quick snapshots, but for portrait mode and 4K video, we prefer the Galaxy S24 Ultra. In one respect, however, the S24 Ultra represents a step backwards from last year’s model: The S23 Ultra’s 10x-optical-zoom periscope 10-megapixel sensor has been replaced by a shorter, 5x 50-megapixel lens. It offers a massive boost in resolution at 5x, but using the S24 Ultra’s 10x zoom results in somewhat fuzzy details in comparison. Samsung also added the ability to switch between four lenses while capturing 4K 60 fps video; this feature can help add more flexibility in capturing moments at different angles and focal lengths.
It’s a powerful phone with excellent battery life. The S24 Ultra runs on the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, with a neural processor to handle the on-device AI. The newer chip allows this phone to handle high-end multitasking and hours of demanding mobile games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Genshin Impact better than any of our other picks, and it gets only mildly warm with all that intensive processing. Combined with its 5,000 mAh battery, this new hardware gives the Galaxy S24 Ultra excellent battery life—at bedtime, after a day of heavier usage, it still had around 30% of the battery left.
Also great
The Galaxy S24 has a marginally larger screen and battery than last year’s Galaxy S23, and it has the same powerful chip as the S24 Ultra. It’s more compact than the Ultra, and it promises software updates until early 2031.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 shares many of the larger Galaxy S24 Ultra’s best features, including the seven years of software updates, the Galaxy AI tools, and the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. It also has a brighter 1080p OLED screen than last year’s Galaxy S23, as well as a moderately larger battery. The S24’s cameras can outperform those of any Android phones that aren’t in Google’s Pixel line (or more expensive versions of the S24), and Samsung’s Galaxy S line remains the superior Android-phone choice for capturing video. Thanks to the S24’s smaller frame, most people can comfortably use it with one hand.
It has all the same AI features that the much more expensive Galaxy S24 Ultra does. The entry-level S24 uses the same Snapdragon processor as the S24 Ultra and is capable of handling the same Circle to Search, Chat Assist, translation, transcribing, and photo-editing tasks as its much pricier sibling, without any difficulty.
It looks like an iPhone. Samsung ditched the slightly curved edges of the S23 for a more flat-edged design that resembles Apple’s latest smartphones, and this model feels nearly as premium as the iPhone 15 lineup does. The Galaxy S24 has a 1080p OLED screen and produces sharp and vibrant colors, albeit at a lower resolution than the Pixel 8 Pro and the rest of the S24 lineup. But it matches the S24 Ultra with a luminous 2,600 nits of maximum outdoor brightness, outclassing our other current picks.
The battery increase is small but meaningful. Due to the S24’s slightly taller dimensions and smaller bezel in comparison with the S23, it has room for a slightly larger battery inside. The S24’s 4,000 mAh battery represents a small bump in power over the S23’s 3,900 mAh battery, and with medium to heavy use, it can provide just about a day of power. It can also charge up to 50% in 30 minutes on a 25 W wired connection. Combined with the more power-efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, the bigger battery grants an extra hour or so of juice, which is welcome.
The latest trend in Android is foldables, but we don’t recommend them. Google’s Pixel Fold has a short and wide 5.8-inch exterior display, versus the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold’s tall and narrow 6.2-inch exterior display. Both foldable models open to reveal a 7.6-inch interior display, which essentially works like a tablet. While the Galaxy Z Fold 5 offers a brighter OLED screen and a smaller bezel, we prefer the Pixel Fold to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 if you’re shopping for a foldable. But we don’t recommend splurging on either device if you don’t need to: At $1,800 each, the Pixel Fold and the Galaxy Z Fold 5 are simply too expensive for most people.
The $1,700 OnePlus Open, which goes on sale October 26, is one of the best foldables we’ve tested so far. The 6.3-inch phone unfolds to become a 7.8-inch tablet, making it not as narrow as the Galaxy Z Fold 5 but not as wide as the Pixel Fold. It’s lighter, has a smoother folding mechanism, and has a less visible crease than its competitors. The OnePlus Open has bright and colorful OLED displays with up to 2,800 nits of maximum outdoor brightness. The 4,805 mAh battery lasts over a day and can charge from 1% to 100% in around 42 minutes with the included 67 W fast-charging brick. It runs Android 13 out of the box but adds a useful desktop-like taskbar for easier multitasking. The phone’s trio of rear camera lenses are placed inside a giant circular cutout, which is unusual, but the 48-megapixel main, a 48-megapixel ultrawide, and 64-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom produce sharp and colorful images that are comparable to other foldables. But, like most of the other foldables we’ve tested, the OnePlus Open is extremely expensive, and we’re not sure how durable it will be over time.
Motorola’s Razr is currently the most budget-friendly entry-point into foldables at $700. Motorola’s latest foldable has an aluminum frame and hinge cover that’s wrapped in a premium-feeling vegan leather. The Razr opens to a narrow 6.9-inch 1080p OLED display that supports a fast 144 Hz refresh rate for smoother animations and a more responsive interface. It closes flat to reveal a smaller 1.5-inch OLED external display which allows you to access your calendar, timer, weather, voice recorder, and capture photos and videos. It runs Android 13 and adds Motorola’s gesture control to open the camera by twisting your wrist twice. The Razr’s 64-megapixel main camera is adequate enough most of the time, as the 12-megapixel ultrawide and 32-megapixel selfie cameras aren’t as sharp or good. It packs a 4,200 mAh battery that’s larger than the 3,700 mAh cell inside of the Galaxy Z Flip5, and easily lasts over a day. The Motorola Razr is the first, reasonably-priced foldable, but not knowing how well its durability will last over time is a looming asterisk in deciding to buy one or not.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5 foldable is more affordable at $1,000 and has an improved hinge that allows for a seamless closure, without any gaps as on previous models. It has a 3.4-inch exterior display that improves the overall experience by allowing you to access apps on the outside, as opposed to relying on the interior display for everything. Add its improved cameras for better low-light results, and the Galaxy Z Flip 5 would have been a great first foldable. However, less-than-ideal battery life and long-term concerns regarding durability prevent it from being a pick.
Google’s annual I/O developer conference kicks off May 14. The event is where the company historically announces details about the latest version of Android, and sometimes releases new hardware. Last year, Google revealed its cheaper Pixel 7a smartphone and its first foldable phone, the Pixel Fold. We anticipate seeing new phones from Google at this year’s I/O, too—potentially new versions of the models we saw last year. Wirecutter will be on the ground and will update this guide with first impressions of Google’s latest software and hardware.
We cover less expensive models in our guide to the best budget Android phones.
In general, we don’t recommend choosing an Android phone that is more than a year old or has already been replaced by newer models. An older phone might be cheaper, but the lower price usually isn’t enough to justify the shorter window of remaining software support. Historically, most Android phones used to receive about two years’ worth of reliable software support. However, these days Samsung and Google are pushing update support up to seven years, depending on the phone.
The $800 OnePlus 12 and $600 OnePlus 12R both have curved displays, a large camera module on the rear, and 80 W wired fast charging like their predecessors, but both models also add brighter screens and long-lasting batteries. The OnePlus 12 is one of the fastest Android phones we’ve tested, thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, up to 16 GB of RAM, and a redesigned cooling system. The main 50-megapixel camera is equipped with Hasselblad image processing that gets better each year—it’s not as good as Google’s, but it comes close. The large, 5,500 mAh battery can last a full day with heavy usage and can go nearly two days with light to medium usage; offering charging options of 80 W wired or 50 W wireless, it can fully charge up in less than an hour. And the OnePlus 12’s massive, 6.8-inch 1440p OLED offers punchy colors while being brighter than the screens of any of our picks. The OnePlus 12R mostly mirrors the OnePlus 12 with a bright and vibrant 6.7-inch OLED display, good performance, and a long-lasting 5,500 mAh battery. But it’s powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and lacks both wireless charging and a telephoto lens. Both OnePlus phones are solid, but our picks offer better cameras and software for your money.
The Samsung Galaxy S24+ is the awkward middle child of Samsung’s S24 phones. It mirrors the Galaxy S24 with a flat edge design, a triple-camera setup, seven years of updates, and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, but it offers a larger, 6.7-inch OLED screen with 1440p resolution, a bigger battery, and higher storage options. But at $1,000, the Galaxy S24+ is $200 more than the Galaxy S24 and $300 less than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and most people would be happier paying less or getting more features.
Samsung’s Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra offer features similar to those of the current models and are still perfectly good phones that you can often find at a discount. Galaxy S24 AI features such as Circle to Search, Chat Assist, Live Translate, Transcript Assist, and photo editing are set to arrive on the Galaxy S23 models sometime in March.
Google’s Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro aren’t quite as impressive as the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, but they are still great phones, especially if you find them on sale from a retailer such as Amazon or Best Buy. Pixel 8 software features such as Best Take and Magic Editor will eventually make their way to the Pixel 7 series.
The Nothing Phone 2 runs on the last-generation Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor with up to 12 GB of RAM. It has a premium build, with a transparent glass and metal housing and a bright and vibrant 6.7-inch 1080p display. It also has rear Glyph light strips, which are useful, if a little gimmicky. But its lack of a reliable camera, its tendency to overheat with heavy use, and the harsh vibration motor behind its haptics prevent us from making it a pick.
The OnePlus 11 is one of the fastest phones you can get, thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip. Though it doesn’t offer the higher performance of the custom Samsung version of the chip, the OnePlus phone has better cooling, which contributes to higher sustained performance. The 5,000 mAh battery easily lasts a day, and the 80 W fast charging makes it easy to top up before you head out the door. It also has a huge, 6.7-inch 1440p OLED screen that’s almost as good as Samsung’s. But the OnePlus version of Android 13 is clunky: It borrows quite a bit from the ColorOS software used on this phone in China, which means fewer features and a more confusing interface than we enjoyed on past OnePlus phones. The OnePlus 11 is the same price as the Google Pixel 8, which has much better software and photo quality. However, we do hope that more phones follow OnePlus’s lead and support faster charging speeds.
The 2022 Motorola Edge+ represents Motorola’s latest attempt to return to the flagship-phone category, and we like this model’s 6.8-inch OLED display, with its ultra-fast 144 Hz refresh rate. The Edge+ is also a fast phone thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. However, in its cameras and Motorola’s software-support commitment, this phone falls short of options from both Google and Samsung. In addition, Motorola is asking $1,000 for this phone, the same price as the Google Pixel 8 Pro.
The 2023 Samsung Galaxy S23 FE offers similar hardware as the Galaxy S23 and S23+ for slightly less. It has a large, 6.4-inch OLED screen, IP68-rated body, as well as the previous-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, the same kind that was in every flagship phone last year. The S23 FE adds a new 50-megapixel main camera that captures sharp, detailed images and videos. However, the $600 asking price makes it only $200 less than the Galaxy S23, and only $100 less than the Pixel 8 which runs faster, offers better build quality, and will receive updates more frequently.
This article was edited by Arthur Gies and Caitlin McGarry.
Source: The New York Times
