The 10 best phones available now, and how to choose the right one

The smartphone market moves fast, and there seems to be almost no break between launches these days. How can you possibly decide which is the best phone for you?

Your first decision is between an iPhone or Android phone – both are included here. Then, how much are you willing to spend? Maybe a budget or mid-range phone will offer everything you’re looking for.

But if you’re looking for the absolute best of the best, you’ve come to the right place. It’s difficult to whittle down the hundreds of phones we review each year to just 10, but that’s exactly what we’ve done here.

We can easily recommend all the phones below, but each model stands out for individual reasons. Whether you’re looking for a phone with AI features, great cameras, brilliant gaming performance, superb battery life, a folding screen or simply value for money, there’s something here that will appeal to you.

Samsung, Google, Apple, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Honor, Motorola and Nothing (via sub-brand CMF) are all represented here. Nokia, Realme, Asus, Huawei, Honor, Vivo and Sony miss out, but you will find them in other smartphone buying guides. At the bottom of this article, you’ll also find detailed buying advice, helping you to pick the perfect phone for your personal needs.

Why you should trust us: Phone reviews and buying advice have been a staple of Tech Advisor’s coverage since the original iPhone was released in 2007 and Android made its first headlines in 2008.

We’ve guided you through 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G; we’ve reported on the rise and fall of Windows Phone, BlackBerry phones and LG phones.

We’ve seen smartphone makers scramble to offer the biggest, brightest, highest-resolution, fastest-refreshing, toughest, flexible, foldable and even three-dimensional displays; we’ve seen an arms race in processors and graphics in the quest for the ultimate mobile performance; a long-running game of how many cameras – and then how many megapixels – they can first squeeze on to the handset, and later hide out of sight; a push for batteries that can go – never mind all day – but all week; and new technologies that enable water resistant and vastly improve audio.

We’ve held your hand through a fascinating journey of mobile hardware, and today – some 17 years later – it’s the software smarts and once impossible to imagine AI capabilities that glue us to this path. We perform in-depth, real-world testing on every new Android and iPhone model that’s worth buying (dozens every single year), adopting it as our primary phone for the most authentic experience possible and making sure we are in a position to give you the best possible phone buying advice.

Best smartphone 2024

1. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – Best overall

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra - Best overall

Pros

Top-tier performance 

Excellent, versatile cameras 

Very good battery life 

Clever AI features 

Seven years of updates

Cons

Expensive 

Big and bulky 

Charging still only 45W