The Best Android Phones (2024)

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 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Those inexpensive phones often have some combination of substandard specs, poor build quality, a bad interface, and an outdated, crufty version of Android that will never see updates again.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.

The Google Pixel 9 is a premium phone that offers the best Android experience. The new Pixel has been redesigned with flatter sides, thinner bezels, a brighter display, and a new oval-shaped camera bar, though the result of those changes and upgrades is a slightly heavier phone. It has a beautiful OLED screen, a new Tensor chip, an excellent 50-megapixel main camera, a sharper 48-megapixel ultrawide camera, a faster fingerprint reader, useful AI features, and an all-day battery. And Google guarantees software updates for its latest Pixel phones until the fall of 2031.

The Pixel 9’s hardware looks like a flagship phone. Google’s phones have been made with premium materials since the Pixel 6, but it was hard to tell by looking at them. The Pixel 9 changes that, with a soft-touch matte back, a matte metal finish, rounded corners, flat sides, and a new elongated, brushed metal camera bar protruding from the rear. The Pixel 9’s redesign adds a few grams in weight from its predecessor, but it feels more luxe than any other Pixel phone has.

However, it does make the Pixel 9 more likely to slip out of your hands and its rear more prone to picking up scratches from keys, both of which happened several times throughout my testing period. The phone also has a new modem that should alleviate issues some users had with poor connection and dropped calls. Although we haven’t experienced these problems, we’ll continue to do long-term testing and share our results.

It has a slightly larger and much brighter display. The Pixel 9’s screen is slightly larger than that of the Pixel 8, growing from 6.2 inches to 6.3 inches with a 1080 x 2424 resolution. This updated OLED screen has the same deep blacks and 60 to 120 Hz refresh rate. And it’s also received a noteworthy boost to brightness, now reaching up to 2,700 nits of maximum outdoor brightness—a big increase from the Pixel 8's 2,000 nits. (A nit is the unit of measurement that describes the brightness of a screen—the higher the number of nits, the brighter the display.)

Google’s latest chip uses more RAM to run more AI-based features. The Pixel 9’s new Tensor G4 processor and 12 GB of RAM (up from 8 GB on the Pixel 8) provides a nearly lag-free experience with Google’s many AI features, which includes voice typing, Audio Magic Eraser, Pixel Studio, and Gemini Assistant, to name a few. The Tensor 4 chip hasn’t gotten a meaningful performance bump over the Pixel 8. Yet it still does an excellent job of powering the Pixel’s speech recognition, Google Assistant and Gemini AI features, image processing, multitasking, and playing graphic-heavy games, like Call of Duty: Mobile and Diablo Immortal.

The Pixel phones continue to take the best photos. The Pixel 9 utilizes the same 50-megapixel main camera as the Pixel 8, which remains our favorite phone camera in terms of color temperature, reliability, polish, and ease of use. But thanks to its new 48-megapixel ultrawide sensor with a slightly lower aperture, wide-angle photos captured by the Pixel 9 are now sharper than ever. The Pixel phones continue to shine with crisp and bright low-light photos, although at this point, the Pixel 9 takes only marginally better photos than the competition. The Pixel 9 also gets a new UI in its Panorama mode to guide less experienced photographers, and it adds Night Sight support for low-light, wide-format shots.

Add Me is our favorite new photo feature. Add Me allows you to take group shots without a tripod or someone else shooting photos. The process involves taking a first shot, then passing the phone to someone else. Then Google uses a combination of AR and AI to create a transparent template of the first shot to frame the second shot. This feature isn’t perfect—sometimes you have to retake the first shot, and if the subjects are too close, you can see the two images merging awkwardly. But when it comes together, the results are impressive.

Reimagine is a new feature in Google’s Magic Editor software that allows you to change a selected part of your photo. You can add fireworks or mountains to your clear skies, change your road into water, and more options, but in practice, it works better on backgrounds and objects rather than on people.

The fingerprint reader is now faster. Replacing the optical fingerprint sensor on previous generations of Pixel phones, Google has equipped all Pixel 9 phones with a new ultrasonic under-display fingerprint reader, which uses ultrasonic pulses to bounce off the ridges of your fingerprints. It’s more accurate, and it makes unlocking your phone faster.

All Pixel 9 phones will get updates until 2031. Google continues to provide longer software support for its flagship smartphones to help keep your phone safe and up-to-date. All Pixel 9 phones will receive feature, software, and security updates until the fall of 2031.

It has solid battery life and charges faster than the Pixel 8. The Pixel 9’s 4,700 mAh battery gets a modest increase from the Pixel 8’s 4,575 mAh battery. The new battery can tackle an hour of playing Call of Duty: Mobile, half an hour of website navigation, some text messaging, nearly an hour of YouTube videos, and a few phone calls with under 20% of juice left before bedtime. It retains the 27 W wired charging speeds from the Pixel 8 when using a 45 W charger, but the Pixel 9 charges a bit faster, hitting around 55% in 30 minutes.

It adds several new apps and features to Android 14. The Pixel 9 includes three new apps: Pixel Weather, Pixel Studio, and Pixel Screenshots. The Pixel Weather app gets an updated UI and adds a helpful AI-based weather summary. The Pixel Screenshots app will house all your screenshots to recall relevant links, calendar events, and more accessible information, but I didn’t find any particularly compelling use for it. The Pixel Studio app is an AI-based image generator that uses text-based descriptions (but currently doesn’t create human images), or it creates stickers from selected items from a photo within your camera roll.

Also new is the Call Notes feature, which allows you to record and create a transcript of your phone calls; this is useful for situations like getting a shopping list. This feature doesn't activate automatically; instead, you’ll have to toggle the feature on when you connect your call, and Google will then audibly notify you and your caller that the conversation is being recorded. The clearer the phone call, the better your transcription results are likely to be. I got around 90% accuracy during my testing. The Keep Notes app can also create a checklist or itinerary from a text or voice query; this has been useful for building grocery lists.

Our previous favorite features are still present and accounted for. They include the Recorder app, the Call Screen feature for monitoring spam calls, Magic Editor, the Audio Magic Eraser, Best Take (which lets you create a composite photo from multiple pics to grab the best faces from your subjects), and Guided Frame and the Magnifier app (for people who are blind or have low vision). Google is set to release Android 15 as a software update for the Pixel 9 later this fall.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It costs more than its predecessor. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 started at $600, and the Pixel 8 went up to $700. Google has again hiked the price of its base model Pixel by $100, so at $800, it is the same price as the base model iPhone 15 and Galaxy S24. This means the Pixel smartphones are on a par with competitors’ pricing—they’re not the more affordable option anymore.

Its videos leave something to be desired. Despite the camera’s 50 megapixels, video recordings can often look grainy, though you’ll still see good color reproduction.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro is a higher-end version of the Pixel 9, adding a brighter 6.3-inch OLED display, a polished metal finish, a longer-lasting battery, a 5x optical zoom lens, professional camera controls, better video quality, support for Gemini Advanced features, and a temperature sensor. But you’re also going to have to pay $200 more for the added features.

The Pixel 9 Pro cameras continue to excel against the competition. The Pixel 9 Pro has the same 50-megapixel main camera as the Pixel 9, but it has a sharper and wider 48-megapixel ultrawide sensor. It also has the same 48-megapixel telephoto sensor with 5x optical zoom as the Pixel 8 Pro. The everyday, low-light, and macro photos captured on the main and ultrawide lenses turn out results full of detail, sharpness, and vibrance. Google’s manual controls also allow you to adjust the brightness, shadows, white balance, focus, shutter speed, and ISO.

The Pixel 9’s Super Res Zoom feature gets improvement in its image processing, and it helps photos captured from 5x to 20x zoom on the telephoto lens look clearer with more visible details. Our results yielded less grain than with the Pixel 8 Pro, and they looked slightly clearer than the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 5x zoom. The Zoom Enhance feature is useful for cropping, zooming, and un-pixelating an image after it’s been taken, but we found the results to be only marginally better.

Google also upgraded its front-facing camera. The Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL both have a 42-megapixel selfie camera, upgraded from the 10.5-megapixel sensor on the Pixel 9 and previous models. This boosts the overall quality of your selfies to be nearly as good as the rear-facing cameras, and the new sensor also brings a wider field of view to capture more subjects or scenery in your selfies.

It has a brighter and better screen than the Pixel 9. The Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9 offer the same size OLED screens, but the Pixel 9 Pro is superior in pixel density and brightness. It has a 1280 x 2856 screen, with a wider variable refresh rate from 1-120 Hz, and it expands to super bright 3,000 nits of maximum peak brightness—without your having to pay $100 more for the larger, 6.8-inch Pixel 9 Pro XL.

The Pixel 9 Pro gets more RAM, dedicated to running Gemini Advanced. In contrast to the Pixel 9’s 12 GB of RAM, the Pixel 9 Pro has 16 GB of RAM, intended to help the 9 Pro run an advanced version of Google’s Gemini Assistant on-device. This is an updated version of Gemini Nano, which analyzes images, speech, and text in addition to the queries, voice typing, and all of the features Google Assistant offers. Pixel 9 Pro users get one year of Gemini Advanced subscription for free (which otherwise costs $239 annually), and it includes 2 TB of Google One cloud storage and access to the Gemini AI within apps like Gmail and Google Docs.

The subscription includes access to Gemini Live, Google’s new conversation-based assistant, which lets you ask questions as you would type a Google search. We found Gemini Live to work exceptionally well during our testing, since we could interrupt to add or interject with ease. You can also take the provided information and export it to Google Docs, turn it into a Gmail draft, select text, or create a link. It’s similar to a Google search with text—the more specific your query is, the better the results.

It has the same size battery as the Pixel 9 but lasts a little longer. The Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9 both have a 4,700 mAh battery that supports 27 W fast charging, but even with the brighter screen, the Pro model lasted longer on a single charge. This is likely due to the Pixel 9 Pro’s more advanced screen technology, which allows it to adjust from a 1 Hz to 120 Hz refresh rate and preserve battery life. We played Call of Duty: Mobile for an hour, streamed 40 minutes of YouTube content, messaged on Telegram, used 30 mins of navigation, and took a few 5-minute phone calls, and the Pixel 9 Pro’s battery still had around 30% charge at bedtime. And, like the Pixel 9, the Pixel 9 Pro charges up to 55% in 30 minutes and fully charges to 100% in under two hours, as long as you’re using a 45 W charging brick.

It offers better video quality than the Pixel 9. The Pixel 9 Pro offers the same Video Boost feature as the Pixel 8 Pro; this uses AI to process your videos to improve your video details, colors, and stabilization. However, it adds the ability to record in 8K video quality, supports HDR+ quality, offers high-resolution zoom up to 20X, and can pull 33-megapixel HDR photos from the footage. Its 8K footage didn’t wow me. Yet the feature was successful in boosting 1080p and 4K-quality videos with sharp details, fluid movements, and lots of color and contrast, in both daylight and low-light scenarios.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

But using Video Boost is convoluted. To use the Video Boost feature, you have to turn on the option in video settings before pressing record. It also requires you to upload your video files to the cloud via Google Photos for processing, since it’s the only Pixel feature that doesn’t happen on-device. The entire process can take several hours to complete, depending on the length of your footage—especially if you’re shooting in 8K quality.

It still has the gimmicky temperature sensor. We called the temperature sensor on the Pixel 8 Pro a gimmick, and not much has changed with the Pixel 9 Pro. It still allows you to measure the temperature of different objects—like cast iron, fabric, food, glass, liquids, metals, plastic, wood, and windows—as well as its awkward way of measuring body temperature by swiping across your forehead. I haven't encountered a scenario where I needed or wanted to use this sensor.

The Google Pixel 8a almost reaches the level of a flagship Android phone, but it costs much less. Its 6.1-inch screen has the same bright 120 Hz 1080p OLED panel as the Pixel 8 does, and it also uses Google’s Tensor G3 processor, the same powerful chip that runs the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. As for the Pixel 8a’s cameras, which are the same as those of the Pixel 7a, they’re good, but not quite as good as the cameras in the Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro. Overall, despite its plastic body and aluminum frame (which are made from recycled materials), the Pixel 8a still manages to feel like a premium phone. Google is also guaranteeing software and security updates for the Pixel 8a until 2031, something that no other midrange Android phone currently offers.

The Pixel 8a has a vibrant display that looks more expensive than it is. It offers the same 2400×1080-resolution OLED display as the Pixel 8, delivering rich colors and excellent contrast, along with a 120 Hz refresh rate for faster scrolling and a maximum brightness of up to 2,000 nits for ideal outdoor viewing in direct sunlight. In both respects, this screen represents a noticeable upgrade from that of the Pixel 7a, which offers a 90 Hz refresh rate and 1,000 nits of brightness. The Pixel 8a also has the same 6.1-inch screen size, Face Unlock feature, and under-display fingerprint reader as the Pixel 7a.

It offers Pixel 8 Pro–level performance. The Pixel 8a runs on Google’s custom Tensor G3 chip, which also powers the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. Combined with 8GB of RAM, that processor easily handles gaming, image processing, machine learning, and speech recognition, all without any noticeable lag. In our tests, the phone did get warm to the touch during gaming sessions, Zoom calls, and Google Maps navigation sessions that lasted more than 30 minutes. Like the Pixel 8, the Pixel 8a has a larger, 256 GB storage option, which is new to the A-series Pixel phones.

Its cameras come second only to those of the flagship Pixel models. Though the Pixel 8a has the same 64-megapixel and 13-megapixel ultrawide cameras as in the Pixel 7a, they still produce the kind of competition-beating photos you might expect from a Pixel phone—with two caveats. The Pixel 8a’s camera sensors are smaller than the 50-megapixel and 12-megapixel ultrawide cameras inside the Pixel 8, which can capture more light and details. The difference is evident in low-light photos, where the Pixel 8a often produces unwanted lens flares. The Pixel 8a also lacks one flagship Pixel camera feature: autofocus on the ultrawide sensor, which enables macro photos on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. However, despite its omission of a dedicated telephoto lens, it still delivers solid results with the help of Google’s AI-assisted digital zoom. The front-facing camera is also now slightly wider than that of the Pixel 7a, so you can comfortably fit more people in the frame for selfies.

It has all of the same AI features that pricier Pixel models do. On the Pixel 8a, you can find the same Android experience as on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. That includes Google’s growing number of AI features, such as Call Screen, which can place a caller on hold for you and block spam calls. We also like the Best Take photo feature, which uses AI to compile the best smile results across multiple photos; Magic Editor, which lets you manipulate photos to remove backgrounds or move subjects around; and the Audio Magic Eraser feature, which allows you to reduce unwanted background noise in your videos.

The Pixel 8a also offers Google’s newest AI features, like Circle to Search, which helps you search images, text, or videos by long-pressing the Home button and circling the item you want to find online. In addition, you can use Gemini, Google’s new AI assistant, which works in tandem with Google Assistant to offer writing suggestions along with brainstorming and summarizing information and more.

It will get updates for nearly a decade. The Pixel 8a is the first midrange Android phone that will receive up to seven years of updates. This should mean that it will get enough security updates, feature drops, and Android updates to extend its life through summer 2031.

It has a solid battery that can last all day. The Pixel 8a’s 4,492 mAh battery is smaller than that of the Pixel 8 but larger than the Pixel 7a’s battery. In testing, it lived up to Google’s claims of more than 24 hours on a single charge—mostly. After our moderate usage of Telegram and Slack messaging, 30 minutes of gaming, and 20 minutes of streaming YouTube content, the phone had just under 30% battery life left at bedtime. However, when we played hours of graphics-heavy games like Call of Duty: Mobile or Call of Duty: Warzone, the Pixel 8a would rarely make it to the end of the day. The Pixel 8a retains the 18 W wired-charging speeds of the Pixel 7a and takes around two hours to fully charge from 0% on a 30 W charging brick.

It doesn’t feel as high-end as a Pixel 8. The Pixel 8a has an IP67-rated water-resistant body with rounded corners and a narrower design in comparison with the Pixel 7a. Its housing and camera bar are made from 100% recycled aluminum. It resembles the Pixel 8, down to its aluminum frame, though the rear cover is 76% recycled plastic instead of Gorilla Glass.

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.

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, yet. We love that foldables offer a huge screen for gaming and watching videos yet also fit in a pocket. But we still have several concerns, the biggest of which is how they may survive years of wear and tear.

The $1,800 Google Pixel 9 Pro Foldfeatures a complete redesign from its screen size to its hinge, making Google's latest foldable thinner and more lightweight than its previous model. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has brilliant OLED displays, 16GB of RAM, a faster Tensor 4 chip, the same Gemini AI features as the Pixel 9 Pro, and great battery life. It also has the same triple camera system as the original Pixel Fold with a 48MP main sensor, 10.5MP ultrawide, and a 10.8MP telephoto. Although I still prefer the OnePlus Open, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold easily is a great runner-up, if foldables weren’t so expensive (and we were more confident about their durability).

Released in July, Samsung's $1,100 Galaxy Z Flip 6 and the $1,900 Galaxy Z Fold 6 are similar to their predecessors, with the Z Flip 6 offering the most significant improvements. Both foldables bring the Galaxy AI software from its S24 line of phones, which includes Magic Compose, Chat Assist, Circle to Search, and more.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6's redesigned hinge continues to close without any gaps and feels snappier with less resistance than the Z Flip 5, which reduces the crease on the internal display. Its 3.4-inch exterior display gets a faster 120Hz refresh rate to improve the visual quality despite being on a smaller display. Its new 50MP main camera sensor produces vibrant, flagship-level images and videos seldom seen on many clamshell phones. Its improvements over the previous Z Flip would make it easy to recommend as a pick if we were more confident in the durability of folding phones.

The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 6 are nearly identical, save for the Z Fold 6’s new snappier hinge, a minimal increase to its exterior screen, a slimmer profile, a faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, and the improved 12MP ultrawide camera sensor. However, I’m not convinced these minor upgrades warrant a $100 price increase to an already expensive phone.

The $700 Motorola Razr (2024) and the $1,000 Razr+ (2024) are the most affordable clamshell-based foldables on the market. Both models are outfitted with aluminum frames and hinge mechanisms and wrapped in premium-feeling vegan leather or suede, depending on the color option you choose. I love that Motorola allows you to access whichever apps you desire on each phone’s cover screen by default, and I wish Samsung would adopt the same feature without needing an app.

While Motorola's 2024 foldables offer welcome improvements, Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 6 remains the superior clamshell foldable. The Z Flip 6 still beats the Razrs in camera performance and will provide longer software support—seven years compared to Moto's three years. However, the Razr (2024) is a great entry-level foldable for under $800.

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 $700 Google Pixel 8 and $1,000 Pixel 8 Pro may lack the premium design of the Pixel 9 series, but they continue to offer excellent performance, helpful AI features, and amazing photos. The Pixel 8 models are significantly cheaper on third-party retailers like Amazon and Walmart.

The $1,800 Google Pixel Fold is the company's first foldable with a 5.8-inch exterior display that opens up to a 7.6-inch tablet. It has a short and wide profile with adequate OLED displays, great battery life, and the best camera experience on a foldable. However, it has thick bezels with a visible crease on its interior display, lacks proper optimization for many third-party apps on its interior screen, and is one of the heaviest devices among the current lineup of foldables.

The $1,800 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 has a 6.2-inch exterior display that opens to a 7.6-inch display. It has fast and brilliant OLED displays, good cameras, all-day battery life, and one of the best multitasking software on a foldable. But in addition to its expensive price tag, its tall and narrow frame makes it difficult to type effectively on its exterior screen.

The $1,000 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is a clamshell foldable with a 3.4-inch exterior display that opens to a 6.7-inch display. It has beautiful OLED displays, a hinge that allows for a seamless closure, and improved cameras for better low-light results. Unfortunately, it has less-than-ideal battery life for the price.

The $700 Motorola Razr (2023) is one of the most affordable foldables in the market with its 1.5-inch external display and a 6.9-inch OLED display. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, with a smaller external display, a lower quality interior display, and underwhelming cameras.

The $1,700 OnePlus Open 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 wider than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 but narrower than the Pixel Fold. It’s lighter, has a smoother folding mechanism, and has a less visible crease than its competitors. 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.

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 previous-generation OnePlus 11 is still a great phone, but it’s only $100 less than the OnePlus 12, and it will receive Android updates only through the end of 2026.

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 will no longer sell the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, but they’re still great phones if you can find them for cheap at third-party retailers like Amazon or Best Buy.

The Pixel 7a was our previous budget pick in this guide, and it’s a great entry-level phone, but it’s currently selling for $500, the same price as the Pixel 8a. It will be a good budget option if it drops below the price of the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro.

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 2023 Samsung Galaxy S23 FE offers hardware similar to that of the Galaxy S23 and S23+ for slightly less. It has a large, 6.4-inch OLED screen and an 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.