The best smartphones on the market pack style and processing power. Here are our favorites, from Apple’s latest iPhone to the Pixel 2. If you’re shopping for a new phone, then allow our guide to help you find the best option for you. We have picks for best overall, best camera, best battery life, and more.
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Smartphones are perhaps the most personal tech we own. That’s why it’s super important to pick the phone that’s best for your needs. There are many factors to consider, from design and operating system to security and durability. In this guide, we consider every aspect of the smartphone to determine whether it’s a good buy for you, or if you’re better off with something else.
Apple has unveiled its iPhones — the iPhone XS, XS Max, and iPhone XR. After much debate and soul-searching, we landed on the iPhone XS as our top pick for the best phone available right now, though for Android fans, Google’s Pixel 3 is still a close second. Here’s why the iPhone XS ultimately triumphed, and our picks for other smartphone categories. If you’re partial to the Android mobile operating system, we’ve compiled a list of the best Android phones on the market.
Why you should buy this: You want the most powerful, secure, and shutterbug-friendly phone ever.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants the best of the best.
How much it will cost: $1,000
Why we picked the iPhone XS:
The iPhone XS is good at almost everything. It’s the best of the best, even better than the iPhone XS Max, because it’s the perfect size with its 5.8-inch screen.
Speaking of its screen, the high-resolution OLED is energy-saving and colorful, with inky, deep blacks. The edge-to-edge, or “ bezel-less,” design, makes watching videos and movies feel a little more immersive. The all-glass design means you can wirelessly charge the iPhone XS, and it’s the most water-resistant iPhone, with an IP68 rating. The A12 Bionic processor remains unmatched, with reliably fast performance when moving around the home screen or playing intensive augmented reality games using ARKit 2.0 .
The TrueDepth camera makes a return, and Face ID is even faster. Apple is still one of the only companies that has a secure facial-recognition tool that can log into all your sensitive apps on a system level. This front-facing camera system also lets you make fun Animojis and Memojis, and the fluidity and tracking capabilities are still unmatched. Then there’s Portrait Mode, which helps up your selfie game.
The battery easily lasts a full day, though like with most flagship smartphones, heavy use will bring it perilously low.
iOS 12 is smart, with artificial intelligence powering a lot of the new features. There are Siri Suggestions, where Siri can adapt to your usage patterns and make suggestions like responding to a call or text when it’s been sitting idle for some time. Grouped notifications also dramatically improve the way you interact with notifications, making them far easier to deal with. On the iPhone XS, it all feels snappy and fluid.
Add to all that Apple’s commitment to your security and privacy, instant software updates, and its industry-leading customer service that lets you walk into any Apple Store and get help for free, and you have one great smartphone.
The lack of a headphone jack is still one of our major issues with the iPhone XS. It comes with Lightning EarPods, but Apple decided to remove the 3.5mm-to-Lightning adapter this year. It’s silly not to include it, considering you’re paying so much for the phone. Apple should also include a fast charging cable in the box, like every other manufacturer, since the new iPhone supports it.
This is the best time to buy an iPhone, and the iPhone XS is worth every penny. If you think the screen size is too small, spring for the iPhone XS Max, which has a 6.5-inch screen for the best viewing experience and slightly better battery life.
iPhone XS review
Why you should buy this: It’s the only Android phone with hardware and software straight from Google.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants speedy software updates and the best camera.
How much it will cost: $800
Why we picked the Pixel 3:
Google’s Pixel 3 XL is the best Android phone we’ve ever used. The Pixel range continue to be the only Android phones that can fully compete with Apple’s iPhone in several key areas — security, timely software updates, and software design. If you’re an Android fan who will never buy an iPhone, the Pixel 3 is the best phone you can buy.
Google manages the Android operating system, and so with the Pixel series, it’s able to optimize the hardware and the software — similar to what Apple does with the iPhone. That approach, plus the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and 4GB of RAM, makes the Pixel 3 a joy to use. It has the best software experience on an Android phone, and it performs fluidly.
The Pixel 3’s software experience is where it shines, thanks to built-in artificial intelligence. It runs the latest Android 9 Pie, which is uncluttered and silky smooth. The little tweaks Google added make the phone an absolute joy to use, from the helpful At a Glance widget that shows your next calendar event to Now Playing, which uses on-device machine learning to identify songs playing in your surroundings and display them on the lock screen. The Google Search bar is below the dock, making it easier to access, and Living Universe wallpapers bring your phone to life.
There’s also Call Screening, which uses Google Assistant to screen robocalls in real time so you can mark something as spam without ever having to pick up. And we also love Active Edge, which lets you squeeze the Pixel to trigger the Google Assistant. We think Assistant is one of the best voice assistants you can use on a smartphone, and this feature lets you get straight to it. It’s this attention to detail and design that makes the Pixel 3 a great smartphone.
Then there’s the crisp, plastic, 5.5-inch OLED screen with a 2,160 x 1,080 resolution. It looks fantastic, and it gets bright enough to see outdoors. The biggest downside is the design on the front, where there are chunky bezels surrounding the screen. It’s much better than last year’s Pixel 2, but it’s not as “bezel-less” as other Android phones in this price range. The Pixel 3 XL is no better, because it has one of the ugliest notches on a phone we’ve seen this year.
It’s a much better situation on the back, though. Google is maintaining the two-tone look, but this time it’s all glass. Google has added a matte-like texture that makes the bottom half of the glass resistant to fingerprints, which solves a common complaint of glass phones. This use of glass also adds wireless charging support, which is convenient all around. The fingerprint sensor is fast, and you can swipe down on it to see your notifications. Like most flagship phones, it’s IP68 water-resistant.
