The best Android phones can be anything you need. With cutting edge technology, stylish designs, and leading performance, you’ll find what you need in an Android. We’ve tested all of the phones on this list, and many more that didn’t make the cut, and we can tell you it’s a great time to be an Android fan, but the best may be yet to come.
The first Android phones with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chips have started to appear, including the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro and the Xiaomi 15. We’re expecting new Samsung phones just after the new year, in late January, 2025, and that could shake up this list considerably. If you don’t absolutely need a new phone right, you may want to wait a beat.
The Google Pixel 9 Pro is our pick for the 2024 Phone of the Year, beating every other Android and the iPhone 16 Pro with its stunning new design, improved durability, amazing display, and even its useful AI tricks for photos. All of the phones on this list are excellent Android devices, affordable and reliable.
If you want to see how these Android phones stack up when I throw the iPhone into the mix, you can check out my definitive list of the best phones. I’ve also got the list of the best Android phones with bendable displays in best foldable phones. If you want to save some money, check out our guide to the best cheap phones. Now, read on for the best Android phones you can buy today.
Quick List
1. Google Pixel 9 Pro & Pro XL
The Google Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL bring an all-new look to the Pixel family, with premium materials and cool color options. They also have fun AI features, with more on the way, and the best cameras I’ve used on a Pixel phone. These phones also just got the Android 15 update.
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2. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
A titanium design, new 50MP 5x telephoto camera, a flat screen and a whole lot of AI, makes the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra the very best Android phone money can buy right now.
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3. Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus is the best premium Android phone, with all of the great features you need and nothing you don’t. You can spend more, but the S24 Plus offers more than enough.
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The Google Pixel 9 is a great starting point if you love the new Pixel look and you want those great Pixel photos. You don’t get the free year of premium AI, but the color options are brighter, and maybe AI isn’t your thing.
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The OnePlus 12R is a OnePlus bargain phone, but don’t let that fool you. It has a super fast processor, great cameras, and, oh, also the best battery life we’ve seen on a smartphone in years.
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Google’s newest phone, the Google Pixel 8a, started at a great price, and you can find it even cheaper now. It also gets seven years of Android updates, starting with the latest Android 15, and it has most of the same AI features you’ll find on the Pixel 9.
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The best Android phone in 2024
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Below, you’ll find full write-ups for each of the best Android phones in our list. We’ve tested each model extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.
The best Android phone
The Google Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Xl introduced a fresh design to the Pixel, with a sleek camera pill that replaces the bar. Despite this makeover, I still enjoyed using these phones with their signature Pixel strengths: innovative AI, impressive cameras, and a vibrant display that outshines the competition in brightness and color.
Google continues its display reign with the Pixel 9 Pro’s Super Actua screen, which I found to be exceptionally bright, and I appreciated the adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate. This display is truly great, even in bright sunlight, making it ideal for outdoor photography.
The Pixel 9 Pro delivers fantastic photos and AI-enhanced video with Video Boost, though I found the camera controls to be a bit fidgety. It produced some of the best photos among all of the best camera phones I’ve tested, and it’s probably my second-favorite camera after the iPhone 16 Pro family. Google Photos AI editing beats the current state of iPhone Photos editing by a wide margin.
Performance-wise, the Pixel 9 Pro lags behind its rivals. Despite the promise of seven years of Android updates, my real-world use revealed noticeable slowdowns and stuttering when multitasking, a stark contrast to the seamless performance of phones like the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Battery life was solid in my tests, offering a full day of use, but faster charging would be a welcome improvement, even on the slightly-faster Pixel 9 Pro XL. While the price tag might seem steep, especially given the performance limitations, the inclusion of a free year of Google One AI Premium with 2TB of cloud storage adds significant value.
Read our full Google Pixel 9 Pro review and our Google Pixel 9 Pro XL review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value | It’s a great phone all around, but performance lags significantly versus other phones in this price range, so maybe wait for a discount or a bundle deal. | 4 / 5 |
| Design | Excellent new design; the biggest change to Pixel phones in four years. Fantastic materials and a more modern look. | 5 / 5 |
| Display | Google offers the best smartphone screens around on the Pixel 9 Pro, and it’s surprising the company doesn’t crow louder. Super-bright – be careful to not overheat. | 5 / 5 |
| Software | With a grain of salt and a sense of humor, the AI stuff is A-Okay. Google avoids bad AI stereotypes, and gives us a nice glimpse of the future for mobile AI. | 4 / 5 |
| Camera | Fantastic cameras rival the best camera phones you can buy. Great new features, including Add Me for AI group photos. Camera settings are too difficult to manage. | 5 / 5 |
| Performance | Performance lags significantly, both in benchmark testing and the real world. This phone lags if you push too hard, and Google wants you to push too hard. Seven years ahead? We’ll see. | 3 / 5 |
| Battery | Solid battery life beats the iPhone, and the phone has no trouble lasting all day. You’ll want to use the cameras, so pack an extra charger, but if you’re careful this phone lasts no problem. I wish the charging was as fast as Google makes it seem. | 4 / 5 |
The best Android camera
You won’t find a phone that does more than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but where this phone really pulls away from the pack is in its camera capabilities. If it only had the big 200MP sensor and maybe a single zoom lens, that would be a great camera phone, but the Ultra does more. So. Much. More.
In addition to the big sensor, the Ultra offers a 5X optical zoom. That may seem a step down from the 10X optical zoom on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but the S24 Ultra uses a much larger sensor on that zoom lens than its predecessor, and the images it produces are higher quality. Whether you’re shooting for the moon or just taking shots of your kids on the field, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is up to the task.
In fact, it’s up to every task, because it has such an extensive array of lenses. The 5X zoom uses a 50MP sensor, but there is also a 3X zoom lens that uses its own 10MP sensor. There’s also a 12MP sensor for ultra wide shots and super steady videography.
Samsung isn’t letting Google have all the fun with AI editing features, but Samsung also builds AI directly into the camera app. The camera will try to recognize the scene and optimize accordingly. It isn’t just the moon that looks better, you’ll notice that food shots, monuments, portraits, and tons of other scenes look great when you shoot them with the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review
| Value | It’s more expensive than last year, but if you want the best of the best, and then some, you’ll have to pay a premium. Don’t expect great deals like last year, either. | 3/5 |
| Design | The Galaxy S24 Ultra looks exactly like the S23 Ultra, but with so many features packed in, what could Samsung change without losing something? Too bad titanium didn’t help Samsung cut weight. | 4/5 |
| Display | A big, bright, and beautiful display that is sharp and responsive. The flat design helps with writing, though the phone is more of a gigantic slab than ever. | 5/5 |
| Software | Samsung’s software has always been bad, but each new feature adds more complexity, and the interface has never been cleaned up properly. Things are a mess, and One UI better improve because nobody will care how great the phone is if it’s unusable. | 3/5 |
| Cameras | The Galaxy S24 Ultra holds Samsung’s crown as the best camera phone all around, for any occasion. You can find better pictures here and there from competitors, but the Ultra is more reliable and versatile than the iPhone, and it improves on last year’s S23 Ultra in important ways. | 5/5 |
| Performance | This is the first Android in a long time to beat the fastest iPhone, so what will you do with all that power? As long as you’re not waiting for the AI features, you can enjoy it with fast gaming and real-time photo editing. | 5/5 |
| Battery | Better battery life than any iPhone or any Galaxy Ultra that’s come before, you won’t find better battery life on a phone worth buying. This phone can last more than a day with no trouble. | 5/5 |
The best premium Android
The Galaxy S24 Plus is no longer the ignorable middle child of the Galaxy S family. This time around, the Galaxy S24 Plus is a big step up from the Galaxy S24 in all the right ways. Plus, it has all the top performance of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, without all the features you don’t need.
Do you really need a pen with your phone? The Galaxy S24 Ultra was our previous best overall phone, but most people don’t need that much. The Ultra is a bigger, heavier, and more expensive phone than the Galaxy S24 Plus, without much added benefit.
The Galaxy S24 Plus has the same sharp display resolution as the S24 Ultra, and the screen is only a hair smaller, literally 0.1-inch. It has the same processor and RAM, and it starts with 256GB, twice the storage of the Galaxy S24.
The camera specs come close to matching the iPhone 15 Pro, but fall a bit short of the Ultra. That’s fine, because it’s Samsung’s shooting modes and software that make its camera great, not the specs. The Galaxy S24 Plus is a winner any way you look at it, and if you really need more, the Ultra is next on the list.
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value | The Galaxy S24 Plus is significantly cheaper than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but it’s still a mightily expensive phone. | 4 / 5 |
| Design | The phone’s slim bezels and flatter sides look great, but the lack of Gorilla Armor glass is dissapointing. | 3 / 5 |
| Display | The Galaxy S24 Plus’ display is big, bright, outdoor-friendly and as good as the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s. | 5 / 5 |
| Software | Samsung’s Galaxy AI features are welcome addition, but they don’t do enough to mitigate OneUI’s dizzying complexity. | 3 / 5 |
| Cameras | The Galaxy S24 Plus’ camera array is objectively solid, but some hardware upgrades are long overdue. | 3 / 5 |
| Performance | Despite the region-based chipset discrepancy, the Galaxy S24 Plus is a phenomenally powerful phone. | 5 / 5 |
| Battery | The phone’s class-leading battery life and speedy charging make it a battery champion. | 5 / 5 |
The best Android for everybody
The Google Pixel 9 is a delightful phone and the easiest Android phone for me to recommend to everybody, especially folks who say ‘I just want a phone that works.’ The Pixel 9 arrives in Google’s striking new Pixel look, with even better color options than the Pro model (hey, Peony!). It takes photos that could be mistaken for Pro, and it has the same Google Tensor G4 processor inside.
The biggest difference between the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro isn’t the zoom camera on the Pro. The Pixel 9 takes great photos that are even better for sharing, since the phone keeps things to a scant 12MP. Videos also look great. The color quality on the photos I took with the Pixel 9 was excellent, and nearly identical to my Pixel 9 Pro shots.
The big difference is the year of premium AI that you’ll get with the Pixel 9 Pro. That originally meant no Gemini Live for the Pixel 9 (unless you pay up), but Google has made its conversational AI available on every Pixel 9 device for free, so that’s not a problem any more.
Google also updated this phone with Android 15, making it one of the first Android phones to get the new system, as it should be. This phone has seven years of updates ahead, presumably taking us to Android 21, so it could get even better with time.
Read our full Google Pixel 9 review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value | Not a bad price considering all the Pixel 9 Pro features you get, but with its free year of advanced AI, maybe you should just get the Pro instead. Hopefully discounts will come soon. | 4 / 5 |
| Design | The biggest Pixel redesign in years gives us cool new colors, a sleek and modern camera bar, and the most durable Pixel yet. It’s twice as durable as the Pixel 8, but still looks fancy. | 5 / 5 |
| Display | An excellent display is a standout feature on every Pixel, this one is super bright and colorful. The Pro is more versatile, but you can’t tell … can you? | 4 / 5 |
| Software | New AI features take some getting used to, and some need to prove their worth, like the fascinating Screenshots app. But if you want the most advanced AI, get a Pixel 9 Pro with its year of free Gemini Advanced and Gemini Live. | 4 / 5 |
| Camera | Great camera performance looks almost exactly like the Pixel 9 Pro, without the high-resolution files and stuffy Pro controls. You won’t get telephoto zoom, but you will get some of the best pics any smartphone can take, plus the new AI Add Me feature. | 4 / 5 |
| Performance | The Tensor G4 chipset has fallen far behind rivals and performance is lagging. It’s enough that you’ll notice the drag if you try to run a lot of apps at once and then ask the AI a question. Or do anything with the AI. The AI is slow, that’s what I’m saying. | 3 / 5 |
| Battery | Great battery life, especially on a smaller phone. I wish it charged faster (or as fast as Google made it seem), but the Pixel 9 battery beats the iPhone 15 by hours and had no trouble lasting all day in the real world. | 4 / 5 |
The best Android battery life
When we first saw the OnePlus 12R, it was hard to pick out a standout feature on this bargain phone that would make it a true flagship killer. Was it the incredibly bright display? Was it the exceptional camera setup? Was it the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor? After we got the phone back from Future Labs, we knew it was the battery. The OnePlus 12R has the best battery life of any Android phone and any smartphone we’ve tested in years.
We achieved almost 18 hours of battery life in our rundown tests. The iPhone 15 Pro Max only lasted 14 hours in the same endurance test. Samsung’s best phones fell 15 minutes shy of 17 hours. The OnePlus 12R beat them all, though the OnePlus 12 came closest.
The 5,500 mAh battery cell inside the OnePlus 12R is usually a capacity that we see on obnoxiously-large gaming phones. Even premium flagship phones don’t ship with batteries quite so big: the Galaxy S24 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh display, just like the past few Ultra phones before it.
What’s even more wild is how fast the OnePlus 12R charges. Using the special OnePlus charger, included with the phone, you can charge up to a whopping 80W in the US and 100W internationally.
To compare, the Galaxy S24 Ultra charges at 45W, and after 30 minutes it’s about 65% charged. In the same time, your OnePlus 12R will be 96% charged, with only a few minutes until it’s full.
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value | So long as you’re happy with the OnePlus 12R’s weaknesses, there’s a lot of great smartphone for your money here. | 4 / 5 |
| Design | Beautiful fit and finish hides lackluster ingress protection against dust and water. | 3.5 / 5 |
| Display | A superb display, that’s stunning, bright, power efficient and smart. As long as you’re happy with the size and resolution, there’s little wrong here. | 5 / 5 |
| Software | OxygenOS 14 on the 12R is full of features without feeling overwhelming. The phone’s long-term update roadmap is behind the curve, though. | 4 / 5 |
| Camera | A superb main 50MP snapper should cover you for most things, but the secondary cameras don’t justify their presence on the 12R, especially that macro snapper. | 3.5 / 5 |
| Performance | Last year’s flagship silicon still packs plenty of punch, supported by OnePlus’ efforts with the Trinity Engine. Thermals could be better, despite the company’s claims, though. | 4 / 5 |
| Battery | A big battery that results in the brand’s best longevity to date in our tests. No wireless charging is the only misstep here. | 4.5 / 5 |
The best budget Android
The newest phone on this list, the Google Pixel 8a gives us everything we want in an Android phone for less than $500 / £500 / AU$850. We get the best performance Google offers, since it uses the same Tensor G3 chipset as the Pixel 8 Pro. That also means it gets the same promise from Google for seven years of Android OS updates from the time it launched, in May 2024.
The Pixel 8 has a smaller display and it’s a joy to hold and behold. It comes in a couple of flashy colors, including Google’s favorite new Bay blue and a bright Aloe green, and it’s more rounded and curvy than previous Pixel A-series phones.
Sadly, it has the same battery troubles as past Google bargain phones, but that’s Google’s compromise. You don’t lose out on the best AI features on this phone, and it has the same Google Gemini LLM and Magic Editor features in Google Photos that you’ll find on the Google Pixel 8 Pro, our new pick for the best AI phone.
The best thing about Google’s A-series may be the discounts they get throughout the year, but this phone feels worth its price right now. It takes great photos that look remarkably similar to the shots we took with our Pixel 8 Pro, and it performs well in every way we’d expect from a Pixel phone.
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Value | The same price as last year (in the US at least), and a good value for Google’s long-term software updates and Android support. | 5 / 5 |
| Design | Unimpeachably a Pixel, but with great color and a nice finish, it feels both premium and youthful at once. I especially appreciate IP68 water resistance. | 5 / 5 |
| Display | Great, bright display, just like the screen we loved on the Pixel 8. It could be bigger, sharper, faster, but it’s very bright, and that’s good enough. | 4 / 5 |
| Software | Google’s AI features are getting more useful and more prevalent, and with seven years of Android updates, this is a phone to watch for a long time. It could get even better. | 4 / 5 |
| Camera | Photos look very similar to Pixel 8 Pro shots, until you zoom in close. Still great for a phone at this price. The AI editing features are the real standout. | 3 / 5 |
| Performance | Google’s Tensor G3 has us questioning whether this phone will last seven years, but for now it’s capable of running all of Google’s best features… with help from the cloud, of course. | 3 / 5 |
| Battery | The battery is smaller than the Pixel 8, and battery life suffers. Charging is also a bit slower, whether wired or wireless. If you need more screen time, we have other suggestions. | 3 / 5 |
FAQs
What is the best Android phone?
The best Android phone for most people is the Pixel 9, because it’s an affordable way to get all of Google’s best new AI features and Google’s refined Pixel interface and software.
The best premium Android phone is the Google Pixel 9 Pro, because it offers the most advanced Android features first, including all of Google’s best AI. It also comes with a year of free storage and premium AI, which adds a bit of value.
Which Android phone is the best value for money?
The best Android phone for people on a budget is the Pixel 8a, which costs $499 / £499 / AU$849. The Pixel A-series phones are a popular discount item when Amazon puts smartphones on sale, so keep an eye on TechRadar for the latest deals.
If you want to spend less than that, Samsung’s Galaxy A devices are the best value. They gives you a great display and Samsung’s feature-packed Android software, plus fast networking and good performance for the price.
Which Android phone brand is the best?
Google invented Android, so it’s version of Android is considered the gold standard. But Samsung perfected Android, so if you want to try the most advanced Android features, you need a Samsung phone. Other phone makers like OnePlus, Motorola, Oppo, Xiaomi and more all have benefits as well. Competition is one of the reasons Android has become such a great mobile OS.
Is Android or iOS better?
Android and Apple’s iOS each have their fans, and there is very little that iOS can do that Android cannot. There are many more options, features, and oddities available on Android devices than iOS has ever seen, so Android has a reputation for being more complicated and experimental, while also allowing for more customization and more powerful overall features.
How we test
I’ve only included phones on this list that have been thoroughly tested in Future Labs and in the real world by our expert review editors. I test every feature on a phone, then we dive deeper to discover all of the hidden goodies.
I test phones rigorously for battery life and charging times, processor speed and performance, and especially for camera and video recording capabilities. I make sure that phones deliver on the promises and claims they make. If Samsung says a phone charges in 30 minutes, I time it to make sure.
I’ve seen every phone you can buy, so I know how each model stacks up against one another. I use both iPhone and Android phones all the time, so I know what I’m saying about the phones you buy, no matter what you pay. I make sure the phones deliver what I’d expect for the price.
Once I’m done, I never stop. I update our reviews as the phones are updated. Our reviews are always fresh, so check again before you buy to make sure you’re getting the latest review on the best phones you’ll find.
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