Overall, Foldable, Gaming And Value Devices

Not many people regularly carry three smartphones on them like I do, but besides covering mobile devices as an industry analyst, I’ve been a device reviewer for a long time — plus I just love to try out new electronic gear. So, as I did last year, I’m sharing my thoughts here on the best phones I used in 2024, across multiple categories.

I’ve had the pleasure of thoroughly trying out all of the phones in this lineup (and reviewing most of them), and they are covered here in about the frequency that I used them in 2024. These evaluations are based solely on my personal experiences with these devices — plus many of their rivals — over the last year. It’s important to note that this is a predominantly U.S.-based list, and it would likely be quite different if I had more time with phones from China made by manufacturers such as Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Honor. Heck, I would give Huawei a look if I could get my hands on its tri-fold device, but that one is super hard to acquire outside of China.

With those caveats out of the way, let’s dive in.

Favorite Overall Phone: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Every year, I want to think that someone will finally unseat Samsung’s top device for overall experience, and every year, no one does. In 2024, Samsung once again delivered a really well-balanced phone; I enjoyed the improvements in the Galaxy S24 Ultra in terms of design, chipsets and performance, even though it wasn’t a huge departure from the S23 Ultra.

That said, I did write about how the company reduced the optical zoom from 10x to 5x while increasing the resolution of that sensor to compensate for it. I would say that in the 10x to 30x zoom range the change hard to notice, but all the way out to 100x there was a difference. Apple still cannot compete with Samsung on zoom, but the new sensor did improve low-light performance, which is good. 5G and Wi-Fi performance continue to be unmatched, and the biggest improvement was battery life, which felt like it was much better than in the S23 Ultra.

My biggest complaint with this phone is that wired charging could be faster than 45 watts, but it is still considerably better than Apple’s or Google’s 25-watt charging. I was also surprised to see Samsung not adopt the Qi2 wireless standard, but hopefully the company will adopt it for the S25 series. As a final point about this overall winner, I would note that when I switched from the S24 Ultra to use the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, it made me realize how much I was missing the S24 Ultra’s connectivity, ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, battery life and camera.

Favorite Camera: Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The iPhone 16 Pro was a very welcome addition to Apple’s new lineup. While Apple certainly wanted people to consider its AI offering, Apple Intelligence, in their buying decisions, the reality is that Apple Intelligence hasn’t added much value to the device so far. In fact, I’d say that the new Circle to Search capability on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Google Pixel 9 series and Moto Razr+ was probably the best AI feature on smartphones in 2024 — and Apple didn’t have it.

Like lots of other people, I moved to the iPhone 16 Pro from the iPhone 15 Pro Max and enjoyed the smaller-sized body without any real compromises, especially because the battery life on the 16 Pro is roughly the same as the 15 Pro Max. The camera on the iPhone 16 Pro is great, following the same design concept we saw from Google of putting the top-end pro camera in the same-sized body as the standard model. This means not having to go up to the bigger-body phone to get the full-size 5x optical telephoto lens. Apple also added features like undertones to enable users to shoot photos with the preset color profiles that match their style.

Thanks to iOS’s dominance, the iPhone 16 has arguably the best video in any smartphone, plus countless third-party apps that further enhance the camera’s hardware capabilities, including Blackmagic’s ridiculously detailed video camera app. Ironically, Apple did add the camera control button to the phone, but most people including myself don’t really find it as useful as it probably should be.

Beyond the camera itself, Apple’s adoption of RCS mobile messaging technology also made the iPhone considerably better when interacting with Android users, improving security, image and video quality.

Favorite Foldable (Fold): Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold

After using the Pixel 9 Pro Fold for a few months, I really appreciated the improvements over the first-generation Pixel Fold. The new model is by far the thinnest foldable I’ve tested and it really embraced the software side of things, even though I think OnePlus may have a better interface for foldables with the OnePlus Open. That aside, I thought the Pixel 9 Pro Fold was a more competitive offering than the Galaxy Z Fold6, which made some physical improvements and arguably has a faster processor but also has an inferior camera that Samsung should’ve updated generations ago.

Cameras are important to me, even on foldables, and I feel like Google understands that, even if this phone didn’t quite hit the same mark for camera performance as the rest of the Pixel 9 Pro offerings. While I’m not alone in my praise of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, ultimately it couldn’t quite displace the S24 Ultra as my main Android phone.

Favorite Foldable (Flip): Motorola Razr+ 2024

I enjoyed the Moto Razr+ 2024 so much because it leans into what makes it a great device — its large outside display and minimalist software — while also increasing the camera specs and display specs in a meaningful way and shipping with a powerful processor and Wi-Fi capabilities. I also think that Moto priced this device exceptionally well. Put it all together, and it’s not surprising that the Razr+ continues to be one of the rare Android phones that converts iPhone users to Android.

I believe that Motorola is achieving this with good design, marketing and software. While I state in my review that there’s room for improvement in software, especially for the outer screen, this is still my favorite of the flip-foldable smartphones. I hope the battery density improvements that we’re seeing in Chinese phones make their way into next year’s model.

Favorite Value Phone: OnePlus 12

OnePlus continues to refine the design and camera capabilities of its phones. The OnePlus 12 is a snappy and well-designed phone that seemingly fixed some of the Wi-Fi performance issues I’ve experienced with OnePlus devices in the past. I found that this phone offered a better value than Samsung’s Galaxy S24 for roughly the same price and with the same-resolution display and similar camera configuration. The camera on the OnePlus 12 was probably the biggest surprise for me because, with the exception of the zoom, it felt like the camera was finally world-class and would impress anyone trying it out. You can read my full thoughts on the OnePlus 12 in my review.

I think that OnePlus offers better storage and RAM specs than Samsung — which is odd when you consider that Samsung manufactures its own storage and RAM chips. This has always perplexed me about Samsung, but it seems that OnePlus understands that people want better storage and RAM, and that, with the growth of AI, those aspects are more important than ever. The OnePlus 13 is already on the market in China and will have a global launch very soon; I’m excited to get my hands on it so I can find out how the company has improved on the 12. I hope to see even more improvements across the board, with a continued drive towards value at the high end.

Favorite Gaming Phone: Redmagic 10 Pro

The Redmagic 10 Pro is one of the best gaming smartphones on the market and probably the one with the longest mobile gaming pedigree. It is also among the first phones to reach the market with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which also makes it among the fastest phones on the market. One of the biggest competitors to the Redmagic 10 Pro is the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro, which features the same processor and many of the same capabilities. Neither of them will win any photography contests anytime soon, but Redmagic has rightly focused on battery size and fast charging.

While Redmagic’s phone does ship with a bigger battery and faster charging, the ROG Phone 9 Pro has a higher display refresh rate (185 hertz versus 144 hertz). Redmagic’s 10 Pro also caps out at $999 for the 12GB RAM and 1TB storage version, while the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro sells for $1,500 with similar specs.

I also believe Redmagic’s interface is more mature, even though ASUS has made a lot of progress and enjoys a considerably larger gaming business under the ROG brand, including handhelds in the ROG Ally series. It would be interesting to see Redmagic try its hand at a gaming handheld as it continues to expand its brand offerings into other gaming products including gaming headphones, monitors, keyboards and mice.

Favorite Budget Phone: Google Pixel 8A

My time with the Pixel 8A was fairly short, mostly because I didn’t get my hands on it until months after its release. Even so, the Pixel 8A was my default recommendation to many people looking for a well-priced Android phone with most of the best specs while also not breaking the bank. Even now, the Pixel 8A can be had pretty much anywhere for $399, and that’s a great price when you consider that it will get most of the software updates straight from Google for many years to come.

The camera on this phone is quite good for a $399 device, and the processor is way overpowered for what the average Pixel 8A user will want to do with it. That is to say, it will continue to be performant for generations even though it is just a Tensor G3 processor. Whenever the Google Pixel A-series devices come out, they generally render the entry-level Pixel irrelevant and improve Google’s volume for the Pixel line overall. We’ll see if that’s the case in 2025 with the Pixel 9A, but I suspect that Google will continue down the path of providing great value with the A-series after it has fully fleshed out the mainline Pixel series.

Favorite Earbuds: OnePlus Buds 3 Pro

Sure, the OnePlus Buds 3 pro aren’t a smartphone themselves, but I used them with almost every smartphone (except the iPhone) that I used in 2024, and they have been consistently good earbuds. At the price that OnePlus charges, these earbuds should be getting more attention. The active noise cancellation is good, and so is the overall sound quality. While these buds are a bit on the larger side compared to Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2, they are also much cheaper. At the time of writing, OnePlus is selling them directly for an astounding $120 (compared to $180 retail), and from what I have seen they are universally liked even at the higher price. These are the earbuds I find myself gravitating to the most, even though there are probably better (albeit much more expensive) alternatives.

The Smartphone Landscape As We Move Into 2025

Many of these phones leaned into AI in one way or another, but I believe most of them fell flat in delivering an experience that was deeply integrated with AI or enhanced greatly by AI. I believe that AI will continue to be prominent in smartphones, and perhaps the introduction of AI agents will help smartphones become more useful and take advantage of the AI capabilities on-device.

I also believe that AI will drive demand for 5G with the need for more hybrid AI capabilities driven by AI apps on the smartphone. I also believe that foldables will continue to evolve, and that we’ll get more improvements to foldables that will make them more accessible. While I don’t expect anything earth-shattering for smartphones this year, the Snapdragon 8 Elite processors will bring many Android devices into competition with Apple in terms of performance and battery life. That might also bring us some incredibly powerful smartphone cameras, possibly including capabilities we have not yet seen. And I might be foreshadowing something I’m already testing, but who knows?