Best Android Phone of 2024

Since Samsung started appending Ultra onto its products, these models have been the peak of the brand’s capabilities and design. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra currently sits at the top of the stack, and brings so much to the table, it’s no wonder it proves the best Android phone out there.

Let’s start with the display: You’ll find a 6.8-inch 1440p AMOLED display targeting high brightness, extreme contrast, and fluid motion with a variable refresh rate that goes up to 120Hz. The S24 Ultra also carries over S Pen support for fine input when a fingertip just can’t cut it. Samsung covers that in a new blend of Gorilla Glass designed to be among the strongest out there and wraps the phone up in a titanium frame. Water and dust resistance are also covered.

Inside, you get a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC that’s more than ready to run the latest app, blitz through top-tier games with settings maxed out, and keep the phone running smoothly for years to come. And you can count on support for years to come as well, because Samsung is providing 7 years of operating system updates to match Google’s promise for its latest Pixel phones.

Samsung also piles in the cameras for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. There is a total of five lenses inside the S24 Ultra. The main sensor is a 200-Megapixel shooter capable of incredible detail. When you want to capture more of a scene, there’s a 12MP ultra-wide camera. And you can bump in on subject to the extreme with both a 3x and 5x lens.

You can put all of this to task with AI tools as well. Samsung has a suite of features, letting you search for objects in photos or edit and adjust your photos with AI.

With top-tier performance, an exceptional design, travel-worthy cameras, and software support that makes it possible to run this phone for the long-haul, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is bringing more to the table than pretty much any Android phone around. Until another phone is ready to step up to the plate and challenge Samsung on all counts, the S24 Ultra is going to stand at number one.

Large and in charge, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a beast of a phone with dual natures. Folded up, it offers a tall but thin 6.2-inch display. Flipped open, it provides a 7.6-inch screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, so you can go from smartphone to tablet in a flash. Both displays use AMOLED panels, so they look simply gorgeous with vibrant colors and deep contrast.

With the kind of productivity you can tackle with the Galaxy Z Fold 6, Samsung didn’t hold back on performance. This phone packs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, offering a big step up in performance over its predecessor (as much as 22% in our testing). Whether you’re trying to multitask with a split-screen setup, run the phone like a desktop using DeX, or want to enjoy the latest games like Wuthering Waves or Zenless Zone Zero, the Z Fold 6 has the performance to keep up.

The Z Fold 6 is no slouch in the camera department either. It offers a 50MP main shooter, an ultra-wide sensor, and a zoom lens with a 5x optical magnification and the ability to go up to a 30x digital zoom. Like the S24 Ultra, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 can also tap into Samsung’s AI tools to edit photos. And if you grab an S Pen, you can get similarly fine editing capabilities on the Z Fold 6’s internal display.

The range of things you can do with the Z Fold 6 makes it a shoe-in for the best folding Android phone. Though don’t forget, Samsung also has a smaller option in the Z Flip 6, which may make some trade-offs on camera and multitasking abilities for a cuter design and compact footprint.

Poco is no stranger to budget smartphones, and it’s always a surprise to see just how much the company manages to pack into its devices while keeping the price down. The Poco X5 5G was a killer bargain when it launched in 2023 for about $220, and it’s still a surprisingly good value at the price.

The star of the show on the Poco X5 5G is undeniably its display. While other brands might have you settle for basic LCD displays on their budget phones, Poco fitted the X5 5G with a 6.67-inch AMOLED display offering a crisp 1080x2400 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. What this means in practice is you get excellent contrast and color for all sorts of content and smooth visuals for games all on a reasonably big screen.

Inside, a Snapdragon 695G SoC beats away, driving the performance of the X5 5G. While the chip isn’t the fastest, falling behind even the Tensor G2 found in the Pixel 7a., it’s a worthy performer for a phone at this price. It could even run Genshin Impact at medium settings rather smoothly. Its large, 5000mAh battery also helps it keep chugging along for hours on end. Even with the screen brightness maxed out, it was ready to stream Netflix video for nearly 20 hours.

The Poco X5 5G also comes with a few features you don’t often see on phones in the US. On the top edge of the phone, there’s an IR blaster that lets the X5 5G fill in for a universal remote control. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack!

Naturally, there are some downsides to budget devices. The Poco X5 5G is unlikely to get long-term software support. It launched with Android 12 and has since been updated to Android 14, but there's no saying how many years it'll continue to get updates. The phone also has lackluster cameras. But if you just need a device that’s got a good screen and sufficient performance for you to enjoy content, navigate the web, and keep in touch with friends and family, the Poco X5 5G delivers.

The RegMagic 9S Pro goes all-in on gaming performance, and it brings a few extra features to enhance the gaming experience. That’s crucial to stand apart, because a phone like the Galaxy S24 Ultra also has a great display for gaming and plenty of performance under the hood to get the job done.

The RedMagic 9S Pro packs in a gob of memory, heaps of storage, and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Version, which is essentially a souped up variant of the flagship SoC found in most high-end phones. The RedMagic 9S Pro doubles down by slapping an active cooling system onto it, so that it can sustain maximum performance. And sure enough, that bore out in testing. In Geekbench 6’s Vulkan graphics test, the RedMagic 9S Pro outpaced even the S24 Ultra and OnePlus 12. In 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme benchmark, it again beat both phones and did so by a decent margin. And that’s before we even look at the sustain. 3DMark’s Steel Nomad Light benchmark is a burden for smartphones, and that’s only compounded by the stress test, which runs the benchmark 20 times in a row. With the air cooler running, The RedMagic 9S Pro was able to run all 20 runs with scores ranging from 1719 points to 1833 points, beating the OnePlus 12’s single-run performance and destroying its stress test performance.

All that speed isn’t just for benchmarks. Naturally, the RedMagic 9S Pro handles games with ease. It’s more than up to the task of playing Zenless Zone Zeroes with settings maxed out and nary a stutter. Aiding in that gameplay, the RedMagic 9S Pro features enhanced touch sampling on the display, so it can detect inputs quicker. The phone also features capacitive shoulder buttons, allowing for easier access to key abilities in games.

Then there’s the display. The RedMagic 9S Pro offers an exceptional display stretching 6.8 inches and virtually uninterrupted. The selfie camera is actually hidden underneath active pixels, and it’s almost invisible when content is present on the screen. RedMagic went with an 1116x2480 AMOLED panel that can reach up to 120Hz for smooth visuals, and the 1,600-nit peak brightness never hurts. The display is simply gorgeous, and that goes for the rest of the phone, which features a clear back.

The main camera is decent, which is not a given for a gaming phone. Though photography is still a weakness for the phone overall. Still, the RedMagic 9S Pro proves a worthy option for gamers, and it’s all the more enticing when considering it has a $649 starting price and tops out at $799.

Originally posted:

Sep 27, 2024 7:45 pm