A 2024 smartphone report card

The all-rounder
The all-rounder

Summary

Our pick of the best performers of 2024 that outstrip the competition in various categories, laid out for you by feature, size and budget

Looking back, it is obvious just how busy and chock-full of great options the past year of smartphones has been. The Class of ’24 led the charge with AI - artificial/Apple Intelligence, based on your mobile platform of choice—with most brands finding ways to dial up the AI seasoning with each successive launch. Peek beyond the AI hype and you had legitimately good phones cross these pages, with something for everyone and for every need. Here’s our pick of the phones that stood out in various categories, and by size, feature and budget.

Best Big Phone: Samsung S24 Ultra

The best big phone
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The best big phone

Remember phablets? To think we coined a word for large phones, one that aptly describes pretty much all flagship phones these days. Even so, the phone that does the most with its size is the Samsung S24 Ultra, justifying the Ultra in its name with a massive 6.8-inch display with built-in stylus support, a quad rear camera setup and top-tier performance that holds its own, despite being the ‘oldest’ phone on this list! It’s a handful, for sure, but for all the finger calisthenics you have to do to securely grip the S24 Ultra, you’re rewarded with arguably the best media consumption experience on any phone launched this year.

Best Compact Phone: Xiaomi 14

Compact winner
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Compact winner

For those of us whose digits haven’t evolved to hold massive phones, there are still some legitimate options, though the smallest phone one has considered is still larger than the first Galaxy Note from over a decade ago. The Samsung S24, the base iPhone 16 and the Google Pixel 9 Pro are all excellent, easy-to-handle phones, but the Xiaomi 14 nails the brief the best, with its 6.36-inch screen form factor hitting the sweet spot between the S24/iPhone 16 and their Plus variants without feeling cramped for daily use. Xiaomi backs it up with a ‘co-engineered with Leica’ camera setup that delivers strongly and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3/12GB memory/512GB storage package that fares well even to this day, and 90W fast charging is faster charging than the others in this list.

Best for Photos: Vivo X200 Pro

The tail end of the year brought up some fantastic options for photo enthusiasts—the Oppo Find X8 Pro, the Pixel 9 Pro series and the iPhone 16 Pro series—but it is the Vivo X200 Pro that impressed the most, with its ability to pull out consistent shots across a variety of shooting conditions. Despite Vivo moving away from the 1-inch sensors seen on the X100 Pro, the 50-megapixel sensor takes exceptional shots, though the star of the show is the new 200MP telephoto camera, with its ability to turn out brighter, detailed images even at high levels of zoom. Macro shots and portraits particularly benefit, and the 8K/30fps or 4K/120fps video is no pushover either. Honorable mention: the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.

Best for Video: iPhone 16 Pro

Video star
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Video star

Despite Vivo’s big strides in video and Samsung’s consistent video prowess over the years, the iPhone 16 Pro series remain our pick for the best video and vlogging experience. It’s not just about the sheer consistency of video output across all lenses, or the 4K 120fps slow-motion video mode, or even the ability for pros to shoot footage in ProRes or Log formats for efficient post production workflows – the iPhone 16 Pro really flexed its video muscle by tackling a core issue – audio capture – allowing users to adjust their sound after capture to either focus on the voice of the person on camera, or sound like it was recorded inside a professional studio, or even prioritize vocal tracks while adding in environmental noises in surround sound. Not to mention the broader benefit of third-party accessory and app developers prioritizing the iPhone as a content capture platform.

Best Foldable: Vivo X Fold 3 Pro

In the fold
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In the fold

Foldables haven’t exactly taken the world by storm in the way a lot of pundits expected, but it’s not to say the tech hasn’t been improving, and the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro feels the least compromised among its peers. It’s thin and light, not something you typically say about a foldable, giving it a typical candy bar phone feel. Unfold it, and it opens up to a massive 8.03-inch 2K+ resolution inner display that gets the foldable its ‘biggest screen’ bragging rights. Couple this with a 2024-flagship Snapdragon chip and 16GB/512GB and a formidable camera setup, and you have performance that’s not just impressive for a foldable, but for any smartphone, period. OnePlus and Samsung have refined the software experience on their foldables to yet another level, but it’s the X Fold 3 Pro that legitimately pushed the category forward this year. Honorable mention: the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, for the most improved, in this category.

Best Mid-Ranger: OnePlus Nord 4

Plenty of contenders in this category, but the durable, all-metal unibody design of the Nord 4, supplemented by strong performance, fast charging and excellent all-day battery life means it edges ahead of the likes of the POCO F6 and the Pixel 7a. And with six years of security updates, the Nord 4’s longevity is almost as good as the Pixel’s.

Best Budget Phone: CMF Phone 1

Budget winner
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Budget winner

You have to hand it to the CMF Phone 1, a phone that took a fun, innovative approach to the sea of sameness that is the budget Android segment. Its design is the clear highlight, with a replaceable back panel that allows you to attach a lanyard, kickstand, or a card wallet, all of which CMF sells as optional extras. Crucially, the brand doesn’t scrimp on software, with the phone running Nothing’s unique take on Android, with its distinctive look, free of bloatware and full of usable widgets. None of that ‘we must pack the phone with marketing tie-ins to subsidize the price’ logic at work.

Best for AI: Pixel 9 Pro

All for AI
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All for AI

This was a close call, with Google taking a more baked-in native AI approach in the Pixel 9 Pro series, and the Samsung S24 series offering better AI tools on its devices. For every ‘Add Me’ and excellent notetaking and transcription capabilities built into the Pixel, there’s the Live Translate and website summarization capabilities on the S24 series. Both brands made big strides this year and with the S25 series just around the corner, expect the balance to shift to Samsung’s Galaxy AI.

Best for Gaming: iPhone 16 Pro Max

With the gaming-first, Snapdragon 8 Elite-packing ROG Phone 9 Pro yet to launch, the gaming phone of choice is the iPhone 16 Pro Max, not just courtesy the might of the A18 Pro chip and the slightly-larger 6.9-inch display, but due to the sheer number of console quality games being developed (and optimized) for the platform. When you have options like Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage along with a host of options via Apple Arcade, there are enough games to take advantage of the iPhone’s raw power.

Best All-Rounder: OnePlus 12

Even as the OnePlus flagships have crept up the pricing ladder over the years, they’re still a pretty packet less than the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung while still delivering everything that most folks would want in a smartphone. Latest Snapdragon chipset? Check. 120Hz AMOLED screen? Check. Among the fastest wired and wireless charging speeds around? Check. Vastly improved Hasselblad cameras? Check. The OnePlus 13 is around the corner, but the 12 will remain a compelling Android option in its own right, maybe even with a potential price cut? Sign us up!

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