What Smartphone To Buy Right Now [TOP]
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is truly the ultimate Android phone, and it starts with a 200-megapixel that seems like overkill but delivers truly stellar results. You can reframe your shot after the fact and still get sharp details. Plus, this sensor offers brighter and richer photos overall, and you get an improved 12MP front camera.
what smartphone to buy right now
Other highlights of the iPhone 14 Pro Max include a powerful A16 Bionic processor that smokes most Android phones and a powerful new 48MP camera that gives you the choice of brighter images or sharper resolution in ProRAW. See our ProRAW photo shoot to see the results. And the new Action Mode for video is super smooth and compelling. The best part is the battery life, as we saw over 13 hours in our testing, making this a total beast and worth the premium.
Samsung improved the phone in other ways as well, boosting maximum brightness on the Galaxy S23's 6.1-inch display to 1,750 nits. You certainly won't have a difficult time viewing that screen outdoors in bright sunlight. We've also seen improvements to low-light photography, even if the Galaxy S23 still lags other top camera phones from Apple in an overall photo face-off. At a starting price of $799, the Galaxy S23 offers a good mix of premium features and a relatively low price for a flagship device.
To measure the quality of a phone's display, we perform lab tests to determine the brightness of the panel (in nits), as well as how colorful each screen is (DCI-P3 color gamut). In these cases, higher numbers are better. We also measure color accuracy of each panel with a Delta-E rating, where lower numbers are better and score of 0 is perfect.
One of the most important tests we run is the Tom's Guide battery test. We run a web surfing test over 5G or 4G at 150 nits of screen brightness until the battery gives out. In general, a phone that lasts 10 hours or more is good, and anything above 11 hours makes our list of the best phone battery life.
Mark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. In addition to overseeing the direction of Tom's Guide, Mark specializes in covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer."}; var triggerHydrate = function() window.sliceComponents.authorBio.hydrate(data, componentContainer); var triggerScriptLoadThenHydrate = function() if (window.sliceComponents.authorBio === undefined) var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = ' -9-5/authorBio.js'; script.async = true; script.id = 'vanilla-slice-authorBio-component-script'; script.onload = () => window.sliceComponents.authorBio = authorBio; triggerHydrate(); ; document.head.append(script); else triggerHydrate(); if (window.lazyObserveElement) window.lazyObserveElement(componentContainer, triggerScriptLoadThenHydrate, 1500); else console.log('Could not lazy load slice JS for authorBio') } }).catch(err => console.log('Hydration Script has failed for authorBio Slice', err)); }).catch(err => console.log('Externals script failed to load', err));Mark SpoonauerSocial Links NavigationMark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. In addition to overseeing the direction of Tom's Guide, Mark specializes in covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer.
Choosing the best smartphone to upgrade to can be a daunting task. Things like battery life, camera capabilities, storage space, and even health and safety features factor into how well a new phone will fit into your mobile lifestyle.
To help you decide which is the best phone for you, I've put together a list of the top smartphones you can buy right now, all thoroughly tested, daily-driven, and nominated by industry analysts, veterans in the mobile space, and, of course, ZDNET's team of subject matter experts. No matter what your preference is, there's a pick on this list that will satisfy your user needs.
Samsung's new Galaxy S23 Ultra is undeniably the most complete smartphone you can buy right now. It's built with a large 6.8-inch AMOLED display that produces vibrant visuals both in the brightest and dimmest environments, a reliable 5,000mAh battery, four cameras at the rear to help you capture a variety of shots, and an overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset.
That last bit is especially important given how much more powerful yet efficient the new Ultra flagship is, even when compared to last year's S22 series. In my ZDNET review, I mentioned that "the mobile platform brings meaningful improvements to the Galaxy phone experience, while Samsung's done its part to optimize the S23 Ultra with a larger vapor cooling chamber and more efficient back-end processing. Together, you get a phone that's powerful enough for any type of user, including mobile gamers." For a smartphone that's not made specifically for gaming, that's as high praise as it gets, right?
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is part of Apple's latest lineup of smartphones, and it continues to prove why the company dominates the mobile space. The 6.7-inch display uses Apple's Super Retina XDR panel for bright colors, finer details, and enhanced contrast. It even supports 4K resolution for video playback as well as Dolby Vision for HDR. But perhaps the most intriguing visual feature is the new Dynamic Island, which transforms that notch of dead space on previous models into a notification hub.
That's not to take away from the overall design and performance of the Pixel smartphone. The Pro model still features the now-iconic Pixel camera bump that beams from side to side, polished aluminum build quality, and a vivid 6.7-inch LTPO display that refreshes between 1 to 120Hz. The larger footprint also gives room for a beefy 5,000mAh battery that should keep the Pixel running for hours on end.
The best part is that the rest of the phone is no slouch either; you're getting a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, a 5,000mAh dual-cell battery, and a competitive triple-camera array that gets the job done. In total, OnePlus is charging you a starting rate of $699, which is just as good of a value pickup as the best budget smartphone on this list.
Our pick for the best phone overall is the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. It features everything you could want from a smartphone including a large display, four cameras that can shoot 200MP photos and 8K video, up to 1TB of storage, a built-in S Pen for writing and drawing, and a 5,000mAh battery powering the system. Here's how the S23 Ultra fares with the rest of our top picks.
If you're looking for your teen's first smartphone, a budget-friendly and less feature-heavy option may be better to prevent overspending as well as misuse. And if you're a content creator or other creative professional, you'll want a phone with an excellent front and rear camera to capture photos and videos for your social media feed.
The process to make our phone selections includes testing the phones for weeks, researching reviewer guides and manufacturer websites, consulting with colleagues, industry experts, and analysts who also have hands-on experience with the smartphones, and then selecting the best from all of the available choices.
Most smartphones have a base storage capacity of 128GB, which is plenty of space for average users to download apps and music, take photos, and shoot video. However, if you're a mobile or creative professional, you'll need more space. Many smartphones have expanded storage options up to 512GB or even 1TB, and you can always sync your phone to your preferred cloud storage service to free up local storage space.
Don't let the absence of the "Pro" label fool you -- the Pixel 7 is one of the better-value smartphones on the market to date. You can easily find one for around $450 right now, yet it comes with a flagship Tensor G2 processor and very capable cameras.
Our second-place phone costs a fraction of the price of our number one, but the Google Pixel 6a will amaze you with its great photo skills, snappy performance, and unique features that only Google Pixel phones with the Tensor chipset inside can manage. Also, the price is truly unbelievable for a smartphone this good.
Screen: You won't find a much better display than the big, bright, AMOLED screen on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. It isn't quite the brightest, and it lacks Dolby Vision support, but it's still smooth, with a fast 120Hz refresh that looks fantastic watching movies or playing games.
Screen: With a fast refresh rate and a high maximum brightness, the Galaxy S23 display is impressive. It lacks Dolby Vision, but it can display HDR10+, which the video camera can also record.
The first thing you need to decide when buying a new smartphone is how much you want to spend. The smartphone market varies dramatically, from very high-end handsets that cost well over four-figures, to much cheaper phones that can be found for only a few hundred. We have options at the top of our list at both ends of the price spectrum.
Phil was the internal reviewer for Samsung Mobile, writing opinions and review predictions about top secret new devices months before launch. He left in 2017. He worked at an Apple Store near Boston, MA, at the height of iPod popularity. He has been a High School English teacher at Title I schools, and is a certified Lifeguard. His passion is smartphones and wearables, and he is sure that the next big thing will be phones we wear on our faces. 041b061a72