There are a lot of great smartphone options available at any given moment, so it can be a challenge to sort through them all if you’re trying to choose the absolute best one. The stakes here can’t be understated: your smartphone is the most important gadget in your life, and you’ll probably be living with the one you buy for at least a year, if not two or three.
Most of the time, there’s a phone that stands out from the pack in all the areas that matter: performance, value, camera, and support. But this year, depending on who you ask, you could get as many as four different answers for what the best phone is to buy. And depending on what kind of phone user you are, any one of them could be the ideal phone for you.
This article was updated on June 22nd, 2018.
The absolute best phone: Apple iPhone X
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Apple’s latest iPhone isn’t just the most interesting iPhone in years, but it’s easily the best smartphone ever made. The iPhone X has almost everything you could think to ask for in a smartphone: blazing-fast performance, a gorgeous display, top-of-the-class cameras, loud, clear speakers, reliable battery life, and a head-turning design. In addition, the X is water resistant and can be recharged with a wireless pad. The main thing that most people will miss is a standard headphone jack.
Apple’s extensive support system, through both its own and carrier stores, is another incredibly important point in the iPhone's favor. There’s simply no other company that provides as much support for a smartphone after you purchase it. On top of that, since it’s an iPhone, the iPhone X enjoys the broadest support of accessories and cases.
The iPhone X separates itself from Apple’s other iPhones with its larger, crisper, edge-to-edge display, novel face-unlocking feature, and new gesture-based user interface. It’s a different experience than other iPhones, and though it may take a day or two to get used to, it’s very intuitive once you do.
The iPhone X also separates itself from Apple's other iPhones with its very high starting price: $999 unlocked. This, more than anything else, is what caused some debate within The Verge. Are the additional features in the iPhone X really enough to justify the extra cost compared to an iPhone 8?
If you're the sort of person who upgrades every two or three years, you want to get the phone that will have the longest life possible. That is, without a doubt, the iPhone X. If you're the sort of person who upgrades often, chances are you have already purchased your phone for this year. Good job, you! I bet it's a great phone! If you currently have an iPhone 7 and are on the fence, you can probably hang on to it for another year, honestly.
But if you’ve got anything older than an iPhone 7, the iPhone X's extra RAM, better screen, and all the rest make the cost worthwhile — especially when you consider that there are more options to defray that cost than ever. You can set up payment plans or upgrade plans with either Apple or your carrier, bringing the cost down to somewhere between $40 and $50 per month on most plans.
You can get the iPhone X unlocked or from virtually any carrier. And though iOS 11 is perhaps the buggiest release of the platform in years, it’s still easy to use and has the best third-party app support of any mobile platform.
If you’re coming from an older iPhone or even an Android device, the iPhone X offers more in terms of raw “upgrades” than any other phone you can buy right now.
But spending a thousand dollars on a phone is not an easy thing to do, and you can get way more phone than you'd expect for hundreds of dollars less. If you want to go the less expensive route, here’s an alternative.
A more wallet-friendly pick: Apple iPhone 8 / 8 Plus
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There are many reasons to skip right past Apple’s iPhone 8 or 8 Plus when browsing for a new phone. They don’t look any different from the last three iPhone models that preceded them. They have huge bezels above and below the screen. The iPhone 8 Plus is a practical giant among smartphones in 2017, even though it has a smaller display than many other phones with tidier dimensions.
But apart from its design and aesthetics, the $699 iPhone 8 is a tremendously good smartphone. It has a fast processor, its camera is easy to use and reliable for getting great pictures almost every time, and it’s water resistant and now has wireless charging options. The iPhone 8’s battery life isn’t class-leading, but it’s consistent and reliable. If you do want significantly better battery life, the $799 iPhone 8 Plus is a better pick.
Then there are the other factors in owning a smartphone to consider. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have by far the most case and accessory options available (even more than Apple’s flagship iPhone X). Apple’s customer care and support are unmatched by any of its competitors. You can get the iPhone 8 unlocked or from virtually any carrier, even smaller MVNOs.
The iPhone 8 pair don’t have the flash or overall new feeling of the iPhone X, but they still provide 90 percent of what you get with the X for about 70 percent of the cost. The future might be for the phones with narrow borders, but the iPhone 8 is for the present.
An Android alternative: Samsung Galaxy S9 / S9 Plus
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iOS isn’t for everyone, though, and there are many great Android phones available this year. This is where we’d usually say that the best Android phones come from Google, as they have the best software and performance. And Google’s Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are very good phones with the best cameras you can get on any smartphone.
But they have a number of issues that make them difficult to recommend without reservations. They can only be purchased directly from Google or Verizon, meaning you can’t pay for your phone with your service bill if you’re on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or any other carrier. Google’s after-purchase support system pales in comparison to Apple’s or even other Android device makers. And frankly, there just aren’t very many cases and accessories available for the Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL.
The Pixel phones also had a number of hardware problems and software issues when they came out late last year. Most of those have been addressed with software updates, so the phones are reliable enough to purchase now. But it still doesn't inspire confidence.
So our recommendation for the best Android phone to buy is Samsung’s Galaxy S9 or S9 Plus. Like the iPhone 8, the S9 pair gives you a choice between small or large and adequate or exceptional battery life. Stepping up to the S9 Plus also gets you a more capable rear camera. But otherwise, they are basically the same phone.
Inside, the S9 has the top-of-the-line processor in the Android world, a great camera, water resistance, wireless charging, and expandable storage. It even has a headphone jack, which is slowly going the way of the buffalo among flagship smartphones.
But the star of the S9 is its display. The super bright, exceptionally vibrant OLED screen stretches to the edges of the device and curves on its sides in an almost liquid fashion. Even though the S9 has basically the same design as last year’s S8, its curved display still makes it a head turner.
Also, thanks to Samsung’s popularity and the support of all four carriers, the S9 has plenty of accessories, from cases to battery packs to wireless chargers, available to it.
Not everything is perfect with the S9. Samsung is terrible at updating the software on its phones, and you’ll have to deal with a bunch of duplicate apps and useless services like Bixby. But it gets enough right that we’re confident in recommending it to anyone looking for an Android phone.
Other contenders
If an iPhone or Samsung aren’t your style, here are some other options that might work for you. We don’t consider any of them to be the best phone for most people, but depending on your needs, budget, or priorities, they could be a better choice for you.
Good Stuff
- Incredible camera
- Great speakers
- Best Android experience
Bad Stuff
- Huge bezels around screen
- No headphone jack
- Lacks some customization in camera features
Good Stuff
- Incredible camera
- Great speakers
- Best Android experience
Bad Stuff
- Screen shows image retention immediately
- Colors are muted, even compared to other sRGB screens
- No headphone jack
Good Stuff
- Lovely display
- Fast performance
- Reliable battery life
- Excellent standard camera
Bad Stuff
- It’s enormous
- It’s expensive
- Secondary rear camera is far inferior to main camera
- Terrible fingerprint scanner placement
Good Stuff
- Camera produces sharp, noise-free images
- Narrow design makes for an ergonomic shape
- Attractive, distinctive color options
Bad Stuff
- The solid-state buttons are a disaster
- Still no headphone jack, and now there’s no adapter either
- With glass on both sides, slippery to handle
- Software is full of little and big annoyances
Good Stuff
- Large, vibrant display
- Great software experience
- Very fast performance
- Reliable battery life
Bad Stuff
- Average camera
- No support for Verizon or Sprint
- Not truly water resistant
- It’s big and slippery, with no option for a smaller model
Good Stuff
- Good, very bright IPS LCD display
- Stellar headphone audio
- Super-wide camera offers creative flexibility
- Better touch haptics than other Android smartphones
Bad Stuff
- Boom Box speaker is incredibly loud, but mono and easy to cover
- LG is putting no effort into software
- Mediocre battery life
- Too expensive on some carriers
Good Stuff
- Epic battery life
- Lovely, sophisticated design
- Exceptional camera system
- High-quality display
Bad Stuff
- Software adaptations to the notch could be better
- No headphone jack
- Master AI image processing isn’t perfectly consistent
- No wireless charging
Good Stuff
- Fast performance
- Up to date software
- Reliable battery life
Bad Stuff
- Below average camera
- Thick, slippery design
- Sound vibration feature a gimmick
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