It would be so easy to sit you down and tell you that the best unlocked phone is the same as the best phone — but that would be lazy, and I want to make sure that I can get you the best phone to buy outright.
Phone prices are higher than ever, with flagship models now costing in excess of $1,000. When you're paying for those over a lengthy monthly contract, that can make them seem semi-affordable. But let's face it — they’re not. $1,000 is too much to drop on a new device, no matter how you swing it.
That means that every main entry on this list costs less than $1,000. They’re all excellent devices that’ll last you for years to come, with powerful internals and great cameras. Of course, if you still want something more premium, I’ve offered alternatives, but for the most part we’re here to save money. And save money we will.
We’ve tested every single device on the list ourselves, and each one has been lab-tested to check out the specs. We’ve used them to see what they’re like day by day, and then written down our thoughts in a detailed review. All those testing results are detailed here, and the reviews are linked for more information. So let’s dive into the best unlocked phones of 2026.
woah, slow down — why would I want an unlocked device!?
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I get you, I feel you. Buying a device up front can seem like a hefty commitment, but there are some massive benefits to buying a device outright. For one, you’re not going to be locked down to years and years of payments on a new device. Those are all well and good now, but who knows what the future holds; keeping those monthly payments down is super important. That’s not to mention the benefits of staying away from being locked into one carrier, as you are when you take out a cell phone plan. For more information, check out my explainer below.
Best Unlocked iPhone
Look, I know you’re looking at the top-of-the-range models with jealous eyes. Those new camera modules equipped on the 18 Pro and Pro Max are stunners, but the iPhone 17 is plenty of phone for just about anyone. We love how powerful and slick Apple makes its mid-range models, with top-quality 120Hz refresh rate screens for a smooth UI experience and on-the-go movie watching and game playing.
The important part, of course, is the price. The iPhone 17 costs $899 in its base form, featuring 256GB of storage. One thing to watch out for is where to buy one unlocked. You can buy one unlocked from the Apple Store, where you won’t find any price drops (ever), but otherwise you’ll generally find them tethered to a network. Make sure you check before dropping your dollars. Otherwise you’ll lose out on one of an unlocked phone's greatest strengths — network hopping.
As a phone, the iPhone 17 is amongst the very best. Its screen is lovely and bright, and it's larger than the previous model. Apple has packed the phone with a pair of cameras, and they take great shots that only lose out to much more expensive devices. The battery life is good too, coming in at 12 hours and 47 minutes.
Usefully for us, it supports a wide range of different bands and you can switch eSIMs on the eSIM-only model super easily through iOS. If you’re looking for a cheaper iPhone to get unlocked, then you should consider the iPhone 17e. That’s the cheaper, budget version with a step down in power and screen quality — and a $200 lower price.
Any problems with the 17? Not to speak of. We wish the telephoto performance were slightly better and Apple Intelligence continues to underwhelm, but otherwise? There’s not much we could ask for that wouldn’t make the device more expensive. This is our pick for the best Unlocked iPhone that you can buy in 2026.
- Read our full iPhone 17 review
Click for iPhone 17 camera samples
The premium alternative
Best unlocked Android phone
“Oh, but Tammy, what about Google’s newest and shiniest, the Google Pixel 11?” I’ve chosen the Pixel 10 for a couple of reasons. One, it's not that much different from the 11. The screen might be slightly dimmer, the battery a little smaller, and the camera slightly less detailed, but as we found in our review, those differences are so minor that you might not even notice them at all. The Google Pixel 10 is functionally the same as the 11, but $100 cheaper. And when you’re buying a phone outright, that can be very important.
It’s also super easy to get hold of unlocked, and thanks to its age, you’ll often find it slightly lower than its $699 pice tag. There’s plenty of support on board for loads of 5G and LTE bands, so you won’t run into any problems while you’re network hopping. eSIMS make it easy to swap between networks too, although the SIM-only version will make that even simpler — just drop your new SIM in and away you go. Just make sure you don’t buy one that’s locked down to one provider or you’ll miss out on the best part of having an unlocked phone. You should be able to use any network provider and get the best price possible for your cell service.
The phone at the core of the Pixel 10 experience is a great one. It was a massive jump from the 9, featuring a great camera that takes the fight to Samsung and Apple, as well as a super bright screen that’s easy to see no matter how bright the sun might get outside. For all your daily phone things, it’s a great piece of portable hardware.
The real strength behind Google’s phones is the AI implementation in the software. Gemini is baked into everything you do, from the calendar to the Messages app. Getting stuff done is quick and easy, and it works better than the Samsung and Apple alternatives. You have to pay to get the most out of it, though, so make sure you count that in when choosing the Pixel 10.
There are some little criticisms we can level at the Pixel 10. The Tensor G5 chip that keeps everything running along is slower than the competition, and we really wish the battery life were longer. You’ll be charging this baby every night — although you’ll be doing pretty quickly with the 30W charging speed. Overall though, this is a great device, and I think it's the best unlocked Android phone you can buy right now.
- Read our full Google Pixel 10 review
Click for Google Pixel 10 camera samples
The premium alternative
Best budget unlocked phone
Don’t be fooled by the slightly lower rating for this model — there aren’t many phones better for the same price as Motorola’s budget hero. The price has risen on RRP since we reviewed it by about $100, but you’ll generally find it for lower prices if you pick one up from Amazon or another retailer. Just wait for a deals event and you’ll have no problem picking one up for a bargain price. The best bit? That’s that; just a couple of hundred bucks and you’ve a phone that’ll keep going for a few years before you need to buy something new.
There is just one thing to bear in mind with the Moto G 2026, although it rings true for every budget model you can buy right now. The internals aren’t as powerful or up to date as more expensive models, so you’ll often see fewer software updates in the future, and you may well spot slower performance as the device ages more than you might with a costlier phone.
Thankfully, the phone you get right now is a very solid handset indeed. There’s 128GB of storage (or as I like to call it, plenty for most people) for all your camera snaps, that look surprisingly good thanks to some solid hardware that Motorola has packed in for the price. The screen is big and fairly colorful, and high-res enough that you won’t have any problem seeing finer text. The battery life is very good too, with 19 hours and 11 minutes eked out during our testing. That’s excellent.
It looks nice too, and feels a whole lot more expensive than its low price would suggest. The color options are nice too, especially the fetching lilac colorway that we were sent for testing. It all feels pretty good in hand thanks to the textured back panel, and the chassis around the edge, while plastic, doesn’t give “cheap phone” vibes. That’s good.
There are trade-offs for a device this cheap, and not just the longevity of the performance. There’s not much power on tap here, so don’t expect Android to be totally seamless, and don’t go playing super graphically intensive games. The screen, while large and colorful, is a bit dim, so direct light makes life more difficult. The battery is big, but the charging speeds are slow. But for $299, you can’t expect the world out of a device — especially in 2026. If you’ve only got a few dollars to spend, then you can’t really go wrong with the Moto G 2026.
- Read our full Moto G (2026) review
Click for Moto G camera samples
If you’ve got a few dollars more
Best repairable unlocked phone
When buying a phone unlocked, there are a couple of things that I think are incredibly important, but tantamount to everything is how long the device is going to last is at the top of the list. Fairphone shares this philosophy, and everything the manufacturer puts out tends to be a long-lasting, repairable piece of kit that’ll last for years to come. That means easily user-replaceable parts, an excellent (and industry-leading) 5-year warranty, and the possibility of easy upgradeability. That’s pretty sick. Is what I’d say if I was 17.
At the core of the Fairphone 6+ is a modular design. The camera is a module that can be replaced. The charging port, the rear case, the battery — all can be changed out should they get broken. You can buy the bits, including the screens, directly from Fairphone itself. And they’re reasonably priced too. The display is $90, the speaker $25. The battery is $40 and fits into the back of the phone with no issue at all. About the only thing you can’t buy is a motherboard, but then you send it back to Fairphone with that 5-year warranty.
The software will last a long time too. Fairphone has promised that it’ll support the 6+ until 2033, a promise that no other manufacturer makes. This is a phone built to last, and Fairphone has done a great job of making sure that all of the parts are traceable and environmentally friendly. Get the Beetle and flower necklace ready folks, we’re knee-deep in hippyville here. But it’s a hippyville well worth moving into, because the Fairphone 6+ is also a great phone to use.
The phone is fairly powerful, breezing through all of our tests with aplomb. The screen is lovely and bright, and handles direct sunlight well. It all feels good in the hand too, even if it does look a bit uninspiring. The two important things are soundly nailed down by the environmentally conscious phone. You can have your cake and eat it too.
There are a couple of drawbacks. Compared to the competition, $650 might seem a bit steep — especially when you compare their cameras. But then you remember the 5 year warranty and easily replaceable parts, and it doesn’t seem to sting quite so much anymore. In an era that focusses on tech that’s built to break the moment your phone plan ends, the Fairphone 6+ is here to stay. And that makes it a great phone to buy unlocked.
And if you’re looking for something easily repairable in 2026, this is about it. There’s nothing. Just buy the Fairphone.
- Read our full Fairphone 6+ review
Click for Fairphone 6+ camera samples
How we test unlocked phones
In order for a smartphone to make our best phone list, it needs to excel on several tests that we run on every handset. We perform some of these tests in our labs and some in the real world.
When it comes to performance, we rely on such synthetic benchmarks as Geekbench 5 and 3DMark to measure graphics performance. These tests allow us to compare performance across iPhones and Android devices.
We also run a real-world video transcoding test on each phone using the Adobe Premiere Rush app and time the result. (We unfortunately have to skip this test on some phones due to app compatibility issues, but we attempt this benchmark with each device we get in to review.)
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Geekbench 6 (single-core / multicore) |
3DMark Wild Life Unlimited (FPS) |
iPhone 17 |
3,701 / 9,460 |
80.58 |
Pixel 10 |
2,345 / 6,581 |
80.58 |
Moto G (2026) |
804 / 2,124 |
8.2 |
Fairphone 6+ |
1,314 / 3,674 |
28.47 |
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.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | sRGB (%) |
DCI-P3 (%) |
Delta-E |
iPhone 17 |
111.3 |
80.2 |
0.20 |
Pixel 10 |
125.7 (Adaptive), 106.6 (Natural) |
89 (Adaptive), 76.9 (Natural) |
0.29 (Adaptive), 0.30 (Natural) |
Moto G (2026) |
129.9 (Vivid), 108.1 (Natural) |
92 (Vivd), 76.6 (Natural) |
0.27 (Vivid), 0.26 (Natural) |
Fairphone 6+ |
156.3 (Boosted), 105.7 (Natural) |
110.7 (Boosted), 74.9 (Natural) |
0.27 (Boosted), 0.26 (Natural) |
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 if the phone doesn't have 5G support) 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.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Battery life (Hrs:Mins) |
Pixel 10 |
13:13 |
Moto G (2026) |
19:10 |
iPhone 17 |
12:47 |
Fairphone 6+ |
13:19 |
Last but not least, we take the best phones out in the field to take photos outdoors, indoors and at night in low light to see how they perform versus their closest competitors. We take shots of landscapes, food, portraits and more, and also allow you to be the judge with side-by-side comparisons in our reviews.
Why should I get an unlocked phone?
There are a few reasons that you might want to go unlocked, but they mostly boil down to "It makes it cheaper in the long run." Here are my reasons for choosing an unlocked phone over a phone plan:
- You can choose how you pay
When you buy a phone through a carrier, you're generally locked into paying with its payment plan. Buy unlocked and you can choose how you pay — and generally I'd go with paying it all up front. That means the phone is all yours over the course of your use, and there's no interest to pay on what can be surprisingly expensive loans.
- You can network hop
One of the greatest benefits of an unlocked phone is how you can hop between networks to find the best deal. eSIMs and SIMs aren't hard to swap, and you can keep your number easily these days. Always chasing those lower prices.
- You can more easily sell your device
When you buy a phone outright, you own the phone. There's no loan to payoff should you want to get something new sooner, or if you want to get something cheaper again. You can sell your phone without worrying about a payment plan hanging over your head.
How to choose the best unlocked phone for you
- Find a phone that works on your carrier: The vast majority of unlocked devices operate on GSM networks in the U.S. These include AT&T and T-Mobile, as well as discount carriers that run on those networks, such as Cricket Wireless, Metro by T-Mobile and Straight Talk.
- Make sure the coverage map fits your needs: In terms of coverage area, there's less discrepancy between networks than ever before, but there are still gaps, especially in less-populated areas. "Make sure [the phone you're buying] works on a carrier that offers good coverage in your area," advised Avi Greengart, research director for consumer platforms and devices at market research firm Current Analysis.
- Shop around, and don't be afraid to go used: Because some unlocked phone makers skip the carriers to sell their devices, they can often pass those savings onto you. However, don't be afraid to entertain buying a used or refurbished device, which can be just as capable as a brand-new device but without the premium of being box-fresh.
