I love big phones and I cannot lie — and here are the best you can buy right now

This is the guide you want if you're thinking about buying one of the best big phones as your next phone purchase. Chances are you're after a big phone for its display or battery, but these handsets often come packed with many other features that may tempt you to buy them. So we're here to help point you to exactly the right phone for your needs.

Our top pick right now is the Galaxy S26 Ultra, or the iPhone 18 Pro Max if you prefer an Apple-made phone. We'd also highlight the Motorola Razr Fold, which, through the magic of its flexible display, can open to the size of a small tablet.

We're always testing new phones to see what's the best on offer, so things may not be the same if you come back to this list another time. But as things stand, here's our pick of the best big phones you can buy right now.

Best big phone overall

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is Samsung's premium flagship phone option for 2026, and the best big phone you can buy right now.

Samsung's used the S26 Ultra as the platform for brand new unique features like the customizable Privacy Display, which uses hardware and software to shield your screen from prying eyes, or AI powers like the updated Now Brief and Now Nudge, or Gemini's new Automated App Actions ability. These help cement the S26 Ultra’s position as the big-screen Android flagship for those who want the best tools that a smartphone has to offer.

When it comes to endurance, the S26 Ultra delivers nearly two hours more battery life than last year’s S25 Ultra in our 5G web-surfing test at 150 nits. But performance is still where the S26 Ultra truly shines. Thanks to a new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip and a redesigned vapor chamber that keeps the phone cool even during long gaming sessions. In our review, we found the S26 Ultra stayed fast and comfortable to hold, even with demanding games running for extended periods.

The camera system is just as versatile as you’d hope for at this level. Low-light photos look noticeably better than last year’s model. The new Horizon Lock stabilization keeps videos smooth no matter how you hold the phone.

There are trade-offs to consider. The large camera bump causes the S26 Ultra to wobble when lying flat, a drawback compared to the iPhone 18 Pro Max’s more stable, plateau-style camera housing. Samsung’s switch from titanium to aluminum keeps the phone lighter with no major loss in durability, but some may miss the extra premium feel. These are only minor issues, though, and we have no hesitation in recommending the Galaxy S26 Ultra to the majority of people seeking the best big phone.

• Read our full Galaxy S26 Ultra review

Best big iPhone

Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro Max is the biggest and most capable iPhone yet, pairing a mighty 6.9-inch screen with battery life that lasts well into a second day. In our testing, the Pro Max managed 18 hours and 41 minutes, while the standard Pro still cleared 16 hours. Here, it goes to show that size really does matter (especially when it comes to battery life).

Performance is among the best you’ll find in any phone thanks to the new A20 Pro chip, the first 2nm processor in an iPhone. During intensive play sessions, like cutting through multiple enemies in the game Ungodly, we never saw the phone lag, even with background apps running, so you can count on consistent speed for gaming or multitasking.

For photographers and video editors, the main camera’s variable aperture gives you creative control over depth and light, and the charging speeds impressed us: the iPhone 18 Pro Max reached 44% in just 15 minutes. What's more, we also enjoyed using Cinematic mode in editing; toggling it post-shoot added a striking blur to park trail footage.

If you’re after the biggest, most uncompromising iPhone slab and can live with that unfortunate $100 price hike (the iPhone 17 Pro Max is still a good option if you're trying to cut down the price) and a slightly heavier design, this is the smartphone we recommend getting.

• Read our full iPhone 18 Pro Max review

Best big foldable phone

After a week of hands-on testing, we’re convinced the Motorola Razr Fold is the closest thing to a laptop replacement you can fit in your pocket. Its 8.1-inch main display stands out as the largest usable canvas you’ll find in a phone today, making it ideal for split-screen work and immersive video sessions — something a standard slab just can’t rival.

What really sets the Razr Fold apart is true multitasking. We put its new mode to the test by running up to four apps at once; the phone handled everything with impressive responsiveness, never feeling sluggish or overwhelmed. If your daily device needs to double as both a workhorse and a media machine, this flexibility is a genuine upgrade over non-folding flagships.

Battery anxiety is often the catch with foldables, but here the Razr Fold delivers: it clocked an impressive 14 hours and 44 minutes on the Tom’s Guide battery test, and in our own experience, there was still over 35% charge left at the end of a long day — meaning you can actually exploit all that screen real estate without reaching for the charger.

It's unfortunate that the Razr Fold's transitions between the main and outer display can be glitchy, and that the AI features that Moto's included don't match the range offered on Samsung or Google's phones. But those cons aren't enough to keep this phone out of the top spot.

• Read our full Motorola Razr Fold review

Best Big Phones: Frequently Asked Questions

How to choose the best big phone for you

• Android or iPhone? Android phones give you more choice in terms of price, size and innovative designs — many of them happen to be larger, too. However, iPhones offer faster software updates, better games and apps and better security and privacy. See our iPhone vs Android face-off for more details.
• Unlocked or carrier? Most shoppers in the U.S. buy new phones through their wireless carrier. But an unlocked phone gives you the freedom to buy the device without any sort of contract and then bring it to the provider you want to use.
• Screen size: For fans of big phones, 6.5 inches and up is a good place to start, with the largest regular phones reaching 6.8 or 6.9 inches in size. Book-style foldable phones can reach 8 inches when opened up. If that all sounds too much, and you'd rather buy a phone that you can easily use with one hand, go with one of the best small phones with a screen measuring 6.3 inches or under.
• Cameras: Don't pay attention to the megapixel count. Instead, look at camera face-offs between phones to see the photo quality and look for special features like Night Mode to get better quality in low light. Also see our best camera phone roundup.
• Battery life: Generally, phones with larger batteries (measured in milliamp-hours, or mAh) offer the longest battery life, but that's not always the case. That's why we run our own custom battery tests, where phones repeatedly load webpages over a T-Mobile data connection while set to 150 nits of display brightness until they run out of juice.

How we test smartphones

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 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.)

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 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.

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.