The first new devices of 2025 have found their way into our test lab, which means its time to revise our picks for the best phones you can buy right now.
1. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Best overall
2. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Best Samsung phone
3. Pixel 9 Pro: Smartest phone
4. Pixel 8a: Best under $500
5. OnePlus 13: Best Android flagship value
6. iPhone 16: Best iPhone value
7. OnePlus 13R: Best flagship alternative
8. Galaxy S24 FE: Affordable AI
9.. OnePlus Open: Best foldable
10. Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro: Battery champ
The OnePlus 13 and OnePlus 13R are the first phones we've tested this year, but they'll soon have some company. On January 22, Samsung holds its latest Galaxy Unpacked event, where we expect the Galaxy S25 lineup to make its debut. That figures to cause a major shake-up among the leading smartphones.
Until those new models arrive, though, there are still plenty of great options out there, highlighted by Apple's latest iPhones. The best of the bunch — and the best phone overall — is the iPhone 16 Pro Max, thanks to its epic battery life, superior cameras and expansive screen. But if you don't want to pay top dollar, the iPhone 16 is also a good choice, while also supporting the same Apple Intelligence features you'll find on the more expensive Pro phones from Apple.
Android users have strong choices to, even if you're wary of buying the Galaxy S24 Ultra ahead of the Galaxy S25 Ultra launch. Google has a pair of phones — the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 8a — that have excellent camera features and offer some of the smartest AI features found on mobile devices.
I've reviewed many of these phones first-hand, with the rest of the phones team at Tom's Guide adding their thoughts and insights for an in-depth look at which devices you should consider. Between every one of our phone reviewers, we've got more than four decades of experience evaluating phones from every possible angle.
Our best phone picks are based on our lab tests and real-world use of each phone we get our hands on. Here are the 10 phones you should consider if you're looking to get a new handset right now.
I'm the managing editor for mobile at Tom's Guide, where I've been working since 2015. In total, I've covered technology for 25 years now — I was even there when Steve Jobs showed off the original iPhone back in 2007. I've been looking at and testing phones since that day, and if you visit my Northern California home, you can marvel at the stacks of phones I keep handy for head-to-head testing.
The best phone overall
The iPhone 16 Pro Max holds down the top spot among the best phones based on the impressive results it produced when my colleagues and I got the chance to test its display, processing power and — especially — its cameras. The new phone offers a bigger screen (without increasing its overall size too much from the iPhone 15 Pro), an upgraded ultrawide camera and a faster processor. Even better, the first Apple Intelligence features are now available, with more to come in subsequent iOS updates for the next few months.
You won't have to ditch your iPhone 15 Pro Max if you upgraded a year ago, and anyone worried about missing out on the first round of Apple Intelligence features should relax. While a good first step, Apple Intelligence is more of a nice-to-have than a must-have at this point. That said, there are plenty of compelling reasons to upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, particularly if you've got an iPhone that's at least a couple years old.
Price and value: While this model commands the same $1,199 cost as its predecessor, a larger 6.9-inch screen and bigger battery means you're getting more for your money. That particularly true in light of the $100 price hike Samsung gave to the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which means Apple's top device remains the less expensive option. "Less expensive" is relative, though, as the $1,199 starting price is a lot for some people to pay.
Camera performance: iPhones live and die by their cameras, and the telephoto lens on the iPhone 16 Pro Max offers some notable improvements to both its main camera and its ultrawide lens. These complement the 5x telephoto lens that returns from the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Because the iPhone 16 Pro features the same camera setup for $200 less, we rank that phone as the best camera phone overall, but you won't be disappointed with what the iPhone 16 Pro Max cameras produce. We've even put it through a 200 photo face-off against the Galaxy S24 Ultra to crown an undisputed champion, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max came out on top on the strength of its superior dynamic range and low-light shooting capabilities.
Battery and charging: The battery on the iPhone 16 Pro Max lasts more than 17.5 hours on our battery test, where we have a phone surf the web until its battery gives out. The average phone barely makes it past 10 hours, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max was just getting warmed up at that point. No other iPhone has ever lasted that long, with the iPhone 16 Plus coming the closest with an average result of around 16.5 hours. If only the phone could charge quickly, but at least MagSafe charging is improved to 25W speed.
Overall performance: Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip dishes up heated competition, but the A18 Pro chipset powering the iPhone 16 Pro Max turns out to be a very fast chip, topping the Snapdragon silicon in speed testing and tasks like video encoding. (Samsung's Galaxy S24 phones did turn in better scores with higher frame rates in graphics testing.). We noticed the extra oomph when using the iPhone 16 Pro Max to perform everyday tasks and switch between apps. When we used the iPhone 16 Pro Max to transcode a video, the task took half as long as it did on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Verdict: The iPhone 16 Pro Max wins top marks for design, photography and performance. Charging speed and digital zoom features could be further refined, and it's very expensive relative to some of the other phones on this list, but you definitely get a lot of power and polish for your money.
Read the full review: iPhone 16 Pro Max
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | This is the most expensive iPhone Apple sells. You can save $200 with the iPhone 16 Pro, if you don't mind the smaller screen and less battery life. | ★★★☆☆ |
| Cameras | The iPhone 16 Pro Max is one of the best camera phones we've tested, though both the Pix9 Galaxy S24 Ultra beat it on zoomed shots. | ★★★★☆ |
| Power | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered phones may have caught up to Apple's silicon, but the A18 Pro continues to be a top performer, particularly when it comes to overall speed and daily tasks. | ★★★★★ |
| Battery life | You won't need to charge your phone up during the day. The iPhone 15 Pro Max is the second longest-lasting iPhone we've ever tested, finishing ahead of the iPhone 16 Plus. | ★★★★★ |
More on the iPhone 16 Pro Max
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Best Samsung phone
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is about to exit stage-left, but until the Galaxy S25 Ultra arrives to replace it, this is the phone that delivers a peak Android experience. When my colleague Mark Spoonauer tested this phone last year, he was blown away by the S24 Ultra's upgraded processor, brighter display and camera improvements. But the real star of the show here is Galaxy AI, as Samsung has successfully tapped into artificial intelligence to handle tasks like translation, transcription and summaries.
Galaxy AI may be Samsung's first attempt at putting AI front and center, but features like Circle to Search and notes auto-formatting already felt very polished when I put them to the test on other S24 models. And more importantly, Samsung integrated its AI improvements into things you're already using your phone for, like photo editing, searching and writing messages. You don't have to learn new skills to get the most out of Galaxy AI.
Price and Value: Though its price went up up by $100 over the previous generation, you still get what you pay for with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and it's possible that the best Galaxy S24 Ultra deals. will whittle down that price as the Galaxy S25 Ultra launch gets closer.
Even at full price, Samsung's offer of seven years of software and security updates mean that you'll be able to hold onto the Ultra as long as you want. That said, Samsung can be slow with updates, as the One UI 7 interface incorporating Android 15 only arrived as a beta last month. The full version should launch with the Galaxy S25, which is four months after Android 15 first arrived.
Camera performance: Swapping out a 10MP telephoto lens with a 10x zoom for a 50MP shooter with a 5x zoom has felt like a step back to me, even though the new telephoto sensor offers higher resolution. (At least you can still enjoy 10x zooms by cropping down those 50MP shots. And the 100x Space Zoom feature is as impressive as before.) Even though I'm not a fan of the change, the Galaxy S24 Ultra remains a top camera phone, with a better handle on color than previous Samsung flagships. My colleague John Velasco compared 200 photos shot by the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra to gauge the camera improvements, and though they were slight year over year, you can see better color and more consistent quality in the S24 Ultra shots. Only the iPhone's superior low-light performance keeps the S24 Ultra out of the top spot for camera phones in my opinion.
Battery and charging: The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 powering the Galaxy S24 Ultra is very efficient, helping the S24 Ultra last for 16 hours and 45 minutes on our battery test, That's only 50 minutes behind the iPhone 16 Pro Max's impressive average. Wired charging speeds remain at 45W, which is good but slower than the OnePlus 12 and its 80W charging speeds.
Overall performance: In addition to its power management features, that Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 silicon inside the Galaxy S24 Ultra delivers stellar performance — enough to beat last year's iPhone 15 Pro models in some tests, particularly when it comes to graphics. And now that the iPhone 16 Pro models are out with A18 Pro silicon, Samsung's phone still tops them in graphics testing, though the iPhone proved to be the faster speed demon overall.
Unlike other S24 models, which use different chipsets depending on their region, every Galaxy S24 Ultra uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so you're guaranteed the best Android performance no matter where you live in the world.
Verdict: The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra gives the iPhone 16 lineup all it can handle, lasting longer than most other Android phones, but it comes up short against the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Still, for Android users, this has been the best phone you can get. I can't wait to see if the Galaxy S25 Ultra can clear the very high bar that Samsung has set.
Read the full review: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Samsung raised the price on the Galaxy S24 Ultra by $100 over the S23 Ultra. This is the most expensive phone that doesn't fold. | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Cameras | The hardware that makes up the S24 Ultra's camera array impresses, but Samsung augments that with some great AI-powered features that help you edit and fine-tune your photos. | ★★★★☆ |
| Power | Forget about a performance gap with the iPhone. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 holds its own against any phone, particularly in terms of graphic pefromance. | ★★★★★ |
| Battery life | This is Samsung's longest-lasting phone, beating the latest many iPhone models on our battery test. | ★★★★★ |
More on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Smartest phone
AI is the feature of the moment right now with smartphones, as both Apple and Samsung spent 2024 adding AI-powered features to their phones. Google's an old hand at this, though, having switched to the AI-focused Tensor chipset with the Pixel 6. Now, we're up to Tensor G4 on the Google Pixel 9 Pro, and having used Apple Intelligence, Galaxy AI and Google's AI tools, I think Google has the most capable AI of them all. The Pixel 9 phones — including the 9 Pro — certainly had several of my favorite AI phone features introduced in the last year.
Google says customers wanted a more compact version of the Pro to go with the big-screen model. (If you prefer more screen real estate, consider the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which has the exact same features as the regular Pro, but a 6.7-inch display and bigger battery, instead. It's also harder to use with one hand in my experience.)
Price and Value: The Pixel 9 Pro costs the same $999 that Google charged for the Pixel 8 Pro. But that older phone had a larger screen, which makes me feel like I'm being asked to pay more for less phone. Then again, with the improvements to battery life and display brightness — not to mention the latest AI features — you can't really claim that Google is shortchanging you on anything other than size.
Camera performance: Actual camera improvements are modest — a new ultrawide sensor adds a Macro mode that performed very well when I tried it out, though I think the iPhone 16's macro photos are a little sharper. (They're different phones, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max vs. Pixel 9 Pro XL photo face-off John Velasco did illustrates the superiority of Apple's macro images.) As for the Pixel 9 Pro's front camera, it gets an upgraded sensor, too, though I think Google needs to dial back the camera's tendency to make faces look too smooth. Really, though, the Pixel 9 Pro's camera performance lives on the strength of its photo processing, and that remains strong, the cameras producing well-composed shots that showed off fine details when I tested them.
Battery and charging: Battery life hasn't been a strong suit for recent Google phones, but the Pixel 9 Pro breaks that losing streak. With a 4,700 mAh battery and a more efficient Tensor G4 chipset, the Pixel 9 Pro lasted an average of 13 hours and 30 minutes in our web surfing test — behind the comparably sized iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 models, sure, but well, ahead of that 10-hour average for other smartphones. Other Pixels struggled to reach even that threshold so I like what I've seen from the Pixel 9 Pro's ability to get through the day on a charge.
Overall performance: The Tensor G4 that powers the Pixel 9 Pro can't keep pace with other top Android phones in benchmark testing, and it trails the iPhone 16, too. But that's not the focus of Tensor. Instead, it powers a number of helpful AI features, including Pixel Screenshots for easy searches of content within screenshots, Add Me for inserting people into group shots and Call Notes for transcriptions and summaries of phone calls. Potentially, the best addition is Gemini Live, a smarter version of the Google Assistant. Pixel 9 Pro owners get a year of Gemini Advanced for supporting for complex features.
Some of the AI tools need some more polish, though they're still further along than Apple Intelligence features at the moment. Right now Pixel Screenshots has been the most useful addition for me since I take a lot of screenshots to remember important details. Using Pixel Screenshots, I'm able to search for those images by their content, and the Pixel 9 Pro is smart enough to show relevant results. If you're more into producing images from nothing, the Pixel Studio generative AI tool lets you create things with nothing more than text prompts.
Verdict: If you're willing to bet that the Pixel 9 Pro's AI features will improve over time, the camera performance, longer battery life and bright display should be enough to give you a great device right now.
Read the full review: Google Pixel 9 Pro
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | On the bright side, the Pixel 9 Pro costs the same $999 as the Pixel 8 Pro. But you're paying the same for a smaller screen. | ★★★☆☆ |
| Cameras | You'll find few hardware changes outside an improved ultrawide sensor and higher-resolution selfie cam, but the Pixel 9 Pro still takes great shots. And the AI features are second to none. | ★★★★☆ |
| Power | The Tensor G4 enables a bunch of new AI-powered features that make the Pixel 9 Pro standout. But it badly lags behind Samsung and Apple phones in terms of speed. | ★★★☆☆ |
| Battery life | We've finally got a series of Pixels that outlasts the average smartphone, with the Pixel 9 Pro beating the average result on our test by 3 hours. | ★★★★☆ |
More on the Google Pixel 9 Pro
Best under $500
Like the Pixel 7a it replaced, Google's Pixel 8a is the best phone to get when you refuse to spend more than $500. In exchange, you'll get one of the best camera phones for the price, along with the AI features found on current Pixel flagships. The only reason to pass on the Pixel 8a at this point is you'd prefer the more powerful Tensor G4 chipset and newer AI capabilities in the Pixel 9 series. Even so, the Pixel 8a remains a great option for bargain hunters who don't want to pay the extra $300 you'd have to spend on a Pixel 9.
Price and value: In addition to saving you money in the near term, the Pixel 8a can be a phone that you hold on to for a long time. Google offers seven years of software and security updates, matching the level of support the regular Pixel 8 phones get. With the Pixel 8a, Google is showing other phone makers how a midrange device should be. That said, Samsung does undercut the Pixel 8a's price by $100 with its midrange model, the Galaxy A35, though the Pixel 8a enjoys some advantages when it comes to performance.
Camera performance: You'll find the same cameras on the Pixel 8a as you did on 2023's Pixel 7a, and photo processing capabilities work the same, too. While we wish there were more substantial improvements, you can't knock the camera performance of the Pixel 8a, especially compared to other camera phones in this price range. For instance, in our 200-photo face-off between the Pixel 8a and Galaxy A35, Google's phone really showed how it excels in photo processing and handling low-light images. People with the Pixel 7a won't need to upgrade, but if you have an older midrange model, you'll definitely see an uptick in photo quality with the Pixel 8a.
Battery and charging: Like the Pixel 9 above, the Pixel 8a beats the average smartphone's performance on our battery test, though less decisively. The Pixel 8a was able to surf the web for 11 hours and 21 minutes before running out of gas. To put that result in context, it's an hour and 16 minutes longer than the Pixel 7a lasted. Wired charging speeds could be faster, low-price phone or no, but Google includes wireless charging on the Pixel 8a after adding it with the Pixel 7a.
Overall performance: As always, the story with Pixel phones is the AI features supported by the Tensor core on Google's silicon. With a Tensor G3 running the show, the Pixel 8a matches the feature set found on Pixel 8 flagships, with Magic Editor and Best Take photo-editing features stealing the show. (The latter is particularly impressive, giving you the ability to edit group shots so that everyone is putting their best face forward.) But don't sleep on the phone's call management features, either, as I think they're some of the best AI features on the Pixel and unique to Google's phones. Forget about blazing speeds, though, as that's not in the Tensor chips' locker. That said, the Pixel 8a does handily out-perform the Galaxy A35, which uses older Exynos silicon.
Verdict: The Pixel 8a is a worthy addition to the A series, with excellent cameras for a budget phone. With better battery life than before and extended software support, Google's midrange phone is a even better bargain than its predecessor.
Read the full review: Google Pixel 8a
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Google kept its midrange phone under $500, making the Pixel 8a one of the better values you can find if you don't want to pay flagship prices. | ★★★★☆ |
| Cameras | The Pixel 9 cameras perform better than the Pixel 8a's, but not so much that you're sacrificing a great camera phone by paying less. This is the best cheap camera phone you can buy. | ★★★★☆ |
| Power | The Pixel 8a uses last year's Tensor G3, so you miss out on newer features (for now), but it's still a pretty smart chip with unique AI features. | ★★★★☆ |
| Battery life | You'll get better than average battery life with the Pixel 8a, though it doesn't last as long as Google's Tensor G4-powered phones. | ★★★★☆ |
