The iPhone 11 is the top phone in the Tom's Guide Awards 2020

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Apple offers the best smartphone for the money. Here's why

iPhone 11
(Image credit: Apple)

As good as many Android phones have gotten recently — and several are among the best phones you can buy — Apple continues to stay a step ahead of the competition. That's continued with its current lineup of smartphones in general and the iPhone 11 in particular. Apple's best-selling smartphone has earned the first ever Tom's Guide Award for best phone.

At $699, the iPhone 11 costs $50 less than the iPhone XR it replaces. Apple also added a second camera to the back of the iPhone 11, allowing you to switch to ultra-wide angle views when you want to capture more of your surroundings. True, you're giving up the telephoto lens included on the iPhone 11 Pro models, but you're also saving $300 off the price of those models while still benefitting from the same powerful A13 Bionic processor Apple uses in all its phones.

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Other phones have made their own mark in the past year. We like that OnePlus continues to push the number of premium features in its phones, even if the price of a OnePlus device has creeped upward. The OnePlus 8 Pro, for example, features a screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and 5G connectivity — two things Apple's phones don't yet offer. And if you prefer cheaper phones, devices like the Google Pixel 3a, Moto G Power and even Apple's own iPhone SE 2020 impress by delivering lots of value at a lower price.

Still, we keep coming back to the iPhone 11, which manages to capture all the best things about Apple's phones — a colorful, eye-catching design, a long-lasting battery that delivers a full day of use on a single charge, and Apple's superior software — in a device that costs less than $700. The iPhone 12 figures to deliver big changes when it ships later this year, but the iPhone 11 has set a pretty high bar for Apple to clear.

Philip Michaels
Philip Michaels

Philip Michaels is a Managing Editor at Tom's Guide. He's been covering personal technology since 1999 and was in the building when Steve Jobs showed off the iPhone for the first time. He's been evaluating smartphones since that first iPhone debuted in 2007, and he's been following phone carriers and smartphone plans since 2015. He has strong opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics, old movies and proper butchery techniques. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.