2021 has been a year of real surprises. When it comes to smartphones. We've had a significant push for foldable. We've had complete flagship experiences in tiny footprints. We've had budget phones that have changed my entire perception of value so, it's time to declare some winners. We've got 10 categories all leading up to the single overall 2021 champion a phone so, good I've even got a special trophy made just for it okay let's start with design. What is the most impressive phone from the outside and there are a couple of closes contenders. I've spent almost the entire year raving on about
Samsung's s21 ultra I'm going to give to the
plus this phone is supremely comfortable to hold. They've designed a finish that you literally cannot get fingerprints on even if you try the buttons feel distinctly luxurious and while I wouldn't say. I particularly love this glossy the section on the back can also double as a mirror to be able to take the rear camera selfies with now. We can't have a best without a burst so welcome to a bonus round of who has made the ugliest phone of the year and there are a few strong candidates
Asus zenfone 8
was notably devoid of character kind of looks a bit like a wish.com phone. This smartphone for snapdragon insiders yes that's the real name made by Qualcomm. The chip make themselves also feels very much like a prototype but the winner of the ugliest phone of the year has got to be this special edition version of the honor 50. The only way, I can think to describe this phone is it's a bit like someone just vomited the alphabet all over it .But there's another side to design because as well as making a phone look and feel premium.The other challenge that a lot of companies are starting to the face is the size constraint.How do we fit all the things that people are starting to want into a phone while keeping it compact and there's one phone that I think has done this better than any honorable mention to the Asus zenfone 8 which boring design. Aside is 90 of the capability of the big ones achieved into 60 of the footprint. A lot of things had to be re-engineered to make this possible
Samsung's z flip 3.
As a tech person this is a hard phone to recommend to someone, it's a thousand dollars. But it has the specs of a 500 phone, however, excuse my french it just feels flipping fantastic super-premium nice materials and the fact that it folds in half means that we're not just talking about fitting in your trouser pockets.This can fit into your shirt pocket but the winner of the best compact the smartphone of 2021 I'm giving to the
iPhone 13 mini
No gimmicks. No one particularly a groundbreaking feature. It's just the complete latest iPhone experience smaller and now thanks to huge battery improvements.This 13 mini lasts longer than last year's full-size iPhone 12. Speaking of battery though there is a limit to how much you're going to be able to get from a small phone if endurance is a high priority.You are going to need to look bigger and the winner of this category is not the phone. I expected to see the battery life is a very complex specification most reviewers including myself just generally, try to keep it simple by referring to how many milliAmp hours of the capacity that a phone has but the truth of it is.It depends on display technology.How well the phone regulates temperature massively on software and how efficiently it's able to allocate resources but also things like battery voltage and so in 2021
we've ended up in a situation .Where even though we have phones like the
Xiaomi 11 ultra
with 5000 million power capacities oh hell even the rog phone 5s pro with a 6 000 million power capacity they're all beaten by a phone. With less than 4500 the iPhone 13 pro max this phone's battery life is so unbelievably healthy. I have sometimes finished days using it with over 70 left. I mean you can technically get a phone that lasts even longer. you know those that are effectively just a dialer with a power bank taped to them.But this is the best battery life in a form the factor that's somewhat palatable then
What if you don't want something palatable? What if all you wanted was an absolute beast a speck monster a phone designed to play the most demanding games. You can get on a mobile platform well. You're in luck gaming phones have never been as competitive as they are now in 2021, they're getting so good that it's almost frustrating that developers aren't making games that properly take advantage of them anyways three main companies are fighting in this space.You have read magic who's making such high-powered hardware-rich phones for literally 500. But you do genuinely wonder where their profits coming from ridiculous value but the phones do feel a little rushed with arguably half-baked software then you have the other extreme with Asus whose rog phone 5s pro hits 1500.But if you have 1500 and you like games. There is nothing quite like it in the fact this thing takes 2021 flagship and tops it in almost every regard. It doesn't have a 5000mah battery it has 6000. It doesn't have a snapdragon 888 has an 888 plus it doesn't have a 120hz refresh rate it has 144.and we're not talking 8 or 12 gigabytes of ram 18. also quite important for a gaming phone a reliable accessory ecosystem whether that's earphones or controllers or external calling attachments. You have options but in my opinion, the best gaming phone sits somewhere in between these two with
Lenovo legion dual 2.
It avoids the software pitfalls of the red magic, gets very close to the performance of the Asus and it starts at 700 kinds of funky looking though finally. Just before,we get to the best overall phones in each price tier. I just want to touch on fold able because while I don't think these flaccid book styles open closed phones are the final destination. They do still feel a bit like a half-baked idea in some senses 2021 is the first year where I have seen some mainstream conversation about them. So it's time to analyze, if a foldable is what you want the only company. It makes sense to buy from is Samsung there is Microsoft who makes the surface duo is nice looking.But far too many compromises to recommend it. There is Huawei but no google service makes it's a really dicey option and there is royal the company. Who actually made the world's first foldable but I wouldn't trust their software. Support as they're primarily a display company their foldable is more of a tech demo than actual consumer-ready phones so that leaves us with two choices
Samsung's z-fold 3
OR Samsung's z-flip 3.
I would award the best foldable phone to the z-fold 3. It's only foldable that does deliver a tangibly expanded experience compared to just a normal flagship the potential for extreme productivity is here, you've just got to decide if you're in the minority who's willing to look past all its compromises to be able to take advantage of it alright. So those are all the specialist phones have done the winners for people with specific needs.But now it's time to look at the overall winners so we're gonna have the best budget phone best mid-range phone best flagship phone best superphone and then finally the overall best value phone across all of these categories are the ones that will be taking home this very fancy trophy that I've had made for it alright. So I'm classing budget phone. I anything around or under 300 and to be honest every realistic contender in this segment is either a spin-off company of Xiaomi or oppo and it's not hugely surprising the main profits to be had in the smartphone market are not here. Honorable mention too the real me eight this company is quite consistently bringing out. Some of the most extreme price to performance ratios, I've ever seen and also the poco x3 pro and the just-announced poco m4. I know there are a lot of different names here. But these two are pretty special however the winner of best budget phone on the market is Xiaomi's red note 10 pro i genuinely think and I don't say this a lot for budget phones this is a beautiful device and for about 250. It is shockingly well-rounded good battery life good stereo speakers fluid 120-hertz display and importantly for me also a really good camera for the price my only slight reservation is that Xiaomi has literally just announced the redmi note 11 pro. Which is china only for now but based on past history I would expect a global release probably early next year now then. We've got the mid-range category the 300 to 600 sweet spot all phones. I recommend here are phones that feel complete even though, they're half the price of the top tier and in this category.There is one clear winner which is almost a shame because of how many good options. There are like the one plus Nord 2 which is a 400 phone that you could very easily mistake for a 700 phone screen battery camera.The polish just makes it that little bit more the premium that said there have been a reasonable amount of people who have said that their Nord twos have exploded. We are only talking a handful but that's still enough to suggest that it might be a fundamental problem with this particular handset so, I'm gonna hold off on saying you should buy one the poco f3 though if 400 is all you want to spend. I can't recommend it enough it's got the flagship feeling and finally the real me. This is the highest end phone realme makes and so given how much this company manages to pack into 200 phones. You can probably imagine that for 500, this thing is stacked but specs aren't everything and based on the experience of actually using them. One phone takes the cake here google pixel 6. the pixel 6 is not just a phone that can kind of keep up with its more expensive offerings. There is a magic to it the way. It feels to use is not good or great it's delightful and the camera while not without inconsistencies is really powerful and really fun. so, what about flagships the best phone in between 600 and 900 at this kind of price we're talking luxury .We're talking things you don't need but you might want potentially quirky extra features and also you can demand extreme reliability okay a couple of honorable mentions one to Xiaomi's me 11 an all-round technically tremendous package one to the one plus 9. Which had mixed reception at launch but that was mostly due to over hyping ,then the phone actually being bad and multiple updates later. It now stands as a really good option and also
the Samsung galaxy
where are you? s21 which is not what I'd call an exciting phone. It's definitely not breaking any technological records. But it is a neat practical package that you can trust and even though the camera hardware is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I'm constantly surprised by how much Samsung's managed to push out of it but the winner at 899. Only just qualifying for this category is the google pixel 6 pros just like the like 6 pros just.It just feels alive it's lifted by like really fun intuitive customizable software and quite an underrated screen too .I wouldn't say it's the best phone money can buy mostly let down by some not too stellar video recording and some good but not great battery life but it is the best untill. You hit a thousand dollars plus. But what if you do? what if you just want the best phone and money is no object here's where things get interesting in In this category .You've basically got each company's top tier offering.They're no holds barred innovation crammed hero phones huge cameras big batteries gorgeous screens all the extras okay
two runners up first are that Vivo x70
pro plus. I mentioned at the start it's just it's one of the most fun phones. I've ever used with an emphasis on the camera's a treat comprised of top-shelf hardware and really powerful software and it's so good that in a fair few scenarios. I would say this is the best phone for photos and secondly the Samsung galaxy .There we go s21 ultra this was the first major flagship to come out in the entire year and it's so well-rounded that it's still now considered by many a benchmark for others to strive for worth also mentioning is sony. I feel like. They've come a long way in the last few years and for certain top level pros no one does it better but they don't quite make my default recommendation to most power users. There are two phones that do first is Xiaomi's me 11 ultras.This is a really similar spec to Samsung's s21 ultra.But it feels like.It's almost been built to beat. It takes the already extreme and dials it up just a little further with one of the most obvious examples being the second screen on the back it.lets you check for time without turning your phone over it. lets you take photos using your main rear cameras. They've even added a feature that means you can just use this second screen and it will boost your battery to no joke 14 days on a single charge the second winner
it's got to be the iPhone 13 pro max on
The face of it is a very similar phone to the 12 pro max and aside from one thing. It would be pretty easy for me to write this off as a small iterative upgrade but that one thing the battery life improvement makes this so unbelievably reliable but it's changed the way, I use my phone combine that with cameras speakers and a screen that is very close to best in class. Now is a good time to be an iPhone user and to upgrade said iPhone the normal
The iPhone 13 pro is also really strong. It's basically the same phone but instead of the extraordinary battery .It's more like excellent okay
that leaves me with one final decision to make. If I had to pick one phone out of every single one on this table what would it be which is the most surprising best value experience. you can get well here is our super heavy custom obsidian black trophy and it is for the smartphone of the year 2021 the google pixel 6. It is crazy to me that a phone costing just 599 can actually get me excited to use it in almost all cases with these kinds of phones. It normally boils down to which one makes the least compromises versus a flagship but the pixel 6 has almost the same hardware and almost the same experience as the 899 pixels 6 pros and even at 899, that phone feels pretty special and while for 899. I would rate the pros camera is very good not the best at 599 with almost the same experience the normal pixel six becomes pretty much. The best value camera system, you can buy and I'm not just talking about on a phone okay here's something, we can all relate to video calls that look something like this well this is what today's sponsor the B spot tiny 4k is trying to combat this is probably, the most jacked webcam .You've ever seen.You're going to want to hear this. It shoots video in 4k with an hour feature. It has built-in autofocus as well as dual Omni-directional microphones to isolate noise that's all fine but more unusually also of the gimbal, this camera can smoothly pan and rotate on its own accord and it uses ai to be able to do so making sure that your face is always in the center of the frame and the side effect of this intelligence is that you can also control it with gestures very interesting indeed
