Only you know what the best smartphone is for you. But we're here to help

Most people want the best when they are shopping for a new phone. We might not be able to afford the best, but we still would love to have it. But what is the best when you're talking about a phone?

You show me any list of the best phones and I can easily point out things that aren't the best. So can you. The reason for this is that there is no way one single thing can be best at everything; this especially applies to something as personal as a phone. This is why there are lists.

You hopefully enjoy the phone you have, and you'll definitely want to enjoy the next one you spend your hard-earned money on. It's something that we usually keep for a while, and being tied to something we don't like for a year or more isn't fun. That's why we search for "the best" before we spend it.

I can't tell you what the best phone is

I get a lot of questions from average consumers. I love this because, no matter how grumpy I may seem, I genuinely love helping people who are proactive enough to ask a question; the adage "there are no bad questions" is mostly true. Anyhoo, because I've been doing this for so long, people turn to me for the quick and easy answers sometimes. I'm not complaining — feel free to do the same, and if I can help, I'll certainly try.

One question I get more than any other is what phone is the best on the market at any given time. I get it, many of us don't have a desire to live and breathe mobile technology, and the landscape changes so often that it can be difficult to keep up with it all, even for people who do it for a living.

The thing is, I can't answer that question. There is no best phone until you decide what you want it to be best at doing.

Best at what?

The quick and easy (and often wrong) answers you'll find at the top of a lot of best phone lists right now are the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max. In a lot of ways, this is the right answer.

If you're looking at raw performance, hardware and software features, and especially the ecosystem of complementary products, both of these phones are better than the others. If this is what's important for you, all you would need to decide is whether you want an Android phone or an iPhone.

However, neither of these phones outperforms many other models in terms of other key needs, such as affordability, AI capabilities, or a unique form factor. When we here at Android Central call them the best, we mean best at the things listed above.

Say you'd rather not spend more than a thousand dollars on a phone and want to get the best value for your money. Companies like Motorola and OnePlus offer phones that give you a lot to love at a much lower price. You can take this even further and look for the best phone you could buy for $500, and companies like Nothing or Xiaomi are great options. So are Samsung or OnePlus, which makes it a lot more difficult to decide.

Some criteria make it easier to determine a "best" model. You have a lot fewer choices when it comes to something like a phone that folds or flips. There are still enough models to keep going further down the rabbit hole, though.

Only you can decide what's best

If you asked me which phone is best right now and forced me to give you an answer, I'd say the OnePlus 13R. It has a great price, it performs well, and it has a good set of features for its ~$500 price tag. But it's not the phone I bought.

That's because I wanted something most people probably don't care too much about — I need it to easily slip into my pocket while I'm tooling around in a wheelchair. For me, a Moto Razr was a better choice, even though I think the OnePlus is better in many ways. It folds down and doesn't smash up against the metal frame of my wheelchair. That was more important than a better camera or faster chip to me.

You have one or two things that are more important to you, just as I do. Maybe you want a cheap phone with a camera that takes great photos without much fiddling around with settings. Look at a Pixel 9a. Or if you want a phone you can fix yourself, you can't beat a Fairphone 5. Before you consider which phone is the best, you need to determine what you want it to excel at.

Ask yourself first

We try to think about the things that apply to most people when writing our lists of which phones are the best. That's why we break it down into so many different categories. No one phone is the best at everything.

That means you should never blindly buy a phone based on ours or anyone else's recommendation. You need to ask yourself the harder questions first, and nobody knows the answer to them besides you. Then we can help :)