Premium Android flagship phones start at $599, offering the sharpest and brightest displays, the most advanced photography, and cutting edge features like reverse wireless charging and screens that can refresh at 120Hz. 5G has also come to more affordable options, like the Pixel 6a, OnePlus Nord N20 and Galaxy A53, so it’s nice to see more Android phones able to take advantage of faster download speeds.
The best Android phones you can buy today
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is the king of Android phones. It’s got almost anything you could ever want in a phone, including a built-in S Pen stylus. It’s got powerful cameras, the top-tier Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, plenty of storage options, and a jaw-droppingly gorgeous display. The Galaxy S22 Ultra still stumbles in the battery life department, more so than its predecessor. While the phone went for 10 hours and 18 minutes in the Tom’s Guide battery life test, that result was in the 60Hz refresh rate mode. In the 120Hz adaptive mode, the Galaxy S22 Ultra only lasted for 8 hours and 50 minutes, well below some competitors like the iPhone 13 Pro Max (which also features an 120Hz adaptive refresh rate). But if you’re firmly in the Android camp, there’s no better phone than the Galaxy S22 Ultra right now. You’ll just have to pay $1,199 for the privilege. And, of course, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is right around the corner. Read our full Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review. The Pixel 7 Pro is a refinement over the excellent Pixel 6 Pro from last year. It sports an upgraded Tensor G2 processor, a brighter display, and 5x optical zoom. It’s a great phone with plenty of smarts and useful features. Where it lags behind the Galaxy S22 Ultra, however, is battery life. The Pixel 7 Pro performed poorly in our in-house battery life test, over three hours less than the 10-hour average we want to see from smartphones. But the cameras make up for it, with the Pixel 7 Pro offering the best pictures on an Android phone. And for $899, it’s hard to beat the Pixel 7 Pro, especially since the Galaxy S22 Ultra is $300 more. That S Pen and impressive optical zoom better be worth it, otherwise, Google has the upper hand on value. Read our full Pixel 7 Pro review. When talking about the best Android phones, the OnePlus 10 Pro is a close second. It’s a beautifully-designed device with a big 6.7-inch AMOLED display and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. It has the brawn to match its eye-catching body, too, thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. But that’s not all. The OnePlus 10 Pro easily outpaces the Galaxy S22 Ultra in our battery life test at nearly 12 hours in the adaptive 120Hz mode. And with the 65W charging, you can easily top off in no time at all. The OnePlus 10 Pro also mostly keeps pace when it comes to cameras. Photos often come out nice, though we’ve noticed a slight yellow tinge in certain scenarios. There are a lot of new software features that challenge Samsung’s impressive suite on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Even so, the Pixel 6 Pro is still the better camera phone. But when it comes down to it, the OnePlus 10 Pro is the better handset. Read our full OnePlus 10 Pro review. Android phone fans looking for a bargain have more choices than ever. Our pick is the Pixel 6a over the Samsung Galaxy A53. While the latter is not without its strengths — see below for more on those — the Pixel 6a’s cameras win the day, as you’d expect from a Google phone. Thanks in large part to Google’s strengths in computational photography, the Pixel 6a produces outstanding pictures, especially for a phone that costs less than $500. And the 6a is powered by the same Tensor chip found in the Pixel 6, so those AI-powered software features like on-device translation and smart photo editing are part of your budget Google phone as well. We wish the battery life were better, and Google could learn a thing from Samsung’s generous software update policy, but if you don’t have big bucks to spend on a great phone, the Pixel 6a is where you should put your money. Read our full Google Pixel 6a review. As we wait for Google to reshuffle its Pixel A offerings, the Galaxy A53 is the device to turn to if you want the best Android phone for less than $500. This midrange Samsung handset delivers solid features at a very reasonable $449. Despite that low price, the Galaxy A53 offers a 120Hz refresh rate for its 6.5-inch display. You’ll also get a capable Exynos 1280 chipset and decent wide and ultrawide cameras. (We could do without the macro and depth sensors cluttering up the back of the phone.) The Galaxy A53 matches the average smartphone when it comes to battery life, and you can eke out even more battery life by switching to a 60Hz refresh rate if you prefer. But it’s that price tag that may be the A53’s best feature — costing the same as Google’s Pixel 5a, this is another great low-cost Android option. Read our full Samsung Galaxy A53 review. Although we think it’s the epitome of an iterative upgrade, the Galaxy S22 Plus is nonetheless a great Android phone. From the beautiful and bright display to the beefy performance and improved cameras, the middle child of the Galaxy S22 family is a beast. If you liked the design of the Galaxy S21 last year, then you’ll find a lot to love with the Galaxy S22 Plus. It’s a refinement of Samsung’s new design language. But this phone didn’t wow us with its results in our battery life test. In fact, the Galaxy S22 Plus barely outperforms its predecessor. For $999, the Galaxy S22 Plus faces stiff competition, but if you want the big screen Galaxy experience and don’t want to spring for the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Plus is the next best option. Read our full Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus review. While the Pixel 7 Pro is certainly affordable relative to other Android flagships, it’s possible to experience Tensor G2-powered features for even less. The Pixel 7 starts at just $599 — $200 less than the Galaxy S22 — but offers many of the same capabilities as Google’s pricier handset. The call management, dictation and transcription features powered by Tensor are available on the Pixel 7, as are the computational photography features that make Google’s devices such standouts among camera phones. You won’t get a telephoto lens with the Pixel 7 Pro, but with features like Super Res Zoom eliminating the noise from digital zoom shots, you won’t really mind. We wish the Pixel 7 delivered battery life, but everything else about the phone — from its polished design to its bright display — improves upon the Pixels that came before it. Read our full Google Pixel 7 review. Some of us here love small phones, and so does Asus. The Zenfone 9 is the latest handset from the Taiwanese phone maker and boy is it a good one. It packs in a Snapdragon 9 Plus Gen 1, a 4,300 mAh battery, and 8GB or 16GB of RAM into a body with a 5.9-inch display. With its horsepower, stellar battery life, and good cameras, the Zenfone 9 is the phone to get if you want a smaller device. We love how easy it is to one-hand it, or how little pocket space it takes up. Asus’ ZenUI software is also really nice, offering a stock Android-like experience with some extra features thrown in to enhance things. Starting at $799, the Zenfone 9 puts other phones like the Galaxy S22 on blast. Samsung still has some advantages, such as with the display, but Asus did a bang up job with the Zenfone 9. Read our full Asus Zenfone 9 review. The OnePlus 10T gives you the chance to enjoy the improved performance of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor for less, as the latest from OnePlus starts at $649. If you opt for the version packed with 16GB of RAM, you only have to pay $749. That’s a pretty low price for a phone that delivers the kind of performance that will satisfy mobile gamers in particular. There are trade-offs for the OnePlus 10T’s lower cost, especially when compared to the OnePlus 10 Pro. The 10T lacks a telephoto lens, and its cameras don’t feature the Hasselblad features that have improved the picture-taking capabilities of recent OnePlus models. Still, the battery life on the OnePlus 10T is very strong, and the phone fully charges in 20 minutes. Even if the OnePlus 10 Pro is a better Android phone, there’s still a lot to like about the OnePlus 10T. Read our full OnePlus 10T review. We came away from our Galaxy Z Flip 4 review mostly impressed. Not only is the new foldable’s design ever so slightly sleeker, the battery life has vastly improved over the Galaxy Z Flip 3 last year. In our custom battery life test, the Flip 4 went for considerably longer than its predecessor. The folding 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display is beautiful, even though the display crease remains very noticeable. The Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 allows the Galaxy Z Flip 4 to chew through any task, even intensive gaming. And its increased power efficiency is likely helping the handset’s better battery life. The cameras are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the new night mode is fantastic; but on the other, the daytime photos are less than exciting with Samsung’s characteristic oversaturated look. If the Galaxy Z Flip 4 put out the same photos as the Galaxy S22, we’d be a lot happier. Even so, the $999 Galaxy Z Flip 4 is certainly worth your while if you want to jump into the world of foldables. You’ll make some compromises over similarly-priced phones, but the novelty might be worth it to you. Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 review.
How to choose the best Android phone for you
The first place to start when shopping for the best Android phone for you is your budget. And there are essentially a few tiers. The cheapest Android phones cost under $200 and offer mostly the basics for using apps, taking pictures and staying connected. We chart the best cheap phones under $300, though honestly, you’ll make a lot of compromises to get a phone priced that low. As you move up to under $450, you’ll find more compelling handsets, touting better processors, higher-grade materials and more camera lenses. Progress into the $700-and-up range, and the best phones offer flagship-caliber performance along with cutting-edge computational photography and special features. The most premium Android phones offer foldable designs, though there’s talk a new round of devices from Samsung could make foldables more mainstream — that is, make the prices more affordable. iPhone users looking to switch to Android have lots of choices, as we’ve outlined above. It’s also easier to move platforms, as the Switch to Android app for iOS now supports all Android 12 phones.
How we test the best Android phones
Every smartphone Tom’s Guide evaluates is tested for several days in real-world use cases and benchmarked with a gamut of performance-measuring apps. In terms of performance, we used Geekbench 5 to measure overall speed and 3DMark Wild Life to measure graphics performance. We also use our own video editing test in the Adobe Premiere Rush app to see how long it takes to transcode a clip, which we run on both Android phones and iPhone to compare performance. (This test is not always available for all phones we test due to app compatibility issues.) 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. For more information, check out our how we test page for Tom’s Guide.
title: “Best Android Phones 2022” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-04” author: “Megan Balderas”
Premium Android flagship phones start at $599, offering the sharpest and brightest displays, the most advanced photography, and cutting edge features like reverse wireless charging and screens that can refresh at 120Hz. 5G has also come to more affordable options, like the Pixel 6a, OnePlus Nord N20 and Galaxy A53, so it’s nice to see more Android phones able to take advantage of faster download speeds.
The best Android phones you can buy today
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is the king of Android phones. It’s got almost anything you could ever want in a phone, including a built-in S Pen stylus. It’s got powerful cameras, the top-tier Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, plenty of storage options, and a jaw-droppingly gorgeous display. The Galaxy S22 Ultra still stumbles in the battery life department, more so than its predecessor. While the phone went for 10 hours and 18 minutes in the Tom’s Guide battery life test, that result was in the 60Hz refresh rate mode. In the 120Hz adaptive mode, the Galaxy S22 Ultra only lasted for 8 hours and 50 minutes, well below some competitors like the iPhone 13 Pro Max (which also features an 120Hz adaptive refresh rate). But if you’re firmly in the Android camp, there’s no better phone than the Galaxy S22 Ultra right now. You’ll just have to pay $1,199 for the privilege. And, of course, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is right around the corner. Read our full Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review. The Pixel 7 Pro is a refinement over the excellent Pixel 6 Pro from last year. It sports an upgraded Tensor G2 processor, a brighter display, and 5x optical zoom. It’s a great phone with plenty of smarts and useful features. Where it lags behind the Galaxy S22 Ultra, however, is battery life. The Pixel 7 Pro performed poorly in our in-house battery life test, over three hours less than the 10-hour average we want to see from smartphones. But the cameras make up for it, with the Pixel 7 Pro offering the best pictures on an Android phone. And for $899, it’s hard to beat the Pixel 7 Pro, especially since the Galaxy S22 Ultra is $300 more. That S Pen and impressive optical zoom better be worth it, otherwise, Google has the upper hand on value. Read our full Pixel 7 Pro review. When talking about the best Android phones, the OnePlus 10 Pro is a close second. It’s a beautifully-designed device with a big 6.7-inch AMOLED display and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. It has the brawn to match its eye-catching body, too, thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. But that’s not all. The OnePlus 10 Pro easily outpaces the Galaxy S22 Ultra in our battery life test at nearly 12 hours in the adaptive 120Hz mode. And with the 65W charging, you can easily top off in no time at all. The OnePlus 10 Pro also mostly keeps pace when it comes to cameras. Photos often come out nice, though we’ve noticed a slight yellow tinge in certain scenarios. There are a lot of new software features that challenge Samsung’s impressive suite on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Even so, the Pixel 6 Pro is still the better camera phone. But when it comes down to it, the OnePlus 10 Pro is the better handset. Read our full OnePlus 10 Pro review. Android phone fans looking for a bargain have more choices than ever. Our pick is the Pixel 6a over the Samsung Galaxy A53. While the latter is not without its strengths — see below for more on those — the Pixel 6a’s cameras win the day, as you’d expect from a Google phone. Thanks in large part to Google’s strengths in computational photography, the Pixel 6a produces outstanding pictures, especially for a phone that costs less than $500. And the 6a is powered by the same Tensor chip found in the Pixel 6, so those AI-powered software features like on-device translation and smart photo editing are part of your budget Google phone as well. We wish the battery life were better, and Google could learn a thing from Samsung’s generous software update policy, but if you don’t have big bucks to spend on a great phone, the Pixel 6a is where you should put your money. Read our full Google Pixel 6a review. As we wait for Google to reshuffle its Pixel A offerings, the Galaxy A53 is the device to turn to if you want the best Android phone for less than $500. This midrange Samsung handset delivers solid features at a very reasonable $449. Despite that low price, the Galaxy A53 offers a 120Hz refresh rate for its 6.5-inch display. You’ll also get a capable Exynos 1280 chipset and decent wide and ultrawide cameras. (We could do without the macro and depth sensors cluttering up the back of the phone.) The Galaxy A53 matches the average smartphone when it comes to battery life, and you can eke out even more battery life by switching to a 60Hz refresh rate if you prefer. But it’s that price tag that may be the A53’s best feature — costing the same as Google’s Pixel 5a, this is another great low-cost Android option. Read our full Samsung Galaxy A53 review. Although we think it’s the epitome of an iterative upgrade, the Galaxy S22 Plus is nonetheless a great Android phone. From the beautiful and bright display to the beefy performance and improved cameras, the middle child of the Galaxy S22 family is a beast. If you liked the design of the Galaxy S21 last year, then you’ll find a lot to love with the Galaxy S22 Plus. It’s a refinement of Samsung’s new design language. But this phone didn’t wow us with its results in our battery life test. In fact, the Galaxy S22 Plus barely outperforms its predecessor. For $999, the Galaxy S22 Plus faces stiff competition, but if you want the big screen Galaxy experience and don’t want to spring for the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Plus is the next best option. Read our full Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus review. While the Pixel 7 Pro is certainly affordable relative to other Android flagships, it’s possible to experience Tensor G2-powered features for even less. The Pixel 7 starts at just $599 — $200 less than the Galaxy S22 — but offers many of the same capabilities as Google’s pricier handset. The call management, dictation and transcription features powered by Tensor are available on the Pixel 7, as are the computational photography features that make Google’s devices such standouts among camera phones. You won’t get a telephoto lens with the Pixel 7 Pro, but with features like Super Res Zoom eliminating the noise from digital zoom shots, you won’t really mind. We wish the Pixel 7 delivered battery life, but everything else about the phone — from its polished design to its bright display — improves upon the Pixels that came before it. Read our full Google Pixel 7 review. Some of us here love small phones, and so does Asus. The Zenfone 9 is the latest handset from the Taiwanese phone maker and boy is it a good one. It packs in a Snapdragon 9 Plus Gen 1, a 4,300 mAh battery, and 8GB or 16GB of RAM into a body with a 5.9-inch display. With its horsepower, stellar battery life, and good cameras, the Zenfone 9 is the phone to get if you want a smaller device. We love how easy it is to one-hand it, or how little pocket space it takes up. Asus’ ZenUI software is also really nice, offering a stock Android-like experience with some extra features thrown in to enhance things. Starting at $799, the Zenfone 9 puts other phones like the Galaxy S22 on blast. Samsung still has some advantages, such as with the display, but Asus did a bang up job with the Zenfone 9. Read our full Asus Zenfone 9 review. The OnePlus 10T gives you the chance to enjoy the improved performance of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor for less, as the latest from OnePlus starts at $649. If you opt for the version packed with 16GB of RAM, you only have to pay $749. That’s a pretty low price for a phone that delivers the kind of performance that will satisfy mobile gamers in particular. There are trade-offs for the OnePlus 10T’s lower cost, especially when compared to the OnePlus 10 Pro. The 10T lacks a telephoto lens, and its cameras don’t feature the Hasselblad features that have improved the picture-taking capabilities of recent OnePlus models. Still, the battery life on the OnePlus 10T is very strong, and the phone fully charges in 20 minutes. Even if the OnePlus 10 Pro is a better Android phone, there’s still a lot to like about the OnePlus 10T. Read our full OnePlus 10T review. We came away from our Galaxy Z Flip 4 review mostly impressed. Not only is the new foldable’s design ever so slightly sleeker, the battery life has vastly improved over the Galaxy Z Flip 3 last year. In our custom battery life test, the Flip 4 went for considerably longer than its predecessor. The folding 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display is beautiful, even though the display crease remains very noticeable. The Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 allows the Galaxy Z Flip 4 to chew through any task, even intensive gaming. And its increased power efficiency is likely helping the handset’s better battery life. The cameras are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the new night mode is fantastic; but on the other, the daytime photos are less than exciting with Samsung’s characteristic oversaturated look. If the Galaxy Z Flip 4 put out the same photos as the Galaxy S22, we’d be a lot happier. Even so, the $999 Galaxy Z Flip 4 is certainly worth your while if you want to jump into the world of foldables. You’ll make some compromises over similarly-priced phones, but the novelty might be worth it to you. Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 review.
How to choose the best Android phone for you
The first place to start when shopping for the best Android phone for you is your budget. And there are essentially a few tiers. The cheapest Android phones cost under $200 and offer mostly the basics for using apps, taking pictures and staying connected. We chart the best cheap phones under $300, though honestly, you’ll make a lot of compromises to get a phone priced that low. As you move up to under $450, you’ll find more compelling handsets, touting better processors, higher-grade materials and more camera lenses. Progress into the $700-and-up range, and the best phones offer flagship-caliber performance along with cutting-edge computational photography and special features. The most premium Android phones offer foldable designs, though there’s talk a new round of devices from Samsung could make foldables more mainstream — that is, make the prices more affordable. iPhone users looking to switch to Android have lots of choices, as we’ve outlined above. It’s also easier to move platforms, as the Switch to Android app for iOS now supports all Android 12 phones.
How we test the best Android phones
Every smartphone Tom’s Guide evaluates is tested for several days in real-world use cases and benchmarked with a gamut of performance-measuring apps. In terms of performance, we used Geekbench 5 to measure overall speed and 3DMark Wild Life to measure graphics performance. We also use our own video editing test in the Adobe Premiere Rush app to see how long it takes to transcode a clip, which we run on both Android phones and iPhone to compare performance. (This test is not always available for all phones we test due to app compatibility issues.) 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. For more information, check out our how we test page for Tom’s Guide.
