Best flagship phones 2024 - buyer’s guide

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is not the perfect smartphone, this year we even have a cons section, but it is the ideal all-round flagship and for that it becomes our top pick in this category.

Indeed, the Galaxy S24 Ultra remains Samsung's ultimate smartphone, and it's the most complete package you can buy today. Samsung didn't just coast for another year, which we felt was the case with the S23 Ultra. We got more new stuff this time around than we could have predicted. The new materials in the build don't just feel nice; they also improve the visual experience. After years of enjoying the coolness of curved displays, we've now grown up to realize that flat screens have their benefits, and Samsung's now giving us flat screens across the range.

Without much fuss around that subject, the S24 Ultra is one of the longest-lasting Androids you can buy, and even if the big names from China charge three times as fast, the Pixel and the iPhone don't. An always-with-you stylus remains elusive outside of the Samsung flagship, and you may not know you want or need one until you've had one.

The camera system is also mostly a source of satisfaction. The rethinking of the telephoto setup is a forward step that adds another layer of versatility. The rest of the rear modules we'd almost call stale next to what we're seeing from Chinese brands and their impressive hardware, but Samsung has managed to squeeze out such performance out of these otherwise uninspired bits that it doesn't feel like we're getting less than what is right.

Yes, there were display issues. And, yes, the charging is far from great. But In the end, Samsung's ultimate smartphone comes easily recommended.

You do not get the most premium iPhone for a single feature. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is worth getting for its well-rounded user experience, luxurious design, its premium services and warranty, for its clockwork iOS, and for its versatile camera experience with great photos and exceptional videos. And a thousand other little things we cannot fit in here.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max offers excellent battery life, speakers experience, gaming performance and more. It is also a powerful video camera with class-leading quality and stabilization plus options to capture ProRes videos on external drives.

Apple iOS may not be everyone's cup of tea, regardless of whether it's due to its odd file management or various restrictions in all sorts of places. But it is also quite a secure system, easy to work with, and, this year, with iOS 18, Apple finally brought flexibility in how your app icons look and how they are arranged across the homescreens. We'll also finally get a taste of the AI features Apple has envisioned for the OS.

So, should you get the new iPhone? Of course! It is the best iPhone ever made, you know. It has a stunning design, an outstanding display, great performance, impressive speakers, pro-grade cameras with consistently good photos and class-leading video quality, long battery life and likable if weird iOS.

The new Ultra is a global phone, and the Xiaomi fans have certainly rejoiced! It is also a nearly perfect flagship, one that's so easy to love. Its unique design is beautiful, and we do appreciate the ingress protection. Then there is one of the best displays in the industry - a 1440p LTPO OLED with 12-bit color depth, dynamic 120Hz refresh, and Dolby Vision support.

Then there is the most current Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with class-leading performance. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra also has excellent thermal handling and offers great sustained performance, We certainly cannot praise the battery life (it’s an average one), but we can praise the the charging speed. Kudos for including the 120W charger in the box, too, as this has become a rare thing lately. We also liked the speakers' loudness and quality.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is one of the best cameraphones in 2024. A favorite cameraphone in the office, the 13 Ultra didn't leave a lot to ask for, yet Xiaomi did find a few areas to touch up for the 14. Close-focusing telephotos have become the latest trend, and the two ones here are possibly the finest at that, but also excel at a distance. The variable aperture on the main camera is also welcome if you'd like that much control over DoF, though we don't see that as quite the transformational development.

An unrivaled selling point of the 14 Ultra is the Photography kit. Realizing its appeal and its potential to drive Ultra sales, Xiaomi has continued to develop the contraption and add features to it. Indeed, it adds further cost to an already expensive phone, but the two combined will get you as close to a 'real' camera as a smartphone can in ergonomics and experience.

In the end, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is quite probably the finest camera with a phone attached to it that you can buy today.

The Galaxy Fold6 offers the best foldable and best flagship experience on the market – both hardware and software. The S-Pen Slim Case is an excellent accessory to expand the Fold capabilities, too.

The Fold6 offers improved ingress protection, displays, performance. It also impresses with its speakers.

The lack of real competition isn't helping the Galaxy Z Fold get better faster - Samsung is enjoying a rather trouble-free position in the large foldable space, and it's showing. The Galaxy Z Fold6 has the same cameras as the Fold4 from two years ago, and that's not a good look, alright as they may be. The slow charging is a long-standing issue of the Galaxy roster, and instead of improving on it, the latest model is somehow even slower.

The Galaxy Z Fold6 is the all-around best large foldable that you can buy in most places, and it makes more sense as a tool than it does as a cameraphone. It's just not meaningfully better than the previous generation. Read full review

The Motorola Edge 50 Ultra is a powerful smartphone and one that is incredibly easy to like. Be it wooden or eco-leather, the Edge 50 Ultra's exterior is a showstopper, and it may seal the deal for many.

Then we have a superb 144Hz OLED, a powerful Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, impressive speakers, amazing photo quality, long battery life, and 125W fast charging.

Not everything is peachy, of course. The phone does throttle and heats up fast, and it offers largely unimpressive video recording quality.

But that's about it - everything else is in the class-leading ballpark - design, screen, battery life, charging speed, speakers, performance, photo quality. Once the price drops, it will certainly merit closer consideration.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL brings relatively major stylistic changes plus some hardware upgrades that do make it a better phone than the previous generation. The brighter display is a welcome improvement, of course, and it's possibly the brightest in the business, though it's not like the 8 Pro was lacking in this respect. Battery life has been a blemish for Pixels in head-to-head comparisons, and the new model is a step up in this respect, though it remains in a trailing position among its peers.

The Pixel's biggest selling point lies in its AI capabilities, Google wants us to believe. A bunch of software features are at your disposal for both work and play and image editing tools can help save a photo that circumstances tried to ruin. Having a phone that's made by the OS maker has its benefits even if they're hard to quantify.

We're not quite as thrilled with the camera system as we would have hoped to be, though. The Pixel is lagging behind some of the trends and just because AI can enhance photos and even make up stuff that wasn't there, doesn't mean it can be used as a replacement for state of the art camera hardware. The brand new selfie camera is pretty great, the others fail to excite.

Of course, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is a well rounded and fully capable high-end smartphone - that's beyond debate. This generation prioritizes the phone's development as a vehicle for Google's AI pursuits - if you're into that and want to ride the AI wave, by all means go for it. There are also meaningful improvements on some of the fundamentals to appeal to the AI skeptics. The camera enthusiasts, on the other hand, will probably not be overly... enthused.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold brings a solid experience without any major issues and holds its own in a market with limited competition. While it may not lead the pack in every area, it’s certainly a step forward compared to its predecessor. The camera performance, though competent, doesn't quite reach the heights of some competitors. Charging speeds could be faster, and the chipset, while reliable, isn't quite on par with the other top-tier devices. The design is a bit polarizing as well with the contrast strip stretching the hinge and the cover display.

However, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold has several standout features. It offers an impressive 7 years of Android OS updates, one of the largest displays on the market, and both the main and cover screens are brilliantly bright. Google's AI smarts, particularly with its Gemini AI, are a highlight, often outshining even Samsung's Galaxy AI, provided your language is supported.

In conclusion, while the Pixel 9 Pro Fold faces stiff competition at its premium price point, it offers a strong overall package. It may not introduce groundbreaking innovations, but for those looking for a reliable foldable with long-term software support and excellent AI capabilities, it’s a solid flagship option to consider.

OnePlus may have lost its distinct character as the brand grew into maturity, but that doesn't mean they're not making great phones still. Sure, OxygenOS is now just another name for Oppo's ColorOS, but why should ColorOS be a bad thing. Certain issues we had with the OnePlus 11 have been resolved on the 12 and it’s only the sub-standard water protection that remains - essentially all other high-end phones are rated for submersion, while the 12 isn't.

Excellence on the fundamentals should go without saying, after all we’ve out the phone on this list exactly for this. Even in this context, however, the OP12 is among the better ones in terms of battery life, charges faster than just about anything else mainstream, and has a display that does more HDR than a lot of competitors.

Sure, we're not quite fond of the 12's video output during the day, though we're almost convinced that the spectacular stabilization makes up for shortcomings elsewhere. Selfies are also unusually good, but more important, we feel, is the overall great stills performance from all rear cameras in all conditions.

In the end, the OnePlus 12 makes it quite easy for us. It's so great in many ways and only has small-ish missteps in just a couple of areas - that sounds like grounds for a recommendation.