Introduction:
It’s time for my top five smartphones of the year so far.
And this list is in no particular order, I’m just giving you my personal top five favorites of 2024 and guess what hasn’t come out yet in 2024? A new iPhone. So there will not be an iPhone in this top five list, because a new one isn’t out this year as yet.
If you want to know what my favorite iPhone is, it is the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it made my top five list of 2023. It’s an amazing smartphone, great all rounder, I like the titanium builds, I like the consistent cameras, which I still think take the best video out there. The five X zoom is amazing for portraits and finally, finally we have USB Type C. Now with all of that out the way, let’s get to the list.
#1 Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra:
So the first smartphone on my list, once again in no particular order, is the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. It came out very early and really set the bar for the flagships of 2024. It’s an amazing all rounder. I like the new flat display now, so Samsung has got rid of the curves.
It’s got Gorilla Glass armor which is noticeably less reflective and it’s also more scratch resistant. I really like the new five X zoom camera, which doesn’t really compromise on that extended zoom that we had on the S23 Ultra and in actual fact, it gives you better extended zoom in low lights and I also prefer it for portraits. It’s powered by the 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy and no matter what region you get the S24 Ultra in, you will still get that same consistent chip set. The S Pen is super useful, even though I might not use it every day and Samsung has promised seven generations of Android OS updates, which brings it in line with Google’s actual devices.
Now it is packed with a bunch of AI features, which got lots of headlines, towards the beginning of the year, such as live translate, interpreter, all of the AI photo editing features where you can remove people from the background and use generative AI to fill in the gaps when you rotate an image. But if I’m completely honest with you, I very rarely use any of these AI features. I guess they’re nice to have, but they’re not something that I personally use every day.
The battery life on the S24 Ultra is pretty good overall, but there are other devices on this list that give you better battery life and faster charging. And this is a premium smartphone for a premium price. It starts at $1,300 or £1,250, making it the most expensive smartphone on this list. Having said that, Samsung do have lots of great offers.
Right now I believe they are offering double the storage for the same price. An honorable mention does have to go to the Samsung Galaxy S24 and the S24+, excellent smartphones offer a lot of what the S24 Ultra does, those AI features are all there, but at a lower price.
#2. OnePlus 12
Now the next smartphone on my list actually got overshadowed by the S24 Ultra I think and I think it’s the most underrated smartphone out this year, that is the OnePlus 12
Now it doesn’t have any fancy AI features, but it’s a solid smartphone, nevertheless. We have to talk about the price. The OnePlus 12 starts at around £850 in the UK or $800 in the US, but right now it’s on for $700. Now that is an amazing deal and significantly cheaper, almost half the price of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in the US. And for that you are getting a 120 hertz Pro XDR display. It gets super bright, you’ve got a partial peak HDR brightness of 4,500 nits. It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and the OnePlus 12 cameras are actually very good. They’re really good flagship level cameras. We’ve got some of the similar hardware that we had at the OnePlus open from last year and we have eight large 5,400 mAh power battery, which gives you excellent battery life with a 100 watt Supervooc charger included out of the box.
And OnePlus has promised four years of software updates and five years of security updates, which isn’t the seven years that Samsung and Google offer, but still pretty respectable I would say. And we do have that curved screen, I know this is something that comes down to personal preference, but I know a lot of people don’t a eight curved screen and prefer something flat. Now I do have to give an honorable mention to the OnePlus 12R, at $500, I think it’s a great deal, I would say it’s a bit of a cutback version of the OnePlus 12, kind of focused on gaming. There’s also a unique, “Genshin Impact,” version if you’re into that.
#3. Honor Magic6 Pro
The next smartphone on my list is the Honor Magic6 Pro. This is a great all around flagship. We have the full Google Play store, which some people will still ask me about, Honor devices have separated from Huawei a long time ago.
We’ve got a nice symmetrical design, a beautiful 6.8 inch 120 hertz AMMOLED display, which has a 5,000 nit peak HDR brightness. And it also has the industry’s highest PWM dimming frequency 4,320 hertz dynamic dimming, which makes it very easy on the eyes in low light conditions. We have excellent overall cameras, 50 megapixel primary with a variable aperture, which we don’t see much of these days. 50 megapixel ultra wide camera and a 180 megapixel periscope zoom camera, which I believe is the highest resolution on a periscope zoom camera out there. We still have Honor’s AI motion sensing capture, which is great to capture action shots and it is powered by the flagship, once again, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform.
Now this has one of the best battery lives on a smartphone that I’ve tested this year. It’s got a huge 5,600 mAh power battery and it does support 80 watts of supercharging or 66 watts of wireless supercharging. Unfortunately this year, Honor do not include the charger out of the box and we once again have four years of OS updates and five years of security updates, which is pretty good, but not as good as Samsung and Google. It also has an even more curved screen than the OnePlus 12, ’cause it curves on all sides. I think it looks amazing, but once again, some people don’t prefer that. Now Honor also released a special edition of the Honor Magic6 Pro, the Porsche Design Honor Magic6 RSR. This takes a lot of the features that we’ve got on the Honor Magic6 Pro and puts them in a very sleek package. You’ve got an improved display, improved cameras with LiDAR, but that is £1600. If you’re after something special, you might want to consider that. Now, so far on my list we’ve had some amazing flagships.
#4. Nothing Phone 2a
First up the Nothing Phone 2a. This is one of the most unique looking smartphones you’re going to find in this price range.
It has a cut down version of the glyph interface that we saw on the Nothing Phone 1 and 2 and although some people might consider it a bit of a gimmick, you can’t deny that it makes the device look very unique, especially with that transparent design. Now, unlike previous Nothing Phones, it does have a plastic build, but when you look at this device from the front, it looks like a proper flagship, 6.7 inch AMMOLED display, which is brighter than the Phone 1 and the Phone 2 and it has uniform bezels.
The cameras won’t compete with the previous devices in this list, but they’re not bad at all. It’s powered by the custom MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro Chip, which is an okay chip before the mid-range, but it’s definitely not geared towards gaming or anything. However, because of the software, the Nothing 2a actually feels very fast and smooth and that’s one big advantage in my opinion of Nothing OS, it’s super clean and minimal. I really do like it and Nothing do roll out. Lots of updates. It’s got a 5,000 mAh battery, which is actually bigger than previous Nothing versions. And it starts at £320 or $350 and I think that is a really good deal if you’re after something that’s quite unique and it’s going to do your day-to-day absolutely fine.
#5 Poco F6
Well, the last smartphone on my list, once again in no particular order, is the Poco F6. Now this is one of the first devices that’s powered by the 8s Gen 3 mobile platform. It’s got LPDDR5X surround with UFS 4.0 storage, a 120 hertz AMMOLED display and it’s actually very good for gaming for its price. It’s got a 5,000 mAh power battery, with 90 watts of turbocharging included, out of the box, you’re not going to have to get this separately and all of that package is for around £340, which I think is a great deal.
Now once again, it does have a plastic build, which might not really even matter to you, ’cause most people use their smartphone in a case and the F6 does come with a case out of the box. Now the cameras aren’t really going to blow you away or compete with some of the flagships that we mentioned earlier in this video, but some of those flagships are three, maybe even up to four times the price of the Poco F6. So for me, this is an amazing deal and that’s why it’s made my top five list.
Honorable Mentions
Now before we conclude, there are some honorable mentions that almost made my top five list, but I think we do need to give them a shout out. The first is the Oppo Find X7 Ultra with its quad 50 megapixel camera set up, the one inch size sensor and the world’s first dual periscope telephoto camera.
Now the reason this didn’t make my top five list, is because it’s not readily available in the west, like the UK and the US. Yes, you can get it imported in and from other retailers and things, but it’s not officially available. And a similar reason why the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra didn’t make my list either.We don’t have the Google Play Store, which really makes it hard for me to recommend it as one of my top five picks.
Some special gaming phone’s :
If you’re after a gaming phone, the ROG Phone 8 Pro is an absolute beast.
I also have to give an honorable mention to the vivo X100 Pro, which technically came out in 2023, but it is a 2024 smartphone.
It’s an amazing flagship device, which I just have not had enough time to test. So those are my top five favorite smartphones of 2024 so far with some honorable mentions.
Stay tuned…