Hello guys
so i've spent the last five and a half
months collecting and testing
all the top globally available
smartphones i've rated every single ones
performance camera battery and display
based on what price it's selling for and
giving them an overall value rating
so with that in mind these are the top
22 smartphones in the world right now
from good to better to the best some of
these will surprise you
okay so at the back end is nokia
specifically the x20
which is their affordable flagship 2021
phone and
nokia's doing a lot of great stuff right
now their phones are all inexpensive
they're bloatware free nokia gives
extended warranties and loads of
software support their entire angle is
sustainability
smartphones that you buy and you keep it
really is an admirable message
but i think they focused a little too
much on this at the cost of
how capable their phones actually are
like for this x20
their marketing doesn't even mention a
single specification
that's like applying to university but
refusing to show them your grades
and fundamentally it's because this
phone is absolutely crushed
by even the cheaper phones from
companies like xiaomi so
b minus and then we've got samsung they
recently came out with the a52
which is like their mid-range flagship
of the year and there's nothing
inherently wrong with it
it's a fun design it's pleasant to use
but it costs too much for what it is
it's pretty clear that all samsung's
done is taken one of their top end
phones
and made everything a bit worse but for
500
in today's market you can nearly buy
yourself an actual flagship
so you don't need to make this kind of
compromise do you remember the oppo find
x3 pro
the company's 2021 flagship that looks a
little too close to the iphone for it to
be a coincidence
well there's plenty to like about it
it's supremely comfortable for starters
thanks to being made of one continuous
sheet of glass and that microscope
camera on the back is
it's unlike anything i've ever seen on a
phone before but
the main issue and this seems to happen
every year is that as soon as oppo
launches a flagship phone
it is pretty much destroyed and valued
by oneplus flagship that launches a
month later
both companies use very similar
components and materials and they are
good components and materials but
the fact that this phone is selling at
the equivalent of fifteen hundred
dollars
makes it much less good for the money
and
that's actually a pretty great segue on
to our next phone
so we're getting pretty used to the idea
of paying over a thousand dollars for a
top-end flagship right
but zte has something to say about that
yeah zte they are still making phones
but the ax130 ultra genuinely is worth
talking about
because it has the highest end
snapdragon 888 chipset a 144 hertz
refresh rate amoled display
big battery fast charging stereo
speakers really everything
and it even looks an awful lot like
samsung's note 20 ultra which is
not a taller criticism and most
significantly
i'm told this is going to cost 800
excuse me i was having a whale of a time
with it
until i tested the cameras and they
really revealed just how much progress
the competition has made
everything from the interface to the
image processing feels really behind
i'll reserve final judgement until
updates drop because
this camera hardware should be better
than this but in its current state
it's a b and thanks
okay the iphone 12 mini what is it
has not been a commercial hit when apple
first came out and announced that they
built a fully flagship 5g iphone that
literally fits into your palm
i think a lot of us thought whoa that's
gonna fly off the shelves
but it didn't according to research
firms this phone only made up about five
to seven percent of total iphone 12
sales
but that doesn't mean it's a bad phone i
think the reason it didn't sell well is
because a the price is so close to the
much bigger iphone 12
combined with b the apple has kind of
built an association between their
smaller phones
being their cheaper phones which may
have created the perception that the 12
mini was an
inferior product but really it is the
same speedy experience with a great
camera as the 12
that i can recommend to any iphone fan
who doesn't need a power user's level of
battery life
okay now we're getting on to the really
good phones the rog phone 5
is a beast it's the highest performing
smartphone i've used today
it's six thousand milliamp hour battery
is ludicrous actually earning it the
best battery phones so far in 2021
and its speakers are so punchy that you
will want to stop whatever it is you're
doing
and just lose yourself in them its only
problem comes from the fact that
it's a pretty specialized device like it
takes a certain kind of user to want to
carry a phone
of such monumental proportions tolerate
some slightly outdated looking bezels
and use a camera system that feels
noticeably lacking but if you are that
user then
bob's your uncle but what kind of
surprised me almost as much as phone
number one is going to surprise you
is that even though asus has been
dominating the gaming space for a while
now
i don't think they're the best value
anymore enter the lenovo legion phone
dual 2. it almost exactly matches the
rog in specs but you get 50
more ram and 100 more storage by default
it has fans built inside of it instead
of needing this external attachment
and somehow it's cheaper the hardware on
this phone is so good for the money that
they can't be making a lot of profit but
it is a little let down on the software
front
like the camera image processing isn't
getting the best out of the camera
hardware you have here
still though this is an a-grade phone
and is also the winner of
best gaming phone on the market right
now okay
you might remember from my best phones
of 2020 video that
one of the winners was a bit of a
surprise the zenfone 7 pro
it was just this no-nonsense combination
of a great price huge battery
seamless uninterrupted screen and a
capable camera that can also double as
basically the greatest selfie machine of
all time
well this is basically the successor to
that
so as you can probably imagine it's a
very good phone but it's no longer one
of the best
simply because all they've done is taken
last year's zenfone 7 and given it a
slight spec bump
and that's just not enough against
companies who are really pushing
still though i'm willing to bet that if
you ever get to try this selfie camera
it is so good that you have to smile
alrighty you might remember my video on
this guy the vivo x60 pro plus
to be honest i've used a decent amount
of vivo devices over the years
and i've always liked them but i've
never really loved them
they kind of developed a reputation for
a garish software overlay and crazy
levels of skin beautification in the
cameras
but the viva x60 pro plus is the first
viva phone i've used
that understands sophistication did i
just change my entire outfit to film one
sentence
maybe aesthetically it treads the line
well between looking fashionable
and looking like it means business and
everything from the gaming performance
to the camera performance
is very close to the best you can buy
and it helps that the camera is just
super fun to use
too it's slightly let down by a mono
speaker and
middle of the line battery but that
doesn't stop me loving it
number 13. this could be an unlucky one
again
[Music]
fashion fruit it's the iphone 12 pro
this is a great phone but the reason
that it's not higher up on the list is
that
the way i see it it's just an optional
extra to the 12.
it offers a few fairly minor features
like a lidar scanner for better
augmented reality
and a two times telephoto lens i
appreciate these but for the majority of
consumers the only notable difference
will be the extra storage it comes with
the fact that it's heavier and the fact
that it has a matte finish
it's basically the iphone to get if you
want to spend a bit more than the base
but you don't want to get the max sized
one and that leads me
onto the base iphone 12 because this
phone hugely benefits by how similar it
is to the 12 pro
you know just before they launched i was
using both these phones at the same time
and i couldn't even tell you how many
moments i had where i'd pick one off the
table
use it for a good five minutes only to
realize
i picked the wrong one up this phone is
just as powerful the screen is almost
identical
you still get all the same ios features
it's just
200 cheaper the only reason this isn't
higher up on the list is that
it only comes with a 60 hertz display
versus 120 or
the 144 we've started seeing now and it
only starts with 64 gigs of storage
which is going to end up being more like
50 by the time you factored in the size
of the operating system so still an a
grade
and just above that i would put samsung
space flagships
[Music]
there we go the s21 and s21 plus are not
the most exciting devices
they don't do anything particularly new
or groundbreaking in fact in a lot of
ways
they're a complete side grade from last
year's s20 phones
but they bring in a lot of smaller
quality of life improvements
they've had a redesign that takes them
from some of the worst looking flagships
to some of the best in my books
and in a bit of a surprise turn of
events
they're cheaper than last year's okay
we're in the top 10.
and if you are enjoying this video then
a sub to the channel would be
mighty i realized that for the last
month over 50
of you watching have been subscribed so
thank you
this is the xiaomi me 11. it's great
it's cheaper than the base s21
in just about every region but the us
and spec wise it's more of a match for
the galaxy s21 plus which is two hundred
dollars more than that
[Music]
the best way to think about the mi 11 is
there's a high-end flagship all around
with the best in-class display the only
potential hurdle is xiaomi's miui
software skin which to be honest i like
but i've showed it to enough people who
don't to know that
not everyone does and just above the
me11 is
not today milo then we've got the
oneplus 9
now this phone had a bit of a rough
launch i think what happened is that
oneplus basically spent an entire month
before it came out
hyping up their collaboration with
hasselblad giving us never-ending
teasers about how it was going to
revolutionize photography
but then when the phones actually
arrived hasselblad might as well not
have been involved
you couldn't tell and so justifiably
most reviewers came down
pretty hard on this but a few weeks
later i got a call from oneplus
they said we watched your camera
comparison we took your feedback on
board
and we've improved them don't get me
wrong this didn't immediately make it a
dream camera system
but for its price now it is a good
camera system and even without optical
image stabilization
it takes crisp smooth video plus of
course being a oneplus phone
you get fast bloat free software with
guaranteed updates it's a little more
focused on exactly what the user needs
with no unnecessary extras and because
of this they've managed to keep to their
tradition of staying
more affordable than their competitors
definitely a grade phone
then we've got the oneplus 9 pro which
is the 9's more
expensive counterpart and the reason
it's above it is that if you have the
budget
it's worth it it's basically the oneplus
9 but with all those little bits that
had to be trimmed
put back into it it's not quite an
ultraphone but it is a fully fleshed out
flagship
and in my eyes the best flagship phone
under one thousand dollars
okay we can't make a list of the best
phones
without including the pixel 4a it was
google's mid-range phone from 2020
and i usually try and refrain from
recommending last year's options when a
new one may well be around the corner
but given that this is available now for
299 dollars compared to
3.49 it was launched at given that it's
only gotten better since it launched and
the
because it's a google made phone it'll
most likely still get updates all the
way till android 14.
i wouldn't hesitate in still
recommending it the pixel 4a
should not be as good as it is no part
of this phone's spec sheet
is impressive in 2021 but it's just
carried by phenomenal software
not to mention it's a really enjoyable
size the bezels are nice and even
and it's powerful enough that i don't
think you'll be worrying about speed
but as much as i do like the pixel i'd
be lying if i said that that was the
best compact phone you can get
because that award goes to the zenfone
8. you might remember how i
completely grilled the way it looks in
my full review and i stand by it
but that doesn't change the fact that
like the iphone 12 mini
this is a flagship phone through and
through but unlike that phone
this one has a great battery too this is
pretty much the only small phone
where the fact that it's small has no
negative consequences
so this is an a plus in my books but now
we're on to the big boy phones
in fifth place is the iphone 12 pro max
it's a phone that providing you have the
budget and the palm size
it's an easy win i totally agree that
it's not the most exciting phone in the
world
but the reason that this is still the
main phone i use on a day-to-day basis
is that it's supremely reliable the
combination of ios levels of
optimization
with the best hardware you can get on an
iphone means that if i want to post an
instagram story
i know it's going to look good if i want
to send a whatsapp voice note
i know it's going to sound good
and the battery is going to reliably get
me through any day i throw at it
also this phone is so strong that it's
the first i've ever used caseless
i've dropped this thing enough times and
seen it come back unscathed enough
times that i just don't worry about it
anymore the only two things that do
sting a little are the fact that it's
distinctly uncomfortable to hold
and that it's the only phone even close
to this price bracket that doesn't have
a high refresh rate screen
now slightly better than even that is
why is samsung's top end phone i think
the galaxy s21 ultra is genuinely the
most refined
polished device they've ever released
it's a big visual upgrade over the s20
ultra
plus a long list of subtle corrections
which is exactly what that phone needed
it's taken it from incredibly capable
with mixed delivery
to incredibly capable with strong
delivery i like the way it looks
i like the way it feels and providing
you've got a hand big enough to hold it
i have no reservations in recommending
it and that leaves us with the best
overall flagship phone
if money was no object and this award
is going to the xiaomi me 11 ultra i
could spend 15 minutes straight just
talking about this phone
actually that's what i did a few weeks
ago i'll leave the video linked up here
but fundamentally the summary is this
thing is a nuclear missile
xiaomi looked at what samsung was doing
and built a phone squarely targeted
straight at it
it takes samsung's best features and
one-ups it in almost every aspect
for the same price i wouldn't say it
completely invalidates samsung's s21
ultra
i think this is still a nicer looking
phone i still think this has a more
consistent camera but for a true power
user you just
can't get more than this on a phone so
what on earth can be better than that
well we've got two more phones and
they're not trying to be the highest end
phones you can buy
but they're focused on value and their
value proposition is just so
unbelievably good
that it makes you want to take a chair
sit down and just have a think
what are other companies doing so in
second place
is the redmi note 10 pro now for those
of you who don't know
redmi is a spin-off brand of xiaomi who
have basically built a reputation for
one of the highest
spec to price ratios on the market so in
this case we have a 108 megapixel camera
a 120 hertz display 5020 million power
battery
and it's 279 this thing is
stupid levels of value it does have ads
in the software but
you can turn them off and i mean look
these are the kinds of photos i'm taking
on this phone
it's not even funny don't get me wrong
you will know when you're using it that
it's not a thousand dollar flagship
but it outperforms its price so severely
that
i'm gonna have to give this an a plus
plus in terms of value
and that leaves us with number one the
most worth it phone of 2021
and i guess by implication the most
worth it phone to have ever released
it's the poco f3 just like redmi poco is
yet another value-centric spin-off
company of xiaomi
but the difference with this phone is
that it's less about camera and it's
more about
processing power so in this case for 350
you get a 120 hertz amoled display you
get
a 4 520 milliamp hour battery but
the kind of crown jewel here is a
snapdragon 870 chip
it's not the absolute bleeding edge you
can get but it's an overclocked version
of last year's flagship 865. for this
price
that is ridiculous levels of performance
it makes the google pixel 4a look like
it belongs in a museum and while this
isn't google pixel quality software
no amount of software is going to change
the fact that it's twice as powerful
and i think what makes this phone
particularly impressive is the fact that
it takes more than a cursory glance to
even realize that it's not a flagship
it still has a glass back it still has
decent haptics
and it's just crazy that i can play the
most demanding games on the entire
android platform
at nearly their highest settings on a
phone that costs barely a quarter
of what the highest n1's do and so the
poco f3 earns not just my best
affordable phone award but also my
overall best
value phone award if you wanted to go
even cheaper you can get the poco m3 pro
which is fantastic value or something
like the real me 8 for 200
but my general recommendation is that if
you can try to spend a bit more
you will get a lot more okay couple of
things to mention here
there's been no lg on this list because
sad to say but
lg has finally left the smartphone
market there's been no sony on this list
because at the time of filming they
haven't quite launched their next xperia
1 mark
iii and also to be honest thus far i
have not tested a single sony phone that
i thought for a mainstream market was
better than the competition
but open to changing my mind on that in
the future though and finally i decided
to keep foldables out of this video too
just because as a category of phones i
feel like they're much harder to rank
under the same criteria okay here's
something to think about for a second
your location your operating system
every hardware detail of the device
you're on right now
as well as all your past browsing
history these are things that
you'd want to keep to yourself right
well this is how much information a
website immediately knows about you the
second you click on it
and to be honest if it's a website you
trust then it's fine
but there's probably a fair few that you
visit that you wouldn't want to know
this
and that's where surfsharkvpn comes in
as far as i've seen it's the most
affordable way to keep yourself
anonymous
it's just over two dollars a month for
as many people and devices as you want
but there's another perk
because you can effectively pick the
location that you want your device to
come from
i can for example pick the us and watch
us tv shows
you can effectively have the exclusives
for every single region
without leaving your home like if i want
to watch batman the dark knight
i just switch to canada and i can do
that so
check the link in the description and
use the code boss that'll give you 83
off and an extra three months for free
if you enjoyed this video then do
consider checking out my zenfone 8
review
the best compact phone i've ever used or
for something a bit more chill
20 inventions that i think are
completely next level
thanks for watching my name is aaron
this is mr who's the boss
i'll catch you in the next one
0 Comments