I test all the best Android phones every year, and these are the ones you should buy in 2026

The camera system is where most buyers will spend their attention, and it’s a strong showing even if the hardware looks familiar on paper. Samsung kept the same sensor lineup as last year: 200MP primary, 50MP 5x periscope telephoto, 10MP 3x telephoto, and 50MP ultrawide. But it widened the maximum apertures on both the primary (now f/1.4, up from f/1.7) and the 5x telephoto (f/2.9, up from f/3.4), letting in noticeably more light across both lenses. In practice, results are excellent up to around 10x, where colors stay natural and detail holds up without looking processed. The ultrawide is a particular highlight, wide enough to swallow a tall landmark whole with minimal distortion and surprisingly good low-light results. Beyond 30x, things get artificial-looking in a way that’s hard to ignore, but most people have no business shooting at those distances anyway.

The 5,000mAh battery handles a full day of heavy use without drama, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the first Samsung flagship to push past the 45W charging ceiling it sat at for years, now supporting 60W wired and 25W wireless Qi2.2. You will need a compatible magnetic case for wireless charging though, since Samsung has once again skipped the embedded ring.

The new Privacy Display is a neat hardware trick for keeping sensitive content away from prying eyes, though how much you actually use it will depend entirely on how often you’re logging into banking apps on the bus. Seven years of software updates, Gorilla Armor 2, IP68 protection, and a Galaxy AI suite that’s mercifully less pushy than recent generations round out a package that’s more complete than its predecessor. It’s a big phone at 163.6mm tall and 78.1mm wide, and the Armor Aluminum 2 frame has sharper edges than the titanium build it replaced. But as a flagship for Samsung loyalists who want the best of everything the ecosystem offers, the Galaxy S26 Ultra finally feels worth getting excited about again.

The camera system won’t win any spec sheet arguments. There’s no telephoto lens, and the 8x maximum zoom is purely digital. But in practice, it’s one of the best dual-camera setups at this price. Low-light performance is genuinely impressive, Night Sight does heavy lifting in dimly lit environments, and Google’s computational photography keeps colors and details looking natural across the board. The Pixel 10a also handles tricky subjects well, picking out fine details and fast-moving subjects with the kind of consistency you’d normally expect from a phone that costs significantly more.

The Tensor G4 chipset is a year old at this point, and 8GB of RAM means a handful of Google’s more advanced features are off the table. No Pixel Screenshots, no Magic Cue. But for everyday use the Pixel 10a runs smoothly and without frustration, and what you do get is a genuinely full Pixel experience: Now Playing, Google’s calling tools, Material 3 Expressive UI, and seven years of OS and security updates. At $500, no other Android phone comes close to bundling this much software quality, this much camera capability, and this much long-term reliability into one package.

The design is familiar to the point of frustration if you’ve spent any time with the rest of the 2026 Moto G family, but there are details worth appreciating once you look past the shared DNA. Motorola’s Pantone partnership continues to pay off — the Evening Blue finish is a deep, near-black navy that looks genuinely premium, and the textured rubber back panel is grippy and fingerprint-free in a way that makes you question why more phones don’t do this. The 6.8-inch Full HD LCD with 120Hz refresh and 1,000 nits of peak brightness is also the clearest differentiator within the Moto G range, stepping up from the lower-resolution panels on cheaper siblings. Motorola still inexplicably dressed the camera bump with three rings for two actual sensors, but that’s a cosmetic gripe rather than a functional one.

Under the hood, the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset and 8GB of RAM won’t win any benchmark contests. It trails the Nothing Phone 3a and Samsung Galaxy A26 5G in both CPU and GPU tests, and matches its cheaper Moto G siblings more closely than you’d hope. Real-world performance is serviceable rather than smooth, handling everyday tasks well enough but showing its limits if you push it. The two-year Android update commitment is the other soft spot, and it’s hard to overlook when Samsung offers four years on phones that cost less. Where Motorola does stand out is the camera setup. The 50MP primary sensor with its f/1.8 aperture handles daylight shots with solid color accuracy, and the 8MP ultrawide is a meaningful step up over the macro-only lens on cheaper Moto G models. Low-light results are modest but honest, and the software macro mode consistently surprises. For $299.99, it’s not a perfect phone, but it covers the bases that matter most.

The performance picture is less flattering. The Exynos 1330 chipset and 4GB of RAM handle light everyday tasks well enough — streaming, social media, basic navigation — but push it harder and it shows its limits quickly. Heavier apps struggle to settle in, and anything demanding enough to test the GPU is a lesson in patience. The 90Hz refresh rate and 800-nit peak brightness are both modest relative to the competition, and outdoor visibility in bright sunlight is a genuine frustration. The 25W wired charging is also unchanged from the previous generation, which feels like a missed opportunity when Motorola’s cheaper options already offer 30W.

Six years of updates and a stunning AMOLED display make the Galaxy A17 5G the easiest long-term bet at $200.

The 50MP primary sensor with OIS is the clear camera highlight, reliable in good light and decent enough when things get darker. The 5MP ultrawide and 2MP macro sensors are functional at best, and you’ll know it when you use them. The 5,000mAh battery is the other genuine bright spot, outlasting most of its competition in testing and hanging on well through light-to-moderate days. For anyone who needs a dependable, well-supported daily driver on a tight budget and isn’t planning to push the phone hard, the Galaxy A17 5G makes a reasonable case for itself. Just go in with realistic expectations about what $200 actually buys you.

Google’s 6.3-inch flagship packs the same hardware — 50MP primary, 48MP periscope telephoto, and 48MP ultrawide sensors — as the Pixel 10 Pro XL, but the smaller body makes it much easier to pull out of your pocket and grab a photo before you miss the moment. On top of that, the Pixel 10 Pro still supports all of the same AI-powered shooting modes like Auto Best Take and the Camera Coach with bonuses like Help Me Edit for when you want Google to add some spice to your favorite photos.

Want to see the proof for yourself? You can check out a whole bunch of our camera test samples in this Google Drive.

Of course, to make its compact Pro model run smoothly, Google had to make a cut or two. Thankfully, it didn’t follow the path of Apple’s previous Pros, putting different telephoto sensors on each size, but instead opted for a smaller battery. The Pixel 10 Pro packs a still-solid 4,870mAh battery with 30W wired charging from the same USB-C Pixel charger I’ve mentioned once or twice, and 15W Qi2 wireless charging. Otherwise, though, everything from the combination of aluminum and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to the top-notch build quality and the still-questionable Temperature Sensor is a perfect match for the full-sized flagship.

More specifically, the Razr Ultra packs an impressive 16GB of RAM in its base configuration with 512GB of storage by default, both of which are more than any of Samsung’s foldables can match. It then pairs them up with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and a 4,700mAh battery that towers over that of most flip phones I’ve reviewed. Not only that, but Motorola’s top-tier flip phone also packs a charging setup worth writing home about. The Razr Ultra ships ready to handle up to 68W wired TurboPower speeds with 30W wireless charging as a backup, at least as long as you have a capable charger. That’s fast enough to run circles around everyone but OnePlus in the US, and makes an already great phone feel even better.

Perhaps what wins the Razr Ultra the most points over Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip lineup is that I still prefer its cover screen experience. There are no hoops to jump through, no extra software to install, and no weird layouts to avoid. Yes, your apps use the entire display by default, meaning they might get cut off by the camera cutouts, but you can quickly fix that with a press of the gesture pill to compact the interface into a smaller square. On top of that, AI companions like Perplexity, Gemini, and Moto AI come optimized for the cover screen, making it easy to ask for help when needed.

While I don’t usually like to put too much stock into the way a phone looks — especially if I’m going to put it into a case — there’s no way around it on the Razr Ultra. Every colorful finish that Motorola offers comes from its close partnership with Pantone, and the different back panels offer more personality than the usual mix of Gorilla Glass can match. I reviewed the Mountain Trail version, which comes with a wooden back and a bronzed aluminum frame, but Motorola’s Scarab finish is an eye-catcher with its deep green color and slightly fuzzy Alcantara back panel. I might be concerned about how it’ll age in the coming years, but I can’t say I’ve seen anyone use materials quite like Motorola.

The camera system is the crown jewel, and it’s not particularly close. The large-sensor primary camera delivers wonderfully sharp images with natural bokeh, and Motorola’s color science is shockingly good — deep, saturated, and full of character in a way that makes you excited to press the shutter button every time. The 3x optical telephoto holds up impressively at 6x and even 10x, and the ultrawide is more detailed and consistent than you’d expect from a foldable. There’s a real sense of personality to every shot that most phones at this price simply don’t have. AI processing gets heavy-handed past 30x, but that’s a caveat that applies to pretty much every phone on this list.

The Razr Fold is the best book-style foldable you can buy in the US, and it isn’t particularly close.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 runs cooler and more consistently than the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in many rival flagships, matching the Z Fold 7 in multi-core performance while staying more thermally composed. The 8.1-inch inner display hits a staggering 6,200 nits of peak brightness, and the 6.6-inch cover screen is genuinely comfortable for one-handed use — you could easily spend most of your day on the outside display alone. The hinge is smooth and sturdy, and the crease is less noticeable than on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Seven years of software updates round out a package with very few meaningful weaknesses. It’s heavier than the Z Fold 7 at 243g, and the advertised 80W wired and 50W wireless charging speeds require proprietary Motorola hardware that isn’t in the box. Even so, charging is still considerably faster than the competition. For the best foldable experience available in the US right now, this is it.

Of course, those features aren’t completely unheard of in the flagship Android segment — well, 24GB of RAM is a lot — but its clever gaming tweaks set the ROG Phone 9 Pro apart. It pulls the programmable matrix from the back of the ROG Zephyrus and pairs it with pressure-sensitive triggers dotted around the frame to help you draw some of the controls off the 6.78-inch AMOLED itself. Those features, combined with the improved efficiency of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, had my colleague Rob Triggs gaming with a smile, pushing the ROG Phone 9 Pro as hard as he wanted to find out where its throttling point lay.

For what might be the first time, though, Rob also declared this to be a gaming phone he might not mind using every day. See, a lot of gaming-specific devices fall into the common trap of being too big, too edgy, and too expensive for casual usage, not to mention the fact that camera hardware almost always comes last. On the ROG Phone 9 Pro, however, you get an updated 50MP LYTIA 700 sensor for the bulk of your photography, and ASUS has reimagined its stabilization for better video shooting. The display is also brighter and smoother than before, topping out at a 185Hz refresh rate and 2,500 nits of brightness, which is more than enough for a bright, sunny day.

Also, if you’re serious about pushing the ROG Phone 9 Pro to its gaming limits (and why wouldn’t you be?), ASUS has several accessories worth checking out. Rob got plenty of mileage out of the detachable controller below, though he also mentioned the external cooling setup as a helpful option when trying to game and charge simultaneously. And, if you’re not set on the customizable LED matrix on the back, you can also check out the ROG Phone 9 to save a couple of bucks.