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If you need a new smartphone, where can you get fast and accurate comparison on what to buy? This site is meant to deliver fast and easy comparison of world’s best smartphones and make it easy to decide what to shop for. I fell in love with mobile phones with Motorola StarTAC back in 1996… since then I used over 20 phones by Nokia, Samsung, Apple, LG, Vivo, Honor and Sony and I still think there is a level of immeasurable magic in every mobile phone. I’m following all the main websites about mobile technology daily, I love watching for new products and updates, love seeing new patterns emerge and it makes sense that I want to share it with you. I collect lots of data about phone makers and their products and I’m trying to find better ways of quantifying and organizing that information – my score string is based on that idea: easily showing the success of a bunch of great components in creating a great and sometimes magical phone.

How to rank phones

Regardless of individual taste, everyone wants their smartphone to meet some basic requirements. We all want fast performance (1), a full day of battery life (2), a screen that will make it easy to interact with the phone (3), some reasonable water protection (4), good main (5) and selfie cameras (6), video recording (7) and a phone that comes with enough memory so we’re not forced into monthly cloud subscription (8)… It is also reasonable to have a phone made to last over several years of OS software and security updates (9).

Finally, (in order to be green and eliminate buying a computer) it will be great if to have one single device for all of our Internet, computation, digital storage and communication needs. Modern phone processors provide incredible computing power so why not connect your phone to a large screen, keyboard and mouse when you need a computer? This is not a new idea and great progress has already been made. Top Samsung phones come with a DeX (Desktop eXperience) feature that turn the phone into a desktop computer replacement with real multi tasking, resizable windows and file and printer services. Huawei, Honor and Motorola are also offering this feature with their best phones and there is a rumor that Google will add this feature to all Android phones in the future. This Computer replacement feature completes the list of 10 categories I use to evaluate every phone.

The first 5 categories are more important and each carry up to 15 points, the second 5 could be called “value categories” and carry just 5 points each, making the maximum total score 100 points. Price is not included in my evaluations because it is market driven and rarely matches the actual value and utility (usefulness) of a phone. Here is how I assign points for each of the 10 categories:

1. Performance (max 15 points)

The Performance score is a combination of Processor and performance tests. Every year the processor scores of all phones on my list are updated after the first phone with a next gen chip arrives. Apple, Mediatec or Qualcom are the main producers of smartphone processors and all follow a yearly cycle, starting in September of every year. Processor points are given for performance tiers as follows:

10 pts : this year’s top chip by Apple, Mediatec or SnapDragon
8 pts : top chip from last year or similar performance level
6 pts : top chip from 2 years ago or similar performance level
4 pts : top current midrange chip or similar performance level
2 pts : top midrange chip last year or similar performance level
0 pts : lower or older processors or similar performance level

Another 5 points are available for phones with top performance results for their processor grade. This score rewards faster memory and more RAM in a phone. Phones get:

5 pts : top performance group
3 pts : average performance group
0 pts : poor performance

I use a combination of GeekBench and AnTuTu tests to assign the performance score.

2. Battery (max 15 points)

Like the Performance score, the Battery score also has 2 sources of points. One is the battery endurance from a full charge and the other is how fast can the phone’s battery be charged.
Endurance score:

12 pts : >24 hours of use
6 pts : <24 hours
0 pts : <12 hours

Another 3 points are available for charging from 0 to a 100% in minutes:

3 pts : <30 min
2 pts : 30-60 min
0 pts : >60 min

3.Screen (max 15 points)

The Screen score has three sources of points: screen brightness, screen resolution and screen features. The screen brightness is essential when using the phone outdoors, sometimes in a bright sunlite. Its measured in nits and the scores are assigned as follows:

5 pts : >1300 nits of peak brightness
3 pts : 900-1300 nits
0 pts : <900 nits

Screen resolution as measured by screen density (pixels per square inch):

5 pts : >500 ppi
3 pts : 400-500 ppi
0 pts : <400 ppi

The final contributor to the total Screen score are the combined high screen refresh rate (120Hz) and ability to serve HDR10 (high-dynamic range standard) or better content. The 5 possible points are given as follows:

5 pts : 120Hz & HDR10 or better
3 pts : <120Hz or <HDR10
0 pts : neither 120Hz nor HDR10

4. Protection (max 15 points)

A way to measure phone’s build quality is to look at it’s ability to survive high impact and/or dust and water immersion. I use the following scale:

15 pts : military standard & >IP67
12 pts : water submersible (>IP67)
6 pts : rain tolerant (>IPX4)
0 pts : no protection

5. Main camera (max 15 points)

One of the main features of a modern phone is that it can take pictures we will want to hold on to for many years. I measure this feature by looking at the quality and consistency of phone’s back cameras in light and dark conditions. The focus is on image quality but I note in my list if a phone doesn’t have all of the typical 3 main cameras (the wide, ultrawide and a telephoto lens) plus a selfie on the screen plane. The Main camera scores are assigned as follows:

15 pts : TOP 10 camera
12 pts : excellent shooter that didn’t make it to the top tier
9 pts : a reliable shooter
3 pts : some good images
0 pts : unreliable camera

6. Selfie camera (max 5 points)

The selfie camera photo quality is essential to some while has no importance to many people. This is why I assign a separate score to it:

5 pts : AF with excellent photos day and night
3 pts : reliable shooter
0 pts : unreliable camera

7. Video recording (max 5 points)

Like Selfie camera score, this one is not a “major” concern to most phone owners. But for others, this is the first thing they want to know about their next phone. I evaluate the Video recording like this:

5 pts : excellent in all conditions
3 pts : reliable but inconsistent
0 pts : unreliable video recording

8. Expandable memory (max 5 points)

Since phone makers started offering cloud services, the reliable and cheap memory expension cards have vanished from modern phones. Nowadays, only Sony consistently includes them on it’s flagship phones but this feature really deserves our attention. It is not just that we dislike the idea of having to pay a monthly subscription for more storage. What about times when signal is poor and we can’t access the cloud? Or when roaming and having to pay expensive data charges to access something that should live in phone’s memory? What about all the times when you couldn’t record another video because of low free storage?… I rank this feature as follows:

5 pts : SDmemory slot
3 pts : a non-SDmemory slot
0 pts : no memory expansion

9. Software (max 5 points)

I measure two things related to phone’s software: the stability of phone’s operating system (OS) and the promissed number of OS upgrades a phone will get in the future. Points are assigned as follows:

5 pts : stabile OS with 4+ yrs of OS updates
3 pts : non stabile OS or <4 yrs of OS updates
0 pts : non stabile OS and <4 yrs of OS updates

10. Desktop replacement (max 5 points)

Just like Expandable memory, this is an item that adds a tremendous value to a phone allowing you to greatly simplify things while saving hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars over your phone’s lifespan. Samsung created DeX (Desktop eXperience) function and started adding it to it’s most expensive phones in 2017 and Huawei, Motorola and Honor followed suit. One day, all phones should act as computer replacements providing easy access to a bigger screen, mouse and a keyboard. After all, most of us use computers for web and light work that any current phone can process.
The points are assigned as follows:

5 pts : stabile desktop replacement feature
3 pts : works but needs improvement
0 pts : none

I list the scored points in a score string below each phone’s name, aways following the same order. The Main camera score is always the 5th number, it is always preceded by Ingress protection and always followed by Selfie camera score and so on.

This is what Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max’s score string looks like:
15+12+13+12+15+5+5+0+5+0 = 82
It tell us the phone has top scores in 5 out of 10 categories: 1st number (Performance), 5th (Main camera), 6th (Selfie camera), 7th (Video recording) and 9th (Software) number. It also shows 0 scores for the 8th (Expandable memory) and 10th (Desktop replacement) numbers. We can also see that Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max excells in battery life (has 12 out or 15 points there) – if it didn’t last over a full day of use (12 pts), it’s Battery score would have been 9 points or less (3 or 6 pts for lasting less then 24 hours, plus up to 3 points for charging speed).

Privacy policy

There is no data collected by me on this site and I don’t collect any cookie information either. I use WordPress Google Site Kit plugin to optimize and view traffic – it does collect some data but it is completely anonymized on my end.

I think it would be useful to you to be able to save your current phone on my main page. You could then easily compare it to newly added phones or even receive an email when a better phone is listed. This would add a cookie to your browser. What do you think about having this feature added? Please let me know…


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Thank you for visiting,
Milos