Best Smartphones Of 2024: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Vivo X Fold 3 Pro, More

Best Smartphones Of 2024: iPhone 16, OnePlus Nord 4, and more made it to our honourary list.

Best Smartphones Of 2024: 2024 has been quite an eventful year when it comes to smartphones, with several phones stepping into the Indian smartphone market. From budget performers to mid-segment masters to smoothly sailing flagships to phones that flipped and folded, 2024 had them all. And more. Some got lost in the crowd while some managed to shine even in the most jam-packed and competitive price segments. 

As the year comes to an end, we round up the ones that came out on top in our book. Here is a list of the absolute best smartphones that  2024 witnessed, not restricted by price segments : 

iPhone 16: The Truly New iPhone

While it is not surprising to see a new iPhone on the list, what might be surprising to some is the fact that it is a non-Pro one. In 2024, it was the pro-less iPhone, the iPhone 16 that turned out to be the most impressive of the lot. It came with a number of improvements that bridged the gap between the pro and the pro-less iPhones. 

This was because, unlike its recent predecessors, the iPhone 16 came with a design (read "camera unit") different enough to help it look like a ‘new’ iPhone and stand out from the usual iPhone crowd. 

Apart from the looks, the iPhone 16 also came with a number of spec improvements - it got the Pro's Action button, and also the newly introduced and much-hyped Camera Control button that the new Pros came with too. Also on its upgrade list were a superb 48-megapixel main sensor on the back, autofocus on the 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor and the ability to shoot 4k videos with the front camera. 

Most important of all, it was powered by the A18 chip and came with Apple Intelligence support. Add improved battery life wireless charging support as fast as its wired charging support, and the usual iPhone smooth performance, all at an unchanged price tag, and the iPhone 16 was not only the best non-Pro iPhone we had seen for years but was also one of the best phones of 2024. 

Vivo X Fold 3 Pro: The Flawless Fold? 

The X Fold 3 actually managed to solve many of the issues that had been plaguing foldables for years, which other brands had been unable to tackle.  The biggest benefit of a foldable phone was to have a fully functional phone and a tablet combined into one but most foldable came with a compromised cover/secondary display (often awkwardly tall and of lower quality and resolution) making it feel exactly like a secondary screen and nothing like a phone. 

The X Fold 3 Pro, however, brought along a 6.53-inch display which came with a 120 Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision+, 4500 nits peak brightness and Armor glass on top, basically the flagship works.  While most foldable phones tend to be bulky and give pencil box feels, the X Fold 3 Pro Vivo was 11.2 mm thin and weighed just 236 grams, in spite of boasting one of the biggest displays we have seen on a foldable - a brilliant 8.03-inch AMOLED one.

It also folded perfectly, with no space between its two halves when folded. In specs, it was flagship-y as flagships get, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, plenty of RAM and storage, and a big 5,700 mAh battery, which came with another rarity on folding smartphones: super fast 100W wired and 50W wireless charging support. 

The X Fold 3 also buried the myth of foldable coming with inferior cameras - it came with a very good 50-megapixel main sensor, another 50-megapixel ultrawide and a 64-megapixel periscope telephoto lens with OIS and 3x optical zoom, all created in partnership with legendary camera name Zeiss. 

Rounding off the spec feast were two very good 32-megapixel selfie cameras, one each on the cover display and on the foldable one.  It was the nearest thing to foldable perfection we saw in 2024. 

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra: In A Zone Of Its Own… Again

Smartphones may come and go but the Ultra in Samsung's Galaxy S flagship lineup is a shoo-in for any best phone of the year list. The Galaxy S24 Ultra continued that tradition, even though its successor is just around the corner. 

That is because the Galaxy S24 Ultra remains a phone like no other. As always, it came with top-of-the-line flagship specs like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy Chip, created keeping AI front and centre, impressive RAM numbers, up to 1 TB storage, and a big 5,000 mAH battery with 45W charging support along with Android 14 with a layer of Samsung’s OneUI on top, and a software update assurance for up to six years. 

And then there were the real stars of the show: a beautiful, vibrant, tall 6.8 inch Quad HD+ Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X display with 120 Hz refresh rate, and an awesome camera set up featuring a 200-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel periscope sensor offering 5X optical zoom, a 10-megapixel telephoto offering another 3X optical zoom. and a 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor As if this did not make the Galaxy S24 Ultra an absolute powerhouse in more ways than one, it also came with the best stylus tech in town - the legendary S Pen.

It remains the go-to device for those who want a phone that does it all, and the spiritual successor to the OG Galaxy Note.

Google Pixel 9 Pro: Massive AI Goodness In A Compact Frame

AI was the word of the year in 2024 with smartphone manufacturing branding and pushing phones with the features left, right and centre. 

And the one phone that managed to actually nail the feature was the Google Pixel 9 Pro. The phone came with Google Gemini Live as the default assistant, Pixel Studio that could generate images, Magic Studio that lets you add and remove objects from a photograph and even change the time at which it was taken, and a lot of other AI sorcery, including some amazing transcription and translation. 

Accompanying this was the usual Pixel package of great cameras combined with Google’s computational photography prowess, Google’s Tensor G4 chip, clean stock Android experience with seven years of promised updates and a day-long battery life with 45W charging support.  All of this in a 152.8 mm x 72 mm x 8.5 mm frame of premium glass and metal that weighed a mere 199 grams, making it one of the most compact flagship phones of 2024. 

It was pretty much the AI Phone of the year.

OnePlus Nord 4: Midsegment Master With Heavy Metal Inside

2024 was not just about flagships. It had a mid-segment star too - the OnePlus Nord 4. Its beautifully crafted metal back came as a breath of fresh air in a world of plastic and metal, and made it the standout phone of the year in terms of design,  eclipsing even its own flagship sibling, the OnePlus 12. 

Along with its very good looks, it came with a strong spec sheet for its price, in OnePlus' OG flagship killing tradition - a 6.74-inch AMOLED display with 120 Hz refresh rate, the segment-topping Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 chip, and RAM and storage aplenty. 

Its main 50-megapixel Sony Lytia sensor with OIS gave flagship feels and keeping it running was a huge 5,500 mAh battery with support for 100W SuperVOOC charging, with a charger in the box as well.  

All this with OnePlus' OxygenOS 14.1 and AI features, which were not common at this price point, with a commitment of four years of Android updates and six years of security updates. It was perhaps the best blend of design, specs and price that we saw all year - heavy metal stuff.