Phones

A brilliant phone, but its confusing rebrand as the Mi 9T in the West is used as an example of poor regional variant handling.

Escobar's first phone, a rebadged Royole FlexPai sold at $349.

Best foldable available and a great piece of engineering, but specs are a generation behind for the price, so he would not personally buy i…

A gaming phone with a huge accessory bundle that is clever marketing and still cheaper than a thousand-dollar flagship.

A wacky $250 crypto phone with modest specs, notable for being the first with full Bitcoin node support.

A gaudy Gundam-themed limited edition that looks better in person, with a nice bundled case and a 65W charger.

A CES hidden gem with localised haptics that lets you feel textures and virtual buttons, saving battery too.

Pressure-sensing concept phone that he thinks will be pivotal as screens wrap around devices and buttons disappear.

A good phone with a strong camera and big battery, aimed at younger buyers, but its S-series name is misleading.

Mentioned as an example of Samsung's budget phones at around £100.

Mentioned as an example of Samsung's mid-range phones at just over £300.

Aimed at business users with an S Pen and headphone jack, but its plastic build and old Exynos 9810 chip don't suit the Note name.

Fun, striking limited-edition phone with excellent low-light video, but software is much the same as the far cheaper Mate 30 Pro, so it is…

Very close to the A70 experience, a little smaller and almost $100 cheaper, so better value for many.

The Aura Glow version is bold and colourful but not his favourite; he finds the Note 10+ sleek in a sneakier finish.

A well-thought-out limited edition that he thinks is fairly priced for the extras, with a themed UI and a lightsaber-style red S Pen.

Nicer materials, front-facing speakers and a better camera, though sales were still modest.

A fascinating piece of history with a surprisingly good keyboard and strong software foundations, but the trackball, screen and camera show…

Affordable, glass-backed and the first completely lag-free Android phone, which he instantly loved.

Liked the redesigned hinge but skipped it as it wasn't a Google launch device.

Aggressive design, top-tier specs for its time and a plain Google software experience.

A beastly phone and a flying start for Nexus, held back only by poor sales from the sell-direct model.

A big step forward from the G1, with a slimmer body and no physical keyboard.

Price-constrained with a 1080p LCD, but a good chip and clean software at $379 made people happy.