Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

Used by his co-host for a year and a half and called very stable, preferred to the S22 Ultra.

Lasted 8 hours 15 minutes, marginally ahead of the S22 Ultra, so the newer phone does not improve on it.

He loved its design and says its camera improved a lot over the year, using it as the baseline for the S22 Ultra.

A striking but understated design and a well-rounded benchmark flagship, named a runner-up for best overall phone.

Praised as a stealthy-looking phone with a screen many labelled the best OLED to date, and a camera that is already close to the best.

Mentioned only as a benchmark score comparison, which the vivo beats by over 50,000 points.

Used as a camera comparison rival; its 108MP sensor gets less detail than the iPhone's 12MP on auto.

Used as the previous battery benchmark at 8 hours 41 minutes, which the iPhone 13 Pro Max beat.

Zoom champion and the more fun, expressive camera, but its video is clearly behind the iPhone.

Used as the benchmark: cheaper than the Fold 3, with a bigger battery and a much better camera.

Mentioned as a specialist pro-focused camera phone with 100x zoom that Apple needn't copy.

Samsung's most refined and polished phone, recommended without reservation if your hand is big enough.

His own phone, used as a benchmark reference that scores slightly lower than the Zenfone 8.

Used as an example of a powerful modern Android phone that handles the crashing Instagram story without trouble.

The phone Xiaomi set out to beat, and it still has the more reliable camera, nicer finish and better fingerprint scanner.

Used as the modern comparison for the S4 Zoom, also offering 10x optical zoom in a far slimmer body.

His camera champion, beating the OnePlus 9 Pro in almost every category apart from night photos.

Feels slightly more premium than the OnePlus 9 phones, with a full camera battle to come.

Beats the Find X3 Pro in camera, battery life, audio and display, so he sees it as the better choice if you want a pro phone.

Used as a benchmark comparison, running cooler but with lower sustained performance than the ROG Phone 5.

Used as the example of a flagship that ships without a charger or earphones and has no headphone jack, which he feels is not clearly greener.

Won the battery test with 8h41m, a very good score, but only level with last year's Snapdragon Note 20 Ultra.

The more versatile and enjoyable camera thanks to its zoom, macro and photo quality, though portraits, night mode and video processing fall behind the iPhone.

A much improved flagship that fixes almost every problem of the S20 Ultra, with better design, screen and zoom cameras, though the missing microSD slot is the one thing to watch for.