Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

Mentioned as the previous generation, with camera output similar to the S24 Ultra; he suggests S23 owners may do well to hang on.

Last year's Samsung, used as a benchmark; the S24 Ultra improves on its faces, noise and app but loses some zoom reach.

Used as the reference point for the S24 Ultra's upgrades, and described as having already very good battery life.

Smartphone of the year and a masterclass box-ticker, with only video graininess in low light as a complaint.

Still the better phone for power users thanks to performance, camera versatility, signal and battery longevity, but it costs four times as much for a modest overall gap.

Strong camera with better selfies, a 3x portrait lens and slow-mo, but held back by grain in low-light video and a 12MP main sensor.

Used as the benchmark for camera quality, rated 10 out of 10 on the rear.

Narrowly beat the iPhone in his Twitter poll of the best-looking flagship phones.

Used as the big-phone benchmark, with a larger screen and bigger camera sensor, but he finds it too big and heavy.

Used as an example of a modern flagship with roughly eight times the performance of the Galaxy S7 Edge, yet mobile games barely use that power.

Mentioned as Samsung's flagship that gets better battery output than the Pixel despite similar capacity.

Mentioned as the flagship whose software, website listing and accessories contrast with the A14's.

Used as an example of Samsung under-selling a notable upgrade, its improved speaker system, at launch.

Its Moon mode uses AI trained on the Moon to add detail, which he says is a software trick rather than optics, and Samsung should have marketed it more honestly.

Huge camera improvement over last year that wins most categories, with stabilisation, zoom and night photos the standout gains, though the iPhone is still more reliable for video.

Looks almost identical to last year's model, but better cameras, faster storage, long software support and the move to Snapdragon won him over.