The BEST Smartphones of 2023!

Best foldable of 2023 and the first to properly compete with Samsung, with better cameras, battery and software.

Still a good compact phone, but a price rise and little upgrade lose it his award this year.

A very close runner-up for best compact phone, with good looks, performance and cameras better than the specs suggest.

Best compact phone of 2023, with long battery life, a headphone jack, microSD and a physical camera button.

Wins best battery award by matching the Xperia 5 V's battery life at $400, though the naming is poor.

Wins most improved phone: strong specs at around $700, though camera processing needs work.

Densely specced for an upper mid-range price, but lacks water resistance and wireless charging, and the invisible selfie camera performs terribly.

Gaming phone of the year, with top performance, huge battery life and a great accessory ecosystem.

Cool extras like a rear vent and second OLED display, but not worth over $200 more than the base model.

His pick for best camera and co-smartphone of the year, thanks to the 5x zoom, 24MP shots, portrait conversion, battery and USB-C.

Best budget phone: prioritises the right hardware, with a good chipset, flagship-feeling screen and a respectable 108MP camera.

Like the S23 with a bigger battery, but the nearly two-year-old Exynos 2200 chip makes $600 hard to justify.

A tier below, but really good and arguably much better value for money.

Nearly won mid-range with thoughtful design, the Glyph interface and no spec sacrifices.

Even better value than the Nothing Phone 2, but ruled out because it hasn't launched internationally.

The price hike pushed the base Pixel 8 out of mid-range territory.

Mid-range phone of the year: no real weak link, great photos and a price that drops fast.

Wooden spoon winner: old chip, weak camera, poor screen and battery at a full $429 price.

Wooden spoon winner: good software ideas but hardware that looks like a shelved prototype for the price.

Loved it as stylish with an awesome camera, but it is China-only.

He loved it, but it isn't sold in the UK.

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