2025 is calling and if you need a new smartphone to ring in a brand new year, we have good news—there are lot of good options out there. Granted, there will be new models coming out next year too, but there is always something newer, faster, and shinier on the horizon, no matter when you’re ready to pull the trigger That’s just how it goes with technology. Don’t despair, though, because if your current smartphone is ready to be put out to pasture, there are several capable handsets that you can buy right now. Here are our top five picks, in no particular order.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold
You can buy Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold for $1,779 at Amazon, or check with your wireless carrier of choice for whatever offers might be available.
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL
It’s obviously the biggest of the bunch with a 6.8-inch OLED display (2992×1344, 120Hz refresh rate, 3,000 nits brightness). And while it’s another phone powered by Google’s own Tensor G4 processor, it’s plenty fast, just not the fastest compared to chipsets like Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon silicon.
Google stepped up the build quality and design with the Pixel 9 series, which in our opinion, puts it on par with what we’ve seen from Samsung in that regard. The design is simple and elegant, the camera performance is excellent, battery life is solid, and once again, the software side is top-notch. Likewise, you get seven years of updates.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
We love the titanium frame on Samsung’s flagship phone, as well as the fact that this comes with Samsung’s S-Pen to help put the large display to use. It has a powerful assortment of cameras, some nifty AI capabilities, and seven years of software updates to ensure it stays relevant for a very long time.
The downside? Simply put, it’s pricey. But if it’s within your budget, this is every bit a flagship smartphone. It is, however, marked down right now, which makes sense given that we’ll see the Galaxy S25 series before too long.
OnePlus 12
We dig the large and beautiful 6.82-inch OLED display (3168×1440, 120Hz refresh rate), and like Samsung’s flagship above, it’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. In some cases, it beat out the Galaxy S24 Ultra in our benchmarks, but even when it didn’t, it remained competitive.
Like other top-tier smartphones, the camera performance is great on the OnePlus 12. It also features fast wired and wireless charging (and comes with a charger in the box!), it has outstanding battery life, and a killer price that’s even more tantalizing than when it first launched earlier this year.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro / Pro Max
The OLED display on both of these handsets is outstanding, as is the hardware inside. There’s not much that separates the Pro and Pro Max, either—the latter is a little larger and offers a bit more battery life, but otherwise, either one gets you a strong A18 Pro processor (2P + 4E CPU cores, 6-core GPU, 16-core neural processor) and the same camera arrangement (12MP front shooter along with a 48MP Fusion lens, 48MP ultra-wide lens, and 12MP telephoto lens on the rear).
For those of us who have gone hands-on with the iPhone 16 Pro / Pro Max, we’re split on the dedicated camera button. Ben found it to be “far too stiff” while this author found it to be fine for what it’s intended for. If you’re able to, however, it’d be worth heading into a Best Buy or a wireless carrier store and trying it for yourself.
And finally, here are some honorable mentions worth considering that were also very close to making our short list…