Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “What smartphones did we LOVE this year?”.
Guys so 2020 just about over and it was a pretty rough year. Not a lot of great stuff happened this year, but there was a lot of really good tech that came out this year. So i wanted to get a few people over android authority together to talk about their favorite smartphones of the year, because this year in particular, i think that smartphones got pretty exciting again. So, let’s kick it hello friends, joe handy here and my favorite phone of 2020 was the samsung galaxy. Note.
20 ultra. I was gon na go with the lg v60, but there are heavy rumors. That samsung is ending the note lineup, so i’m gon na gush for a minute on what might very well be the last galaxy note. Samsung did a lot of stuff right this year, but they do a lot of stuff right every year and it honestly feels like some people, don’t appreciate the consistency. The specs are top-notch. The camera experience is very good. The battery life is also very good, and the screen is among the best in the business. It’S a giant phone, just like every galaxy note and of course we still have the legendary s pen.
What i liked most about this phone is that in true galaxy note fashion, the device doesn’t really have a weak point. It didn’t come with a headphone jack, but no other phones come with a headphone jack these days, except for lg. So it’s an industry critique at this point. Otherwise it’s expensive and that’s about the only consistently negative thing that you can say about the phone again. I just feel like some people, don’t appreciate the consistency anymore, and it makes me the big sad because this phone is awesome. If it is the last one, it’s nice to see samsung going out on a high note. Get it high note. Sorry, anyway, aside from the headphone jack, this phone has everything else and it’s hard to criticize the headphone jack removal when everybody else is doing it. This thing even gets updates nearly every month. It’S such a good phone in a line of very good phones and if it’s the last one i’m gon na miss the galaxy. Note series: hey guys, ryan thomas here, and i would say that this year my favorite smartphone is the xiaomi mi 10. Ultra now, from our review, you saw this mega specs 120 hertz display 120 x zoom, although i’d recommend against using that all of the time silly fast charging silly fast wireless charging, crazy specs, i mean you can even get this thing with 16 gigabytes of ram, which Is nuts for a smartphone? This thing is packed to the gills with specs and if you can get it outside of china, i do recommend it for those looking for one of the best of the best smartphones on the market.
So my favorite phone has to be the pixel 4a and, let’s be honest, it’s because of the price 2020 was a pretty crazy year. So when i was looking for a phone, i figured i shouldn’t splurge on the biggest and baddest phone on the market. I needed something a little more low key and then the pixel 4a came out. It has the same camera as the pixel 5.
It has a really good screen seriously. I think this is underrated. How good this screen is, and it has a pretty solid battery life plus, i feel like it’s. The perfect size for my hand, like the 4a 5g, was a little bit too big and it has a fingerprint sensor which has been super helpful in the age of mass, not to mention this has a headphone jack. So no more dongles spec wise, the 4a. Isn’T a beast, but it does everything that i need it lets me take pictures and process the images relatively quickly. I can do the night sky mode, which is pretty cool uh. I browse social media day to day i don’t really care about 5g or wireless charging.
Although i do wish that it had waterproofing, but i feel like as long as i bring an umbrella and avoid pools, i should be fine plus look at that. Teal button ain’t that cute, hey everyone see scott brown here. I’Ve been tasked with telling you about my favorite smartphone of 2020 and that phone is the asus rog phone three. This is the phone that i have been the most impressed by this year and uh.
If you just look at the spec sheet, you can see why i mean this phone has the best processor of the year, the snapdragon 865. Plus it’s got a huge battery tons of ram tons of internal storage. I mean it’s just got everything up. The display is incredible: no interruptions, no display cutout, no notch.
None of that nonsense. Yeah. It’S got some big bezels on the top and bottom, but i’d rather that than a you know: a big black dot in the middle of the display. That’S interrupting my my video watching or my gaming or whatever it is that i’m doing so, yeah, oh and the display 144 hertz display refresh rate, which is just super smooth, and so amazing it’s just once you use it.
You can’t go back and yeah, so i i love this phone now. There are other phones out there that have a similar specs pedigree uh such as the galaxy note 20 ultra, but the software on this phone is a lot better than one ui. I think asus has just done a terrific job. It’S it’s very similar to something like oxygen os or even the pixel ui, where it keeps things super simple and very close to stock android, but adds in some new features to make it so it’s more usable and that’s just something that one ui can’t compete with. One ui, in my opinion, is just it’s just bloated, there’s just too much going on so yeah. I love this phone, my favorite phone of the year, the only reason that this phone isn’t my daily driver. The only reason that i don’t use this phone every day is just because it’s just it’s just too big.
This phone is just massive. It’S a huge phone, it’s physically big, it’s very heavy! It’S not the kind of phone that i want to just keep in my pocket all day for that, i’m still using the oneplus 7 pro. But if i had to tell someone what the best phone of the year was, it would be this one, the asus rog phone 3.. So i kind of cheated – and i picked a few different phones this year because there have been so many good phones this year that all kind of surprised me. I just had to pick three.
First of all, you got the pixel 4a and i think this phone surprised a lot of people this year. It’S got pretty good, build quality for what it is. It’S screen is really fantastic. You’Ve got really tight integration with all google’s apps and services, and it’s 350 bucks, and i think, for most people, they’re not gon na, feel like they really need that extra performance that you’re gon na get from a more flagship phone unless you’re like a gamer or Something but overall it was a really solid device and for 350, that’s pretty hard to turn down next up.
For me, i got the oppo find x2 pro and honestly, this phone specifically very much surprised me this year. I wasn’t expecting to like an oppo phone. This much especially because the first apophone i ever reviewed the oppo r15 pro i really really didn’t like coloros – was really janky and not great back then, but then, when apple sent, the find x2 pro over. I was super impressed like color.
Os is a lot better. This thing charges at 65 watts so you’re able to charge it up to full in like half an hour. The screen is really really good and it’s also 120 hertz. There’S a 5x optical telephoto camera on here.
The main camera is super great, with amazing white balance. Like this phone is awesome and of course it’s got that really nice leather back that you’re gon na get on this device. So, yes, it’s really expensive, but it is a really nice premium phone.
If you got the cash for it and the glass for me this year has got to be the samsung galaxy z flip. I did not expect this phone to delight me as much as it does. I mean it starts normal size and then it closes clamshell to be this little tiny box and it’s almost hard to find in your pocket once you have it in there. There were multiple times where i actually thought that i lost the phone because it was just deeper in my pocket than i was used to so if you’ve got the cash for it and you want to experience a folding phone, i mean z-flip, really cool okay. So i think that’s about it for us today, but make sure you leave your comment down below what your favorite phone of the year was and also over on the website on android authority.com.
We actually have an upcoming thing where you can vote for the reader’s choice phone of the year, so make sure you go and do that very very soon. We’Ll have more info on that as it comes i’ll catch you guys in the next article .