If you think you can kick your feet up, having decided on an Android phone over an iPhone, we have good news and bad news. The bad news? There's a lot of Android phones to choose from, and more than ever, there are multiple great choices at every price.

Onto the good news. Because we want to make your life easier, we’ve kept this list of our top Android choices easy. We won’t drown you with options, just show you the best choices for each different kind of buyer.


The list comprises the best smartphones we've tested, including budget and mid range picks that might surprise you. The most recent big launch is the Samsung Galaxy S20 and, though MWC itself has been cancelled, we're still expecting to see new hardware from Huawei, Xiaomi, Nokia and more. So we're still recommending the best of 2019's phones but with one eye on fresh releases and upcoming launches.

WIRED Recommends is the definitive to what to buy. Read our best gadgets guide to see what we recommend in every category we’ve tested. When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we earn a small affiliate commission. This does not impact the products we recommend.

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What are the best Android phones in 2020?

In an somewhat chaotic smartphone cohort, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ (£670) stands out. Not only is it a redesign of an already excellent, bestselling phone and the most impressive blend of specs, features and usability you can find within Android, it also launched without a major flaw or trade war sanction to diminish it. It's the best Android phone you can buy right now, though the Galaxy S20 is released on 13 March.


View the Samsung Galaxy S10+ for £670 on Amazon

The best budget phone you can buy right now is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T (£162). After a long run by the Moto G series as our affordable phone of choice, Xiaomi has pipped Motorola with its unbeatable hardware per pound ratio. Great screen, great main camera and it feels more expensive than it is too.

View the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T for £162 on Amazon

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If there's a criticism to make about the Galaxy S10 series, it's that its cameras don't quite match up to what the likes of Apple and Huawei are achieving in this space. So too the Google Pixel 4 XL (£829), which was rated the best phone camera by a pro photographer in our test.


View the Google Pixel 4 XL for £829 on Amazon

Samsung Galaxy S10+

WIRED Recommends: The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is a high quality all-rounder that won't disappoint

Screen: 6.4-inch 3040 x 1440 | Processor: Exynos 9820 | Battery: 4100mAh | Camera: 12MP/16MP wide/12MP telephoto | OS: Android 9/ One UI 9.1 | Weight: 175g | Charging: 15W fast and wireless

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The Samsung Galaxy S10+ (£670) gives you something close to the perfect mix of Android and iOS: top specs and performance blended with polish and intuitive design.

The Galaxy S series has benefitted from the disarray over the relationship between Google and Huawei's terrifically specced P30 Pro and Mate 20 Pro as well as the muted response to the Pixel 4s. For lots of people, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ - and the rest of the line-up in the form of the regular S10 and compact S10e - will serve them well.

With competition from all-screen phones with pop-up cameras, the Galaxy S10+ still looks classy with its punch-hole for the front-facing camera. The specs column includes a huge 6.4-inch screen, one of Samsung's Super AMOLED displays: rich, colourful and bright.

Other plus points include a headphone jack (we're still partial to them), lots of storage and fast wireless charging. Samsung's uncluttered One UI and top-notch mobile gaming performance, no matter which processor you end up with, complete the package.

As ever, the camera array is excellent: reliable in all conditions and fast to focus and shoot with telephoto and ultra-wide lenses, if not quite matching Apple and Google. The S10+ is not a huge leap from the S9+ (which itself wasn't a huge leap from the S8) but it is outstanding in every department. If you want something genuinely different, Samsung is persisting with folding phones. But if you just need a stylish, capable Android phone, the Galaxy S10+ is it.

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(Note: The Samsung Galaxy S20 is out on March 13 - meaning the S10s are getting cheaper - and if you're feeling very early adopter, the Galaxy Z Flip folding phone is out February 14.)

Pros: Top-class screen, camera and performance; punch hole

Cons: Very capable rivals; battery life is not the best

Price: £670 | Check price on Amazon

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T

The best budget Android phone you can buy

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Screen: 6.3-inch 2340 x 1080 IPS LCD | Processor: Snapdragon 665 Battery: 4000mAh | Camera: 48MP, 8MP wide, 2MP macro, 2MP depth | OS: Android 9.0 | Weight: 200g | Charging: 18W fast

You may never have considered buying a Xiaomi phone before but they have only recently become widely available in the UK. And the Xiaomi Mi Note 8T (£162) makes a good case for itself.

This phone is extremely affordable, but still has plates of Gorilla Glass 5 across its front and back. Only a few phones at the price use genuine glass instead of a plastic impersonation these days. In other words, the Note 8T could easily pass for something much more expensive.

Other features that don’t come as standard at the price include quad rear cameras, fast charging, very good battery life and a Full HD screen. The Snapdragon 665 may drop a frame or two on demanding games but otherwise it does just nicely. The hardware per pound ratio is through the roof with a Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T.

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You don’t get a zoom, despite all those camera lenses on the back, and there are some ads crowbar’d into the software, but this is the obvious choice for maxed-out hardware and minimal spend. Stunning hardware for the price.

Pros: Glass back; good primary camera; impressive stamina

Cons: No zoom camera; adverts

Price: £162 | Check price on Amazon

Oppo Reno 2 Z

Specs and screen for in a mid-range phone

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Screen: 6.53-inch 2340 x 1080 OLED | Processor: Mediatek Helio P90 | Battery: 4000mAh | Camera: 48MP, 8MP wide, 2MP depth, 2MP macro | OS: Android 9.0, ColorOS | Weight: 195g | Charging: 20W VOOC fast

The Oppo Reno 2 Z (£329) has a few pleasantly surprising features given it costs a little over £300. There’s a motorised front camera, which pops in and out of the top when needed.

This in turn makes the great OLED screen even better. It’s a 6.53-inch OLED with perfect contrast and rich colour, and just about the best display you can get at the price for a pocket Netflix cinema. There’s no notch or punch hole to get in the way of the image.

The phone’s build is higher-end too. Its sides are plastic, but the back is curved glass and the cameras don’t stick out from the back at all. Oppo uses a little raised dot of metal to avoid an unfortunate camera glass-scratching incident.

Good general performance, more than solid battery life and a good main camera with respectable low light performance and decent stereo speakers add more substance to the more attention-grabbing parts.

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The Oppo Reno 2 Z’s processor isn’t actually any better than is expected at the price, which becomes clearer when playing the most intensive Android games. And two of the rear cameras don’t do all that much — there’s no zoom here. But there’s more of a sense of careful, consistent design here than in even some high value, tech-packed phones. Well worth considering.

Pros: Pop-up front camera; smooth glass back; impressive display

Cons: Two of the four rear cameras are all-but for show

Price: £329 | View the best deals on Carphone Warehouse

Google Pixel 4 XL

The best phone camera and all-Google smarts

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Screen: 6.3in 3040 x 1440 P-OLED | Processor: Snapdragon 855 Battery: 3700mAh | Camera: 12MP, 16MP 2x zoom | OS: Android 10 Weight: 193g | Charging: 18W fast

Out of the two Pixel 4 phones, we recommend the Pixel 4 XL (£829) to most. The smaller Pixel 4 has an unusually low-capacity battery that just doesn’t last as long as those of most rivals. And that gets old quick.

The effect is much less obvious in the Pixel 4 XL, and the bigger OLED screen is naturally a better fit for video and gaming. We’d like to think those spending upwards of £800 on a phone will do more than just trawl through Twitter and send WhatApp messages.

As ever with a Pixel phone, the software and cameras are the true highlights here. You get Android 10 in its purest form, with the quickest updates of any Android.

Google also added a second rear camera in this generation, a very effective 2X zoom. There’s no ultra-wide, but low-light ability is quite extraordinary. Night Sight returns in a turbo-charged form. When the light is low and the phone is still, the Pixel 4 XL clicks into an Astrophotography mode. Capture takes a while, but it is so ridiculously sensitive it can make out stars in the night sky with no sense in the final image that the still is made up of countless different exposures.

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Pros: Class-leading low light images; pure Android

Cons: Not the best battery life

Price: £829 | Check price on Amazon

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OnePlus 7T

Still the best affordable flagship

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Screen: 6.55in 2400 x 1080 OLED | Processor: Snapdragon 855+ Battery: 3800mAh | Camera: 48MP, 16MP wide, 12MP 2x zoom

OS: Android 10, OxygenOS | Weight: 190g | Charging: 30W fast

OnePlus is not quite the agile upstart it once was, but its appeal is much the same as ever. The OnePlus 7T (£549) can stand next to some of the very most expensive phones, but costs a good few hundreds pounds less than them.

Improvements in this generation include a triple rear camera array with both a zoom and ultra-wide, the turbo-powered “plus” version of the Snapdragon 855 and a larger screen. It’s 6.55 inches across and uses an excellent 90Hz OLED panel, for smoother-scrolling menus.

You don’t get the motorised front camera of the OnePlus Pro phones, but its teardrop notch looks pleasant enough and saves you £150 in the process. The Pro also has marginally better rear cameras too, with laser AF and 3x zoom rather than 2x, even if it is achieved by cropping into the sensor. The designs are also slightly different in that the camera housing on the 7T is not the prettiest, though we can live with that.

We love OnePlus phones for their accessible prices and sheer value, and the OnePlus 7T is the figurehead of that approach this generation. With excellent fast charging, decent battery life, clean software and camera image quality much better than that of OnePlus phones from a couple of years ago, you miss out on very little with the 7T.

Pros: Quality design and hardware; good camera array

Cons: No headphone jack; no water resistance

Price: £549 | Check price on Amazon

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10+

Samsung smarts with a stylus

Screen: 6.8-inch 3040 x 1440 OLED | Processor: Snapdragon 855 Battery: 4300mAh | Camera: 12MP, 12MP wide, 12MP 2x zoom

OS: Android 9.0 | Weight: 196g | Charging: 45W fast

With the Huawei Mate 30 Pro taken out in the ongoing political fallout of the US-China trade war, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ (£845) is the obvious choice among phones truly bristling with features.

It has ultra-fast 45W charging support, an excellent triple camera array with both a zoom and ultra-wide, and the series’s signature S-Pen stylus. Like the Note 9’s pen this one is wireless, and now gains “Air” gestures.

These let you do things like switch between front and rear cameras, alter music volume and change tracks with a flick of the pen. Most may not use these too often, but the sketching and handwriting experience alone justify the S-Pen. Its battery also charges automatically when put back into the Note 10+.

The basic design is more dynamic than most too. Its front glass curves around at the sides, which helps the display creep further into the extreme edges so there’s barely any visible screen border.

There’s no headphone jack, the tech excess does leave the Note 10+ with no more than decent battery life and the cost is high. But this is perhaps the most tech-soaked Android phone you can easily buy in the UK today.

Pros: Useful S-Pen stylus; feature-packed; well-specced

Cons: Expensive; no headphone jack

Price: £845 | Check price on Amazon

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Google Pixel 3a

An alternative mid-range phone

Screen: 5.6in 2220 x 1080 OLED | Processor: Snapdragon 670 Battery: 3000mAh | Camera: 12MP | OS: Android 10 | Weight: 147g Charging: 18W fast

The Google Pixel 3a (£399) is getting on a bit in traditional phone terms, released in May 2019. But it's still one of the best sub-£400 Android phones money can buy thanks to its camera.

It has the same core hardware as the Pixel 4, a 12-megapixel Sony IMX363. Google has even added the ultra-low-light Astrophotography mode debuted on its top-end phone. It let you shoot incredible night images, as long as you can keep the phone still.

So, what’s missing? The Pixel 3a has a plastic shell, a mid-range Snapdragon 670 CPU and no zoom lens. But it can still take better 2x zoomed images than almost any phone without a dedicated zoom camera as it uses computational photography and the OIS motor to squeeze more detail out of the single sensor.

There’s more clever tech here than you can appreciate on the surface. It’s also a very pocket-friendly phone. The Pixel 3a is very light at 147g, and the 5.8-inch screen makes this the perfect fit for those tired of pocket-stretching mobiles. Not everyone was convinced by the Pixel 4 range, but the Pixel 3a remains something special.

Pros: The best camera at the price; clean, up-to-date software

Cons: Plastic shell; one rear camera


Price: £329 | Check price on Google

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Read our best smartphone guide to see how the best Android phones compare to rivals.