How to choose which mobile is right for me?
I need a battery that lasts all day
Work from home is more popular than ever, but battery life is incredibly valuable, especially if you’re out all day with no charger. Battery size is the main consideration here, so you should aim for a minimum capacity of 5000 mAh, but you should also look out for some of these factors and features:
Component choices to maximize mobile battery life
Chipsets and displays are in contention for the most power-consumptive components in a smartphone, so it makes sense to focus your efforts in these areas. A gung-ho approach to battery life is to opt for a 720p display and a 7,000 mAh battery, but that would most likely be a poor experience. Instead, the best practice would be a balanced spec sheet with a 1080p OLED or AMOLED display with adaptive refresh rate tech. You can maximize battery life by turning on dark mode and putting adaptive refresh on so that the refresh rate drops—in some cases as low as 1 Hz—when appropriate.
If you don’t do any heavy multitasking or productivity tasks, you should aim for a low-power chip like the Snapdragon 695 that powers the 2022 Moto G Stylus 5G.
I need a phone that can fill in for my mirrorless or DSLR camera
Standard photography features
Smartphone camera sensors heavily on computational photography, an area where Apple, Google, and Samsung excel, but a balanced camera system needs solid primary, ultrawide, and front-facing sensors. Its important to remember higher megapixel counts do not traslate to better photgraphs; sensor size, aperture, and lens elements play a major role in image quality.
Large sensors with wide apertures are great for low-light shots, as they capture more detail and light. Night owls and party goers should aim for a smartphone with a main sensor bigger than 1/1.7 inches. OIS is a must have for low-light photos as well. The Google Pixel 6 and Samsung Galaxy S22+ are solid choices for smartphone shutterbugs.
Features for smartphone videographers
Video-focused users should ideally spring for a device with good OIS, and dual-pixel PDAF for fast focus during recording. Nice-to-have features are things like being able to record using all the rear lenses at once, so that you can decide later if you want a wide, ultrawide, or zoom shots of the action. If you're really leaning into things like vlogging and want the best quality possible, an audio input is something worth considering as well. Although most flagships do a decent job with video, Sony stands out.
I need a phone that's made for gaming
First-person shooters and visually taxing role-playing games are the most demanding of your device's hardware and require consideration in several areas to get the most out of gaming. Games like Angry Birds and Alto’s Odyssey don’t require any specific hardware needs, but if you want to play larger titles like Apex Legends, Call of Duty, or PUBG Mobile, you should look for some of the following features.
High-performance components for mobile gaming
To get the smoothest possible gameplay, you'll want a current-gen, or relatively recent, phone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-series chipset, or an alternative like the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 or Samsung Exynos 2200. The MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chipset is a solid choide for budget phones. High-end gaming phones, like the Lenovo Legion Duel 2 also have built-in fans to manage temperatures and improve sustained performance. You also want at least 8 GB of RAM for modern gaming, especially if you are recording gameplay, streaming, or running background tasks like music apps while gaming.
High refresh rate displays with low pixel response times make the gaming experience feel more fluid and are most relevant in fast-paced action games like PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, and Call of Duty Mobile. If your focus is fast-paced gaming, you should aim for at least 120Hz.
Touch sampling rate (also measured in Hz) is the rate at which the phone’s screen reads inputs on the display—the higher the touch sampling rate, the less delay there is between your movements and the phone’s response. Touch sampling rates of over 240Hz are recommended for gaming.
Buy the phone that you can live with
Buying a smartphone may seem like a trivial thing, but at the end of the day, you could spend upwards of $1000 on a top-tier smartphone. You are the one who is going to use the phone for several hours a day for the next few years, so shouldn't you do your best to make sure you're buying something that's well-suited to your needs? Comparative shopping and consumer awareness are especially important if you're in need of a very specific feature or capability, like accessibility features or roaming support. If you take a little time and use the tips we just went over, you can come to a decision that won't leave you feeling buyer's regret the moment you walk out the door. Maybe you can even save some money in the process. If you're still stumped, you can check out our selection of best Android gaming phones and our top budget phone picks.
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