Time for my top five favorite smartphones of 2021.
Now, last year I did a top 10.
And some of you guys did call me out
and called it a bit of a cop-out,
10 is a lot of smartphones,
but there's been so many new devices out
last year as well as this year,
and I didn't want to just rip off
Marques' format with Smartphone Awards,
like pretty much everybody else is doing,
so this year I have narrowed it down to just five,
but there will be two sections to this video.
I'll give you my initial top five picks,
but then there'll be a section
where I'll give you all of my honorable mentions
for my favorite smartphones,
which just didn't quite make that list.
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Now, as always, a few disclaimers.
This is my top-five list.
It's of course going to be different to your top five.
That's absolutely fine, guys.
We can still be friends, no need to argue.
Please drop your favorites down in the comments below.
And I've tested a lot of smartphones this year,
as you can see, but I've not tested every single one.
There's just one of me, guys.
I know I'm SuperSaf, but there are so many smartphones
that I can personally cover and thoroughly test.
So if there are any smartphones
that you think should have been on this list,
which I haven't tested, then again,
drop those in the comments below.
Final disclaimer, this list is in no particular order,
I'm just going to be giving you my top five picks,
but I will reveal my daily drivers of 2021
in the upcoming SuperSaf style collaboration
with all of my friends.
That's currently in the works,
and it's going to be live very soon.
So make sure you do subscribe,
and hit that bell icon so you don't miss it.
And with all of that out of the way,
let's get to it.
So the first smartphone on my list,
once again, in no particular order,
is a smartphone that I believe was
the first to release this year.
And it really sets a benchmark
or every other flagship that came out,
And that is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Now, Samsung did a complete redesign for the S21 Ultra,
and we've got this very unique looking camera module,
which melts into the sides.
And this is a flagship that ticks off all of the boxes.
You've got an excellent display,
you've got really good battery life,
some of the best cameras out there
with the best zoom camera, in my opinion,
and arguably some of the best video recording
on any Android smartphone.
Now, this was the first Samsung smartphone
that did not ship with a charger out of the box,
setting a bit of a trend.
And Samsung also got rid of the micro SD card slot,
which was something that a lot of people were
disappointed about, but nevertheless,
this is still an excellent smartphone,
and it really does compete evenly year on.
Now I do have to give some honorable mentions here
to the Samsung galaxy S21, as well as the S21 Plus,
which offer a lot of the features that the S21 Ultra does,
just not quite there.
And they do come in at a lower price
compared to the S20 series last year,
so some more great options from Samsung.
Moving on to the second pick.
And I think this one's going to be
pretty obvious for a lot of you guys.
It is my iPhone of choice,
of course, the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Now I'm going to include the iPhone 13 Pro in this as well,
because it's practically the same smartphone,
just smaller with a smaller battery.
And although the design is pretty similar
to what we had last year,
the iPhone 13 Pro Max is an absolute beast.
We have a pro-motion, 120 Hertz display this year,
very consistent cameras, and, in my opinion,
the best overall camera package
for photos and videos of 2021.
And for me, one of the biggest pluses has been
the amazing battery life.
The iPhone 13 Pro Max, in my opinion,
has some of the best battery life
on any smartphone this year.
And it's my go-to when I'm traveling,
because I don't have to keep worrying
about getting it topped up.
Now, of course, there is room for improvement.
As much as I like face ID, in the era of masks,
I would have liked to have had touch ID in addition.
And although the notch is smaller
compared to what we had last year,
it is a lot more intrusive compared to the punch-up design
that many of the competitors have opted for.
Now we, of course, have to give some honorable mentions
to the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 Mini,
arguably these are incremental updates,
but the iPhone 13 Mini is still considered
the best small smartphone you can buy.
And although we don't have the same level of updates
that we've got on the iPhone 13 Pro,
and the iPhone 13 Pro Max,
the 13 and 13 Mini do have some improved cameras,
and they are priced lower compared to what we had last year,
which will make them the go-to iPhones for most people.
Next up on my list is the Google Pixel 6 Pro.
Now, Google did a complete redesign
and I'm a huge fan of the Pixel 6 Pro design.
It looks really unique with the visor.
It also makes for some really fun thumbnails.
We've got some excellent cameras overall.
One of my favorite selfie cameras.
Yes, some may think that the Google look is
a bit over-processed, but a lot of people do like it.
And this is the first smartphone
with Google's custom Tensor chip sets,
that, along with Android 12,
gives you some unique features that you're not going to find
on any of the smartphone, such as magic eraser,
as well as some excellent speech to text.
Now, having said that, the software has been
pretty buggy in my experience, with lots of app crashes,
in particular on Google apps, which is super weird.
And although the cameras are generally really good
for photos, they're still not up there for the video.
Having said that, the Pixel 6 Pro
does come in at a very competitive price,
and, overall, it's an excellent smartphone.
Now, an honorable mention has to go to the Google Pixel 6,
which comes in at an even more competitive price,
offering a lot of what you have on the Pixel 6 Pro,
and it's such an easy smartphone to recommend.
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Right, so we've gone through the top three,
which I'm assuming a lot of you had
probably already guessed,
but the next two were very, very difficult for me to pick,
but I've narrowed it down to two smartphones,
which I've really enjoyed using this year.
The first might be a bit of a surprise for you guys,
and that is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3.
That's right, the flip.
Now you guys know I've been a huge fan
of foldable smartphones, with the Fold 1 and Fold 2
being some of my favorite smartphones of 2019 and 2020.
But the flip really surprised me this year.
And that's because in my opinion,
this is the first foldable smartphone
that appeals to the masses coming in at under $1,000.
We've got a really good display,
with 120 Hertz refresh rate,
as well as a secondary cover display,
which could be a little bit larger.
And Samsung has somehow managed to give this
an IPX 8 water and dust resistant rating,
which is still mind-blowing to me
that you can have a folding smartphone
that can have water and dust resistance.
Now, there is still some way to go for foldable devices.
The battery life on the flip three is really not that great.
I've not had battery anxiety
on a flagship smartphone for some time,
but I did have with the Flip 3.
And the cameras, although they're pretty good overall,
they don't quite meet up to the competition.
However, this is a big step for foldable smartphones,
and it gets me really excited that these are now
so much more accessible to a lot of people.
Now I have to give an honorable mention to the folding king,
the best smartphone that falls out into a tablet.
And that is of course the Samsung Galaxy Z.
I hate the name of it.
The Fold 3, I'm just going to call it the Fold 3.
The Fold 3, although it might seem
like a bit of an incremental update to the Fold 2,
it's such a joy to use with some beautiful displays,
both inside and out, really good battery life,
software that's optimized to take advantage
of the larger display.
An IPX 8 water and dust resistant rating,
like we've got on the Flip 3.
And, for the first time on a foldable,
support for the S Pen, something really important,
especially considering that we did not have
a note device this year.
Now, the Fold 3 still comes in at 1600 pounds,
which is pretty high.
And that's the reason why it didn't quite make
my top five list.
Now the final smartphone on my list,
again, this is in no particular order,
but this was so, so difficult to narrow it down,
but I think it's going to be the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.
This was a smartphone that really tried to go all out.
And although it's got the biggest camera bump
on any smartphone that I've seen,
it does have a purpose with a secondary display,
which you can use to take selfies
from the rear facing cameras.
Arguably one of the best displays out there
with the 120 Hertz and a 1700-nit-peak brightness,
a very premium ceramic build with 67 Watts wired
as well as 67 Watts wireless charging,
which I believe makes it one of the fastest
wireless charging smartphones of this year.
Now, it's not perfect, of course,
the cameras didn't quite live up to my expectations.
And although they're really good overall
and have improved as well,
I really don't like the fact
that they've plastered 120X on the back,
when it's a five times optical zoom camera,
big stretch all the way to 120.
I mean, definitely not a fan of that,
but apart from that, it really does tick all of the boxes
for a premium 2021 flagship smartphone.
Now I have to give an honorable mention
to the Xiaomi 11T Pro as well,
which came out a little bit later in the year.
This is much more affordable, coming in at around 600 pounds
with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip sets,
108-megapixel primary camera,
and 120-watt charging, included out of the box,
at that price.
I mean, most of the smartphones on this list
don't come with a charger included out of the box.
So, you know, it's pretty impressive.
So that is my top-five list,
but don't go anywhere yet, guys.
As mentioned, there are lots of my favorites,
which just didn't quite meet that top five,
but I think do deserve a mention.
The first being the Oppo Find X3 Pro,
which kind of got forgotten, I would say,
it released very early in the year,
and it did tick up a lot of boxes,
it's got an excellent display,
some great cameras with the same sensor
for the primary, as well as the out right camera,
and something that's completely unique to the Find X3 Pro,
and that is the world's first microscope camera.
Now I'm going to put my hands up,
I initially did consider this a bit of a gimmick,
but after using the Find X3 Pro,
I found myself using the microscope camera
more than the other cameras,
because it was just so much fun.
We then have the OnePlus 9 Pro,
which I think also deserves an honorable mention.
This is very similar to the Find X3 Pro,
it almost looks identical from the front,
because, you know, Oppo OnePlus,
but the OnePlus 9 Pro is a really, really good smartphone,
comes in at a lower price compared to the Find X3 Pro,
and has a very fast and smooth software experience.
Now it did have the Hasselblad partnership,
which did result in improvements for the cameras,
but I do think it was a little bit too over-hyped
and I think we'll be seeing the fruits of this partnership
at a later point after a few generations.
I also have to give an honorable mention to Realme.
I mean, they released a lot of smartphones this year,
maybe a bit too many,
but the one that really stood out for me was the Realme GT.
Realme seems to be taking the place
of what OnePlus used to be, offering a flagship device
with all of the flagship specs that you would expect,
but at a very competitive price point.
The Realme GT has a 120-Hertz display,
the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip sets,
65-watt charging included out of the box.
And all of that started with an early-bird offer
of just 369 euros.
Now, sure, it's not going to live up in terms of the cameras
to a lot of the $1,000 flagships out there,
but realistically speaking,
having those amazing specs at that low price
makes it the ideal smartphone for spectrum keys.
Now, Sony also released some solid smartphones this year,
but the one that really stood out for me was
the Sony Experia Pro I.
With a one-inch sensor for the camera,
they've gone full out on the hardware.
And although the software processing from Sony
may not be the traditional HDI look
that you get from other smartphones,
if you're somebody that's really into photography and video,
having all of those manual controls
with the amazing hardware is absolutely excellent.
You've also got a 4k, 120-Hertz display,
and this is a really nice smartphone,
which is still for the niches, I would say.
And that's because it comes in at 1600 pounds.
Now, Vivo came out with some excellent smartphones
this year as well, the X60 Pro,
the X70 Pro as well as the Pro Pluses, it's a lot of pros,
but the X70 Pro Plus, excellent smartphone
with some Zeiss optics.
This is a smartphone with that unfortunately,
I got a little bit late,
so I didn't get a full chance to test,
but Vivo are producing some excellent devices,
and I'm really hoping that I can spend more time
with Vivo smartphones in 2022,
Asus released some great contenders.
The Zenfone 8 was a bit of a surprise for me.
Although the design is a pretty standard,
it's, in my opinion, the best compact Android smartphone
you can buy with no real compromises because of its size.
You've still got the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip set.
You've got 120 Hertz display,
and you've also got 3.5-millimeter headphone jack.
I mean, how many smart phones have one of those these days?
This all comes in as a very competitive price point as well.
And let's not forget the gaming monitors
that we have this year.
The Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate was a standout for me,
with its unique design, 144-Hertz display
with one millisecond response time.
It was the world's first smartphone
with 18 gigabytes of LPDDR5 RAM.
And it also has a massive 6,000 milliamp power battery.
And we also had the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2,
which came in at a much lower price point.
And this is more of a gaming device
with a smartphone attached,
rather than a smartphone that can do gaming.
And that's because it's kind of built landscape.
And that includes the 44-megapixel,
live streaming pop-up camera,
which is actually placed on the side,
lots of gaming triggers which you can customize,
as well as dual turbo charging,
which completely blew my mind.
The fact that you can connect two cables
to the smartphone at the same time
and charge with them both, absolutely insane.
And those are my top five smartphones of 2021,
along with all of the honorable mentions.
What are your favorite smartphones of 2021?
Do you agree with my list?
Do you disagree with it?
Remember, guys, we can still be friends.
Drop your favorites in the comments below.
And, as mentioned, I will be revealing
my daily drivers as well as all of my friends
in the upcoming SuperSaf Style collaboration video.
You don't want to miss that, it's currently in the works,
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