The 20 best smartphones in the world Part 1

By Antonio Villas-Boas From Business Insider

oneplus 6
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

It’s remarkably tough to rank smartphones, especially when you have to consider hundreds of different preferences and opinions about what makes a smartphone truly great.

For the latest list of the top 20 smartphones you can buy, I’ve made a controversial choice for the top smartphone you can buy at the moment.

Nope, it’s not from Apple or Samsung.

Check out our list of the top 20 smartphones you can buy:

20. BlackBerry KeyOne
Jeff Dunn/Business Insider
The KeyOne is BlackBerry’s successor to the Priv. Both run Android and feature physical keyboards. But while the Priv’s keyboard slid out from behind its screen, the KeyOne’s is permanently located just below its display.

The KeyOne is a great device for those who want both a physical keyboard and access to Google’s apps and services, which aren’t available on other BlackBerry devices.

Price: $450

Read the BlackBerry KeyOne review at weblink below

19. Motorola Moto Z2 Force
Motorola/Lenovo
The Moto Z2 Force comes with everything you’d expect from a premium smartphone. As Dunn noted in his review, it’s “very fast, its screen looks good, its cameras are capable of taking nice photos, and it has a razor-thin frame.” And its 5.5-inch AMOLED display is more resistant to cracking than most other smartphones’ screens.

However, the Z2 Force is a little too reliant on Motorola’s Mods. Those are the company’s line of snap-on accessories, including external speakers and bigger batteries, that are designed for its Z-series phones. Without such Mods, the Z2 Force doesn’t really measure up to the devices that rank higher on this list.

Price: $720

Check out the Moto Z2 Force review at web link below

18. Moto G6 Plus
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider
Every time I check out a new Moto G smartphone, I question why I pay so much for the high-end flagships. There was no exception when I checked out the Moto G6. When it boils down to it, Motorola’s “G” series smartphones do everything I need a smartphone to do for a fraction of the price I usually pay for a new smartphone.

Price: $250

17. Apple iPhone SE/6S/6S Plus
Apple
I grouped all these together because they are all two years old, have similar specs, and are still available from Apple. They’re also still amazing smartphones.

Last fall, Apple released iOS 11, the latest version of its mobile operating system, and my iPhone 6S Plus still runs great with it.

The SE, 6S, and 6S Plus all feature great cameras and Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which allows you to quickly unlock your phone. Another bonus: These are the last iPhones that still have headphone jacks.

iPhone SE price: $350

iPhone 6S price: $450

iPhone 6S Plus price: $550

Read the iPhone SE review at web link below

Read the iPhone 6S review at web link below

16. Essential Phone
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider
The Essential Phone is a gorgeous device. It has a nearly edge-to-edge display and a case made of ultrapremium materials — ceramic on the back and titanium on the sides. It also runs a nearly stock version of Android, which I prefer over the heavily modified versions that Samsung and LG phones tend to use.

Overall, the Phone is a great first effort from Essential. It’s speedy and takes great photos. It also has two magnetic pins on its back that serve as a connection point for peripherals, including a 360-degree camera and a wireless-charging dock.

Essential recently dropped the price of the Phone to $500 from $700. That’s a great deal for a great phone.

Price: $500

Read the Essential Phone review at web link below

15. Apple iPhone 7 Plus
Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are now more than a year old, but for $550 and $670, respectively, they’re still worthy of your attention.

Apple phones generally offer better apps and a better owner experience than their Android rivals, and the iPhone 7 is no different. The support you get from Apple if something goes wrong is superior to what you get from Android device makers. And unlike on most Android phones, with iPhones you can always get the latest software updates straight from Apple as soon as it releases them.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus offer some compelling features, including water-resistant cases, great cameras that perform well in low light, and a powerful processor. The phones also work well with other Apple products, including the company’s wireless AirPods headphones.

The iPhone 7 Plus’ dual-lens camera system is its distinguishing feature. It allows you to take pictures with a professional-looking “bokeh” effect, which blurs the background behind your subject. Additionally, the system allows you to zoom in on your subjects; its second camera offers a 2x optical zoom.

Unlike the digital zoom feature found in other cameras, an optical zoom allows you to enlarge an image of your subject without sacrificing picture quality.

iPhone 7 price: $550

iPhone 7 Plus price: $670

Check out the iPhone 7 review at web link below

14. Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.
Business Insider
The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are “old” phones now that the S9 is released, but Samsung is still selling them for a nice little discount. They’re great phones, but despite the discount, I’d still go for the Galaxy S9 or S9 Plus. The S9 has much better facial/iris recognition, and the fingerprint scanner under the camera is much easier to reach.

Galaxy S8 price: $600

Galaxy S8 Plus price: $690

Read the Samsung Galaxy S8 review at web link below

13. Razer Phone
Razer/Amazon
The Phone is marketed as a “gaming” phone, mostly because of its unique display. The Phone can refresh its screen 120 times a second; most phones, by comparison only refresh their screens 60 times a second. The Phone’s faster refresh rate allows it to offer super smooth gameplay.

But the Phone doesn’t just use the feature to make games look good. The refresh rate also affects the way it displays apps and its Android interface. It works beautifully; everything you do on the phone is ultra smooth in a way never seen before on a smartphone. In fact, Razer may have set the standard for how all phone displays should work — not just those on gaming devices.

But there’s more to the Phone than just its screen. It’s also got an eye-catching industrial design that stands out when compared with the sleek and svelte designs of most other Android phones.

The large borders above and below the Phone’s screen may look out of step with the borderless designs of other recent phones. But hiding beneath those borders are the loudest and best speakers we’ve heard on any smartphone.

Price: $700

Check out the Razer Phone review »

12. Huawei Mate 10 Pro
Huawei
The Mate 10 Pro is the most enticing one to date that the Chinese company has offered in the US market. It features a nice, if somewhat generic, design; water resistance; a large, 4,000mAh battery; and a dual-lens camera system.

It also runs on a Kirin 970 processor that comes with something called a neural-network processing unit, or NPU. The NPU lets the phone adapt and respond to how you use it. It can adjust the device’s power consumption to offer both the best performance and efficiency.

Combined with the Mate 10 Pro’s jumbo-sized battery, the NPU allows the device to have insane battery life.

Price: $670

11. Samsung Galaxy Note 8
Sarah Jacobs/Business Insider
With its gorgeous design, ultra-thin borders around its screen, a beautiful display, fast performance, a dual-lens camera system, and fancy stylus-based features, the Note 8 takes the best attributes of Samsung’s Galaxy S and Note smartphone lines and smashes them together into a phone that’s hard to beat.

Price: $750

Check out the Galaxy Note 8 review »

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