News Beat
The best Android smartphones of 2025, tried and tested
It’s easy to pick out the best iPhone, given that Apple only releases a handful of phones every year, but it’s far trickier to identify the best Android phone. With multiple brands releasing dozens of handsets across a 12-month period, the choice can be dizzying.
The best of these Android brands include familiar names such as Samsung and Google, as well as some that might be less familiar such as OnePlus and Honor. Thanks to the sheer number of Android phones that they produce between them, it’s possible to pick out a handset that’s tailored to your specific needs, whether that relates to budget or function. At the bottom of the page, we answer some of your frequently asked questions when it comes to choosing a new phone.
In the reviews below, veteran technology journalist Jon Mundy runs through some of the best Android phones available in 2025 across a range of different requirements. Before we get started though, here’s a quick look at our top five:
The best Android smartphones in 2025: At a glance
How to choose the best Android smartphone
You can pay anywhere between £100 and £2,000 for a modern Android smartphone, with manufacturers able to pick from a range of parts to meet a wide selection of budgets. This round-up will generally focus on the middle of that price scale, where most high-quality smartphones can be found, with one or two noteworthy exceptions.
At a basic level, every single Android phone offers the ability to place calls, send and receive messages, take photographs and run applications for popular services such as Netflix or Uber. However, the quality and consistency of each of those elements – as well as practical matters such as battery life, build quality and ongoing software support – can vary drastically from phone to phone.
Besides establishing how much you’re prepared to pay for your phone, it’s important to decide upon the design that you’re most comfortable using. Android phones come in a range of shapes and sizes, from compact rectangles that can be operated with one hand, to large ‘foldables’ that physically unfurl to the size of a small tablet. Again, most phones fall somewhere in between those two extremes, but we’ve considered a range of size options.
