Top 5 BEST Smartphones of 2024

The podcast presents a list of the top 5 best smartphones of 2024, including the iPhone 16 Pro Max, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Honor Magic V3, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, and ROG Phone 9 Pro. The speaker highlights the strengths of each device, emphasizing features like cameras, AI capabilities, performance, and battery life, while also acknowledging limitations and providing honorable mentions for other noteworthy smartphones.

iPhone 16 Pro Max

• 00:00:45 The iPhone 16 Pro Max is praised for its large display, excellent camera capabilities including 4K 120 frames per second video, and exceptional performance with the A18 Pro chip. Notable AI features include notification summaries and audio transcription, but the camera control button is deemed impractical. The iPhone 16 Pro is also considered a great option for those who prefer a smaller device.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

• 00:03:06 The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is lauded as an all-around great smartphone featuring a flat display with Gorilla Glass Armor, a 5x zoom camera, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, resulting in impressive performance. AI features like web page summarization and sketch-to-image are highlighted, though some features are considered very specific. Battery life is good but not exceptional.

Honor Magic V3

• 00:05:09 The Honor Magic V3 is deemed the best widely available foldable smartphone due to its thin and lightweight design, a 7.92-inch 120Hz display, a 5150 mAh battery, and flagship-level cameras including a 50MP Periscope telephoto lens. It offers 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security patches, with some useful AI features like face-to-face translation, but lacks extensive generative AI features.

Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

• 00:07:25 The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL is praised for its unique visor design, a 6.8-inch LTPO display, an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, and great cameras particularly for video with video boost. It offers 7 years of OS and security updates and includes the useful AI feature 'Add Me'. However, portrait mode is considered hit-or-miss, and video processing requires cloud upload and takes a few hours.

ROG Phone 9 Pro

• 00:09:14 The ROG Phone 9 Pro is considered the best gaming smartphone available, featuring the Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, up to 24GB of RAM, and the AeroActive Cooler for sustained performance. It has a 6.78-inch 185Hz display, IP68 water and dust resistance, and a 5800 mAh battery. It features a unique rear display with animations and retro game capability, but software updates are limited to 2 major OS updates and 5 years of security patches.