As the year comes to an end, it’s time to think about my personal smartphone of the year. 2024 has seen the rise of generative AI as a key selling point in the smartphone space, but it has also seen a realignment in form factors. The foldable form factor is maturing, there is a renewed focus on physical size, both going large and going small, and manufacturers are facing smaller gains while still needing to stand out.
All these have a bearing on my choice, but there is something else that isn’t listed on the spec sheets or the press releases: my own judgment. This is not sitting down with all the contributors and staff to find a combined aggregate answer… this is my choice of the smartphones that speak to 2024 as a whole, the phone that has made an impact and highlights the future.
That’s as much about emotion as it is about benchmarks.
Before we come to my choice, let’s review the alternatives and at least one out-of-left-field option.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro
As always at this time of year, I come up against the closed nature of iOS and the iPhone. How much of an impact does that have on my personal choice? I do believe that a healthy ecosystem requires competition and innovation across the stack. Apple’s iPhone has no competition in hardware, no competition on the firmware, and consumers have no option but to embrace both Apple’s capriciousness and viewpoint.
Case in point, you still can’t change the time that snoozing an alarm can be… the nine minutes demanded by clockwork timepieces in the 1950s is a fixed and immutable period on iOS.
As Apple upgrades the iPhone, so do countless Android manufacturers. With specifications broadly similar across the board, the emotion and safety a device can create becomes vital to its success.
Apple’s general approach makes me wary. Yet it’s the appraoch to generative AI and the awkwardly backronymed Apple Intelligence that defines the iPhone 16 Pro. And that definition is”‘late and lacking.”
Google announced generative AI for the Pixel series in October 2023 and launched the Pixel 8 family simultaneously. Samsung announced and launched Galaxy AI and the Galaxy S24 in January 2024. Apple announced its plans in June 2024, launched the iPhone 16 Pro in September, and released the first tentative generative AI software in October. It’s not expected to match the Google and Samsung offerings until March 2025.
Late and lacking. Apple is one of the world’s biggest companies. The bar is incredibly high… when it makes a misstep that has a huge impact.
Apple isn’t behind the curve of artificial intelligence in general; iOS places significant emphasis on flavors of AI other than generative AI. Machine Learning can be found in the predictive keyboard to offer options for the next word, in the interactions with Siri, in searching thorough photos, and more. Neural nets boost the ML routines, allowing for faster processing on some camera functions and recognition routines for FaceID.
Plus, this is all taking place on-device, allowing Apple to continue its push to maximising user data protection.
Yet, with a constantly moving target of what consumers expect in their smartphones, Apple missed the moment to be in control of its own story around software.
The iPhone 16 Pro has the cards to match the functionality of other flagships, but Apple played its hand badly and didn’t offer the best iPhone 16 Pro it could. When your size demands perfection, missing by an inch is as good as missing by a mile.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Thanks to a January launch, Samsung has both a year to establish itself as the phone of the year but also has a year to be forgotten. With the Galaxy S25 launch just around the corner, it’s worth remembering how much the Galaxy S24 family set the tone for the rest of 2024 with the launch of Galaxy AI.
It was undoubtedly the most popular AI-powered handset. Counterpoint Research in May reported Samsung as holding a 58 per cent market share of generative AI-enabled smartphones. It debuted a raft of generative AI tools across the platform, including an exclusive period with Circle To Seach before that expanded to the entire Android platform.
Samsung also had an exclusive with Qualcomm, allowing the Galaxy S24 Ultra to ship with an overclocked 8 Gen 3 chipset, which in turn supported faster AI processing. Everything stepped up as you would expect, but stepping up to support the introduction of AI allowed for a handset that felt more focused on new technology and pushing the envelope than most.
Samsung’s focus on the S24 Ultra to carry all the specced hardware meant it could sell the Ultra as the ultimate phone, with the S24 and S24+ in supporting roles rather than ‘the same role but a bit smaller than the top of the portfolio.
Yet the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s success is an iterative one. Strip away the AI, and you have a smartphone where everything is a bit better than the year before but without any significant changes in the package.
Google Pixel 9 Pro
In contrast to Samsung, Google spread the power and potential across several 9 Pro devices. You had the regular Pixel 9 Pro, the larger form factor of the Pixel 9 Pro XL and the innovative design of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (as well as the vanilla Pixel 9, which just misses out on a few top specs).
The 9 Pro XL is a shade too large and is not helped by the move to a more boxy design that maximises internal volume and the perceived bulk, while the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a touch ungainly in regular use. That is why I’m picking the Pixel 9 Pro here.
Much of that comes down to Google’s presentation of generative AI through Gemini. While there are many AI-driven features that are more technology demonstrations than day-to-day game changers, the conversational tone of Gemini AI and the different approach to search and research it offers is AI at its most flexible.
I’m in no doubt that the Gemini AI capabilities will show up across the broader Android platform during 2025 – allowing Samsung to debut Circle to Search on the Galaxy S24 instead of the Pixel 8 shows that Google is not completely precious with the crown jewels, but for now, the best practical implementation of generative AI is the vocal interface with Gemini, and that means the Pixel family can challenge for the crown.
If AI were the only measure, the Pixel 9 Pro could take the crown. But one other phone feels a better choice than the odds-on favorite.
Before I get to that, I want to address a semantic consideration
Retroid Pocket 4 Pro
The title is “Smartphone of the Year” not “Mobile Tech Of The Year,”
Trying to justify the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro as a smartphone is a tough sell. It lacks either a physical or embedded SIM card, does not support 5G connectivity, and demands a Bluetooth headset or earbuds to make a comfortable call. Yet there’s a spirited defence that you have audio and video calling through software, running over the internet, and that’s a far more prevalent way of making “calls” in 2024.
The Pocket 4 Pro is a portable gaming device with the requisite analogue sticks, face buttons, d-pads, shoulder buttons and triggers. Thanks to the use of Android as the operating system, it has the Android gaming ecosystem to call on, from popular titles such as Fortnite and Genshin Impact down to more esoteric titles such as Sky: Children of Light. Except rather than the touchscreen most must rely on, you have a fully integrated controller.
The Pocket 4 Pro builds on Retroid’s experience in the retro gaming space. Previously, retro consoles required custom OS builds and a solid knowledge in Linux to get up and running. The industry, including Retroid, has been toying with Android as an option for some years, but in 2024, the capabilities of Android and the needs of gamers were met at an attractive price point that balanced cost and specs. Retroid launched the Pocket 5 Pro in time for the holidays, but the Pocket 4 Pro finally proved the retro market was mature and ready for Android.
The Retroid Pocket 4 Pro isn’t going to be called the Smartphone Of The Year… just remember that it’s one good argument away from the trophy.
Honor Magic V3
Since the Samsung Galaxy Fold launch in 2019, the idea of a foldable has been more appealing than reality. That has benefitted smartphone designs across the board, not just in the foldables. The upcoming push into “thin phones” during 2025 partially benefits from the technology required to thin out the two sides of a foldable device.
Which is where Honor appears. The Honor Magic V3, its third-generation foldable, was a home run for the form factor. It ships in the open state, so when you lift it out, the insane thickness of just 4.4 mm is evident. Closing it, you get a 9.2 mm smartphone with a 20:9 ratio outer display comparable to Honor’s then-flagship Magic6 Pro (which comes in at 8.9 mm). The bevelled edges make it comfortable to get a grip of a single side to help open the phone, and the design allows for an IPX8 protection rating… the Magic V3 is good to a depth of 1.5m.
Software-wise magicOS offers both ‘side-by-side’ apps or ‘floating window over a full-screen app’ for multitasking on the unfolded Magic V3. Still, it’s the option to lock an app to a specific Aspect Ratio if it is not designed for a foldable that I found useful—there’s no need for a very wide when you can lock it to a 3:4 view with some bars on the left and right.
Is it going to be the best-selling smartphone of 2024? Far from it. Will it be the most influential smartphone? Certainly, it will be in the foldables space, and arguably it demonstrates what 2025’s thin smartphones need to aim for.
The Honor Magic V3 takes all the potential of the foldable space and brings it to a single smartphone. It sits on the cutting edge of hardware and shines a light for every phone and manufacturer to aim for in 2025.
That’s why it’s my smartphone of the year.
Disclaimer: During 2024, various smartphones, including the Pixel 9 Pro and Honor Magic V3, were supplied for review purposes.
