I migliori telefoni Android nel 2021

If you’re enticed by some of the features Samsung has introduced in its Galaxy S21 lineup but put off by the thought of $1,000 phones, then the standard Galaxy S21 is the phone for you. You’ll enjoy the dynamic refresh rate, excellent cameras and Snapdragon 888 chipset found in other members of the S21 family, but at a low $799 starting price. That’s $200 less than last year’s Galaxy S20.

Samsung makes some sacrifices to get this lower price, starting with the materials it uses for the phone’s design. But that’s a small consideration when you get a phone this powerful for less than $800. With an excellent zoom lens aided by wonderful software additions, this is also a great phone to get if you want great photos and videos.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy S21 review.

If you want a 5G phone from Google, you don’t necessarily have to get the Pixel 5. All of that phone’s best features — including 5G connectivity and some of the best performing cameras we’ve tested — can be found in the Pixel 4a 5G. And this phone costs $200 less than Google’s flagship.

You give up some build quality and water resistance by opting for the cheaper 5G option, and the Pixel 4a 5G doesn’t have a fast-refreshing screen. But it is the largest display among Google’s recent releases, and the 6.2-inch OLED panel is plenty colorful.

It’s the cameras that ultimately are the reason to pick up a Pixel, and the Pixel 4a 5G can match the Pixel 5 shot for shot. (Not surprising since they use the same hardware and support the same features.) The Pixel 4a 5G gives you an affordable way to get started with the 5G future.

Read our full Pixel 4a 5G review.

Asus launched the latest version of its gaming phone, the ROG Phone 5, in March. It’s a huge phone with an equally large 6,000 mAh battery, a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, incredible front-facing speakers, two USB-C ports, and a whole host of software goodies to make sure you have the ultimate mobile gaming experience.

With the ROG Phone 5, you get uncompromising power with up to 16GB of RAM and the best Android processor yet, the Snapdragon 888. Everything about this phone is designed for gaming, even right down to the SoC placement and the split battery for faster 65W charging. If you want more, there’s the ROG Phone 5 Pro with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, or the limited edition ROG Phone 5 Ultimate with a whopping 18GB of RAM.

A US launch is happening later this year, but the phone will be limited to GSM networks and sub-6GHz 5G. Where the ROG Phone 5 falters is its camera performance, especially its night mode. You won’t be amazed by the photos it takes, but we expect you want this phone for its gaming prowess. Rest assured, it delivers on that front.

Read our full ROG Phone 5 review.

It didn’t look good for foldable phones at the outset, with the original Galaxy Fold offering a futuristic concept of mobile computing in a seriously flawed and damage-prone package. But then Samsung went back to the drawing board, refining its original design to produce the Galaxy Z Fold 2 — a device that rights its predecessors flaws, while adding some useful new features.

One of those useful additions is Flex Mode, which leverages the Galaxy Z Fold 2’s free-stop hinge to allow the device to stay in place at any position, while showing custom, split-screen controls for relevant apps, like video chatting software. But the Z Fold 2 nails the basics as well, thanks to a greatly-expanded exterior cover display that lacks the eyesore bezels on the original model, as well as a larger interior panel shrouded in Samsung’s Ultra-Thin Glass, making it more durable and pleasant to the touch.

All this innovation comes at a price of course — $1,999, to be precise. But then there’s no Android phone that can do what the Galaxy Z Fold 2 does, perched perfectly between phone and tablet.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 review.

How to choose the best Android phone for you

The first place to start when shopping for the best Android phone for you is your budget. And there are essentially a few tiers, The cheapest Android phones cost under $200 and offer mostly the basics for using apps, taking pictures and staying connected.

As you move up to under $400, you’ll find more compelling handsets, touting better processors, higher-grade materials and more camera lenses. Progress into the $700-and-up range, and the best phones offer flagship-caliber performance along with cutting-edge computational photography and special features.

The most premium Android phones offer foldable designs, but in general we don’t feel like these types of devices are worth the splurge yet — save, perhaps, for the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, which rights the Galaxy Fold‘s design quirks and isn’t egregiously expensive (for a foldable, anyway) at $1,380.

How we test smartphones

Every smartphone Tom’s Guide evaluates is tested for several days in real-world use cases and benchmarked with a gamut of performance-measuring apps. In terms of performance, we used Geekbench 5 to measure overall speed and 3DMark to measure graphics performance.

We also use our own video editing test in the Adobe Premiere Rush app to see how long it takes to transcode a clip, which we run on both Android phones and iPhone to compare performance.

We use a light meter to ascertain display quality data, like brightness and color accuracy, and our proprietary battery test determines longevity on a charge by continuously loading live webpages over a 4G or 5G network. We set each phone to 150 nits of screen brightness and try to use T-Mobile’s network each time in order to achieve comparable results across phones.

Lastly, we explore the software, test gaming performance and conduct live camera comparisons with rival handsets — and each of these factors play a part in our comprehensive verdict.