Which smartphone is right for you?
With so many choices out there, it can be hard deciding which is the right smartphone for you. But after reviewing almost every phone released to-date, we have a pretty good idea of which smartphone best fits which person. Let's get started.
You're on a budget
You want flagship performance, but at a more affordable price
You want to be productive on the go
You want the latest Android features
You love photography
You want the biggest display
You want the best display
You're a hardcore mobile gamer
You want the best performance
You're an audiophile
You're concerned about phone security
The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 punches well above its weight with an attractive 'Wave Design' that looks, feels, and handles like a much more expensive device. Its large Full HD display, mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor, and huge 5,000mAh battery all also exceed what you normally expect at this price range. To seal the deal, the Max Pro M2 also runs on stock Android, providing a clean and lightweight user experience.
All of this for just S$348.
Read: Our full review of the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 here.
Check: Latest retail prices here.
Poco is a sub-brand of Xiaomi that offers flagship specs at an even lower price point. The Pocophone F1 has a 6.18-inch Full HD+ display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with either 6 or 8GB RAM, 64 or 128GB internal storage options with microSD support, a rear dual-camera module (12MP f/1.9 Sony IMX363 sensor + 5MP sensor), a 20MP f/2.0 front-facing camera, a rear fingerprint sensor, and a 4,000mAh battery which supports Quick Charge 3.0.
The F1 costs S$449 for the 64GB model or S$529 for the 128GB model. The only drawback is that the phone is entirely plastic!
The Samsung Galaxy Note9 is practically a mobile office thanks to its S Pen stylus and Samsung DeX capabilities. The S Pen lets you easily take notes or draw sketches wherever you are, and this year, it also doubles up as a very useful remote control. Meanwhile, DeX lets you connect the Note9 to any monitor and turn it into a desktop-style computer, complete with mouse and keyboard support.
The Note9 is also one of the most feature-packed smartphones available, with an IP68 build, always-on 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, dual rear cameras with dual aperture and OIS on both lenses, wireless fast charging, up to 512GB internal storage, and 4G+ LTE Cat 18 support.
Read: Our full review of the Samsung Galaxy Note9 here.
Check: The latest retail prices here.
If you're a fan of all things Google, the Pixel 3 XL is the phone for you. As Google's own phone, it runs on pure Android and will always receive the latest Android updates and features first.
The Pixel 3 XL sports the latest Qualcomm Sanpdragon 845 processor, a much better OLED display than last year, improved front-facing stereo speakers, dual front cameras, and now includes support for Qi wireless charging.
Read: Our full review of the Google Pixel 3 XL here.
Check: The latest retail prices here.
The Huawei P30 Pro's versatile quad rear camera setup is like carrying a full set of lenses around with you at all times. The setup comprises of a wide 40-megapixel f/1.6, an ultra-wide 20-megapixel f/2.2 that doubles up as an extreme closeup macro lens, an 8-megapixel f/3.4 telephoto lens that grants 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom, and up to 50x digital zoom, and a ToF (Time of Flight) 3D lens that allows for some interesting 3D applications and improved Portrait photography.
The P30 Pro also includes basically every shooting mode you can think of, including HDR, Portrait, slow-motion video, time-lapse video, and the excellent Night Mode we first saw on the P20 Pro.
Read: Our full review of the Huawei P30 Pro here.
Check: The latest retail prices here.
If you're looking for the absolute biggest display out there, check out the Huawei Mate 20 X. The phone has a huge 7.2-inch OLED, 2,244 x 1,080 pixels resolution display with a small teardrop notch, letting it tower over its rivals and making it by far the largest display around. Specs-wise, the phone is no slouch either. It is powered by Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 980 processor with 6GB RAM, and has a huge 5,000mAh battery. On the rear, it boasts the same Leica-engineered triple camera setup used by the Mate 20 Pro.
The 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED display on the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is the best display you can get today. The QHD+ 1440p panel has a record-breaking brightness of 1,200nits, and it also has superb color accuracy with 100 percent mobile color volume in the DCI-P3 color range. It's also the only smartphone display in the world to support HDR10+.
In fact the display is so good, the S10 and S10+ are the only phones to achieve an A+ grade in DisplayMate's extensive grading process.
Read: Our full review of the Samsung Galaxy S10+ here.
Check: The latest retail prices here (128GB, 512GB, 1TB).
If you're really serious about mobile gaming, the just-launched ASUS ROG Phone is about as hardcore as they come. The phone is equipped with an overclocked “speed-binned” 2.96GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chip, 8GB RAM and a 3D vapor-chamber cooling system. It also offers a 90Hz AMOLED panel for a more fluid experience, and the 6-inch display boasts a crisp 2,160 x 1,080-pixels resolution and a 1ms pixel response time.
The ROG Phone also launches with an entire lineup of gaming accessories that can be attached to the phone to further enhance your gaming experience.
Read: Our hands-on experience with the ASUS ROG Phone here.
If you're looking for the most powerful phone out there, the Apple iPhone XS Max is the clear winner. Its A12 Bionic chip dominates benchmark performance tests thanks to a hexa-core CPU (two performance cores + four efficiency cores), a quad-core GPU, as well as a ‘next-generation’ octa-core neural engine (up from dual-core on last year's A11 Bionic) that handles all the machine learning and AI tasks. The added power of that neural engine allows it to process 5 trillion operations per second, a huge leap compared to the A11 Bionic’s 600 billion.
Read: Our full review of the Apple iPhone XS Max here.
Check: The latest retail prices here (64GB, 256GB, 512GB).
While headphone jacks continue to disappear from smartphones, LG has taken the opposite approach, fitting an audiophile quality 32-bit Quad DAC into the LG V40 ThinQ.
It is also one of the few phones to support the high-quality MQA (Master Quality Audio) file format that boasts a better compression ratio for high-res audio than FLAC by repackaging high-frequency audio data into superfluous bits of data inherent in hi-res audio files.
It also boasts LG's Boombox speaker technology for one of the better sounding phones in the market and if you're using headphones, you can engage DTS:X to immerse in spatial audio.
Read: More about the LG V40 ThinQ.
The BlackBerry Key2 is probably the most secure phone out now with enterprise-level security down to the hardware-level with unique security keys added to the processor of every Key2 which can track, verify, and provision each device. It also features FIPS 140-2 compliant full disk encryption - a U.S. government-grade encryption that protects your private information if your phone gets lost. BlackBerry also has a dedicated security research and response team to continuously monitor for security threats and is one of the fastest to release security patches.
Read: Our initial impressions of the BlackBerry Key2 here.
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