2021 best Smartphones

 2021 has been a year of real surprises when it comes to smartphones we've had a significant push for foldables we've had complete flagship experiences in tiny footprints we've had budget phones that have literally changed my entire perception of value so it's time to declare some winners we've got 10 categories all leading up to the single overall 2021 champion a phone so good i've even got a special trophy made just for it okay let's start with design what is the most impressive phone from the outside and there are a couple of close contenders i've spent almost the entire year raving on about samsung's s21 ultra how it's striking but at the same time somehow also understated i was really close to giving this to xiaomi because while they do make some how do i put this polarizing designs they do also have a couple of standouts like the me11 light which is so thin that it barely feels real and the mix 4 with its completely even uninterrupted screen made possible by an actually decent in-display selfie camera but the winner of best phone design of the year i'm going to give to the vivo x70 pro plus this phone is supremely comfortable to hold they've designed a finish that you literally cannot get fingerprints on even if you try to the buttons feel distinctly luxury and while i wouldn't say i particularly love this glossy section on the back it can also double as a mirror to be able to take rear camera selfies with now we can't have a best without a burst so welcome to a bonus round of who has made the ugliest phone of the year and there's a few strong candidates asus zenfone 8 was notably devoid of character kind of looks a bit like a wish.com phone this smartphone for snapdragon insiders yes that's the real name made by qualcomm the chipmaker themselves also feels very much like a prototype but the winner of ugliest phone of the year has got to be this special edition version of the honor 50.the only way i can think to describe this phone is it's a bit like someone just vomited the alphabet all over it but there's another side to design because as well as making a phone look and feel premium the other challenge that a lot of companies are starting to face is the size constraint how do we fit all the things that people are starting to want into a phone while keeping it compact and there's one phone that i think has done this better than any honorable mention to the asus zenfone 8 which boring design aside is 90 of the capability of the big ones

achieved into 60 of the footprint a lot of things had to be re-engineered to make this possible and also props to samsung's z flip 3. as a tech person this is a hard phone to recommend to someone it's a thousand dollars but it has the specs of a 500 phone however excuse my french it just feels flipping fantastic super premium really nice materials and the fact that it folds in half means that we're not just talking about fitting in your trouser pockets this can fit into your shirt pocket but the winner of best compact smartphone of 2021 i'm giving to the iphone 13 mini no gimmicks no one particularly groundbreaking feature it's just the complete latest iphone experience smaller and now thanks to huge battery improvements this 13 mini lasts longer than last year's full-size iphone 12. speaking of battery though there is a limit to how much you're going to be able to get from a small phone if endurance is a high priority you are going to need to look bigger and the winner of this category is not the phone i expected see battery life is a very complex specification most reviewers including myself we just generally try to keep it simple by referring to how many milliamp hours of capacity that a phone has but the truth of it is it depends on display technology how well the phone regulates temperature massively on software and how efficiently it's able to allocate resources but also things like battery voltage and so in 2021 we've ended up in a situation where even though we have phones like the galaxy.