Smartphone Awards 2025!

All right, welcome to the Smartphone Awards 2025. It's all in front of us. All the smartphones of the year, you know, somehow in a world of AI devices and smart glasses and XR headsets, the smartphone is still OP. Like, this is still the center of our personal computing lives. And we got a lot of stuff coming out this year. We got folding phones. We got really interesting high-end phones and budget phones and weird accessories and modular designs and all sorts of stuff. And I'm

about to give them some trophies. Every single phone on this desk in front of me came out during the calendar year 2025. And it's a bit of a tradition around here to reward some of the best and most notable of them. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. As usual, we have a set number of categories. And for each one of these categories, I'm going to give one overall winner, which I will also award this very nice premium trophy, uh, which I'll literally mail you if you're

watching this, if you're the company that made the phone. And then, of course, I'll give some honorable mentions and some runner-ups if there are others that are deserving. And this is one of the most fun videos to do every year because every year there's all sorts of interesting phones that came out and storylines and different picks that people are expecting for certain awards. But these are of course my awards. So the awards I give are the ones I deem worthy. And um without any

further ado, let's just jump into it. First category, best big phone. Now, I've been doing this show a long time, and back when I first made this category, it was when there were like several distinct sizes of phones. Like there was normal phones, there were small phones, and there was huge phones like fabts. Nowadays though, every phone is big. But that's not stopping me from still awarding the huge phone that makes the most of it. So, if you're going to carry a gigantic phone in your pocket,

you might as well make the most use of that space. A runner up that I want to give at least a mention to is this one over here. This is the Oppo Find X9 Pro. This is a 6.8 in screen size and packs in a huge triple camera system on the back, including a 200 megapixel telephoto sensor. There's a ton of RAM and storage. There's a custom button. They put the camera control in there from the iPhone. And there's a giant 7500 mAh silicon carbon battery, which is ridiculous. It's an awesome phone.

It's very big, but not enough to win this award. The winner, it's going to go to this guy. This is the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max.

This is a really big phone that is really loaded with features. First of all, it's a 6.9 in phone, so basically as big as a phone gets before as a tablet, but it also feels like the most phone you can get if you're trying to maximize everything. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is shaken out to be the most powerful chip of the year. 7500 mAh silicon carbon battery. all of the RAM, all of the storage, triple 50 megapixel cameras, and then a nearly 3-in,000nit

120 Hz screen on the back, which is more useful than ever at this size. You can get notifications on it. It's your camera viewfinder. It's everything. This is one of those phones that made a statement for the design and how well it used the massive thing that is the camera bump on the back of the phone. Really well done by Xiaomi and welldeserving of the best big phone of 2025. So, that brings us to the next category, that small phone. So, like I said, lots and lots of phones these days

are huge. And it's been a while since I killed a category, but I don't want to do it with this one because I feel like it's more important than ever to reward the ones that are actually doing the most with the least amount of space cuz it's so rare now. And so, last year, the small flagship phone basically went extinct. There are no really good flagships with an under 6 in screen anymore. So, the winner last year was a 6.1 in display. Nowadays, even that is rare. So, now the phones that are

are huge. And it's been a while since I killed a category, but I don't want to do it with this one because I feel like it's more important than ever to reward the ones that are actually doing the most with the least amount of space cuz it's so rare now. And so, last year, the small flagship phone basically went extinct. There are no really good flagships with an under 6 in screen anymore. So, the winner last year was a 6.1 in display. Nowadays, even that is rare. So, now the phones that are

shooting for that throne are in like the 6.3 in screen size territory. So, here's a good example. This phone I really liked. This is the OnePlus 13S. S for small, allegedly, and it did a lot of things great. Pretty simple, small, strong, and slick design, smooth, and smart software. Sorry, I'm overdoing the S thing again, but that wasn't quite enough to win this award. Uh, we also had phones like the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, which had 6.3 in screens roughly. That didn't win. We had the Xiaomi 17

Pro, the smaller one. But, you know, I think it's about time to make a bit of a statement with this category cuz if slab phones aren't going to do it, then I feel like we should reward the phone that's actually trying to do something to be smaller. And so the winner of the best small phone this year is this, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7. So Samsung has been on this path where they're kind of slowly refining all of their phones year-over-year now, which makes the flagship phones kind of feel

like they're not really doing too much. But that's paying off dividends for these foldables because this phone is now a 6.9 in full-size smartphone when it's unfolded, which is massive. But now more than ever, you can use this phone when it's folded in half, which doesn't just make it easier to pocket, but it also lets you use the full 4.1 inch corner to corner cover screen a lot more. And I actually found myself doing that. I was managing notifications, texting people back and handling

critical stuff, but not ever really getting distracted into doom scrolling or mindless smartphone usage like I would on a normal phone. It's like this was a perfect amount of useful as a small phone and that it always had a full-size smartphone lurking underneath if you needed it. But definitely worthy of the best small phone. I think you could argue all day between the folding and flipping form factors, like which one's better for most people, which one's more utility. I think for the

average person, I could argue for the flip phone a little more easily and it's also cheaper. So I think really good phone, long time coming, well played Samsung. So, next category, best camera. Now, this has always been a very interesting category for the smartphone awards because every year we get a ton of innovation in smartphone cameras. It's no surprise. Matter of fact, little inside baseball. Basically, every single one of these phones that comes out, it gets sent to the studio for a review

along with like a 50page PDF of a reviewer's guide with all the facts and figures and new features on the phone. And sometimes like half of those pages are just on smartphone camera features. So we got new flagship phones this year with 200 megapixel cameras. We got brand new super advanced stabilization in some of these. Some new formats. Almost everything actually in front of me here has at least triple cameras. Uh usually three focal lengths, sometimes two with

like a sort of a cheap macro or black and white third camera. So there's lots of phones deserving to be recognized here. But then you ask the people who actually use the cameras here for a living and it seemingly always boxes us in to one answer. The I Oh. Oh, wait. That's not Oh, would you look at that. The 2025 camera winner is the Oppo Find X9 Pro. This phone did basically everything right in the camera department in my opinion. It's got trip well actually

four cameras on the back here, but a 50 megapixel main camera, a 50 megapixel ultrawide, a 200 megapixel telephoto camera, and they put out consistently great photos, great sharpness and dynamic range, really good color calibration. That was a really good base. And then all the little intangibles, too, like a really quick, responsive camera app, quick focus, and the confidence that gives you to successfully get harder shots, especially when punching way in with the

zoom thanks to the resolution on that periscope camera. And then they just loaded it up with a ton of extra features that honestly sometimes work, sometimes don't, but like it's cool to have them if you want. Like there's the stage lighting mode. So if it detects you're taking a photo during a concert, it can change the lighting to look kind of nice. Also, the fourth sensor back here is a true color sensor, which does a lot of work to help you get accurate colors in more challenging lighting

situations. And they also just straight up copied Apple's camera control for what it's worth. It's not actually worth very much, but it's there. It also has good portrait mode, and it has good night mode and very respectable film emulation. And also, you know how most of these on the table, 48,50, 100 megapixel sensors are mostly giving you bend down 12 megapixel shots. Not this one. This one's giving you, if the lighting is good enough, 50 megapixel shots from every shot every time. And

situations. And they also just straight up copied Apple's camera control for what it's worth. It's not actually worth very much, but it's there. It also has good portrait mode, and it has good night mode and very respectable film emulation. And also, you know how most of these on the table, 48,50, 100 megapixel sensors are mostly giving you bend down 12 megapixel shots. Not this one. This one's giving you, if the lighting is good enough, 50 megapixel shots from every shot every time. And

somehow it doesn't sacrifice much in the video department either. It will do 4K 120 fps Dolby Vision. It'll do log. And the microphones are pretty good, too. And then on top of all of that, they also made this, which is an attachment lens, a Hasselblad telephoto attachment that you put the case on the back of the phone, you attach this to the case, and then this turns into a 10x optical zoom on this already really good 200 megapixel telephoto that takes sometimes

shockingly usable really good far zoom shots just for fun. So yeah, this has the fundamentals and the fun, the numbers, and the look. Like this is an incredibly well-rounded smartphone camera. Welldeserved and also happens to be a really good phone in other ways too. So Oppo Find X9 Pro welldeserving camera of the year. And then my runner up is in fact the iPhone 17 Pro which also leveled up again this year both in the photo and video departments. The larger main sensor looks really good.

They also bumped to a 4x telephoto which I think is the right move. And these iPhones are still the undisputed king of video. Like, it's not even really up for debate. If you want the most compatible, best looking, easiest, most consistent video in the biggest variety of situations, especially with social media apps, you just get the Pro iPhone. Like, the Pro iPhone's getting genlock support this year is all the proof you really need that the target demographic for

people who shoot video with iPhones is more locked in than anyone else. They take it very seriously and that's why this is the king of video. So that's my runner up for smartphone camera. And I also want to give one more shout out to the Vivo X300 Pro. Came out late this year. Also ridiculously good cameras. Really really impressive sensors and huge sensors. Just not quite as refined as I thought they were going to be. The bokeh sometimes looks a little weird. The the backgrounds and the blur a

little off, but like tons of detail in every shot and really respectable performance again cuz last year the X200 Pro was excellent. So, shout out to the X300 Pro. All right, next category, the value award. And yeah, here we are. This is always one of the most competitive categories because in the battle of giving you the most for the least, that's where the customers are, of course, but also that's the most challenging as far as development. And the thing about these phones, like

they're all really good. You can't really get a terrible phone, but when you go super super low in price, sometimes it feels like just trying not to get the phone that sucks at the thing that you really like. So, like you might get a super cheap phone, but at least the camera doesn't suck because I like taking pictures. But my winner is one that I found. Didn't really suck at anything, which is really nice. It was just a result of an extremely aggressive pricing strategy from this company.

Yeah, this is my winner. This is the CMF Phone 2 Pro. For $279, this phone is modular, cheap, and fun. It's funny, this tends to be one of the harder phones to explain because I'm already trying to explain to people what nothing is, which is like a new brand of kind of budgety phones. And then the Nothing brand has the A series phones, which are even more budget. But then nothing made a subbrand called CMF, which is even more budget. But then this is the Pro phone in the lineup. But you can just

ignore all that because they built a phone that feels like it's literally double the price. This is a 6.8 8 in 120 Hz screen that's actually good-looking and bright. There's a 5,000 mAh battery, so the life is actually pretty good. It also still has three cameras where lots of phones at this price tend to drop one. The specs are solid and the software is probably its highlight. It's really well optimized and feels pretty smooth. Plus, it's wrapped in this sort

of fun design with some bright colors and some actually interesting attachable accessories to really make it your own. It's funny, I literally titled my review of this phone budget phone of the year in May. So, some pretty intense foreshadowing there, but I'd say welld deserved and uh nice trophy headed out to the folks over in London for that one. Now, I also want to give a shout out to the Moto G Play. Uh maybe it's because Motorola is really not very good at flagships, but this phone feels as

good as anything they've made, and that's a good thing. Like, it's got a huge screen. And it's got a really, really big battery, decent cameras, decent software, headphone jack. This is one of the best phones under $200. It's like 180 right now, and it will probably only drop from here. Very much worth it. And they've been killing it in this space for a year. So, this isn't a surprise. This is a really good option among all the competition in that price category. Well done, Motorola. And also,

Pixel 9a has got to be on anybody's list who's after a more compact option. A lot of these flagships are trying to feel like a flagship and have a huge screen. This is a 6.3 in screen and they did a lot of things. You can see that there isn't really any camera bump because they sort of filled it out and gave it a 5,300 millia battery and a great battery life as a result. Still great software from being a Pixel. Really good cameras on the back. So overall, if you're after

something smaller, this is $499, but I've seen it listed as low as like $3.99. So shout out to the Pixel 9a. And you know what? Shout out to the base iPhone 17 for finally stepping up to the plate and doing all the things that the base iPhone should. Flagship chip, really good cameras, great software obviously, but also the new promotion display, a massively upgraded selfie camera, some kind of sweet new colors. It's actually a good deal this time around. It's sick. Love some good

foreshadowing. All right, next category. Best battery. It feels like we should just be marking this year down on our calendars or or the history books. I guess this is the year that smartphone batteries finally took a meaningful leap up or some of them. I guess I feel like it started in January at the beginning of the year with the OnePlus 13 which launched with a 6,000 mAh silicon carbon battery. And that's a number that was just unheard of like a year or two ago.

foreshadowing. All right, next category. Best battery. It feels like we should just be marking this year down on our calendars or or the history books. I guess this is the year that smartphone batteries finally took a meaningful leap up or some of them. I guess I feel like it started in January at the beginning of the year with the OnePlus 13 which launched with a 6,000 mAh silicon carbon battery. And that's a number that was just unheard of like a year or two ago.

And then suddenly with this silicon carbon advancement, we can have all of that in a phone that's actually just as thin as its predecessor. But not every manufacturer has adopted it. Now whether that's a a price thing or a yields thing or a safety thing, a longevity thing, we don't really know. All I can really say is now it feels like there's a pretty clear delineation between just those that have it and those that don't. Like we have a biodal distribution now. It's

like you're either Samsung and Apple and Motorola and you're just kind of capped at 5,5500 mAh or you're just blowing the doors off of those numbers with 7,7500 8,000 mAh batteries. And by the way, all these now charge faster than the old ones, too. And I actually used a phone this year that got me not two but three full days of like all day carefree high brightness mixed use. like 10 plus hours of screen on time from a 7300 mAh battery. And that is the winner for

battery of the year. This guy right here. It's the OnePlus 15. This phone has me so excited about what the next years of smartphones and what the next couple generations of the silicon carbon battery tech could turn into. Like it was already crazy. Seeing the January phone from OnePlus push in 6,000 mAh, but now pushing over 7,000 less than a year later is ridiculous. Not only though does this phone have the best battery I have ever used in a phone, but it also has 120 watt wired charging and

50 watt wireless charging. The only thing it's really missing is like having the magnets in the back, you know? So, it's crazy good. best battery experience of the year and it really sets the tone for others to either catch up or level up again in 2026. I'm also give a shout out to the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max which had a 7,500 mAh battery stuffed into this phone. But more incredibly 22 1/2 watt reverse wireless charging which is insane. That's almost as fast as a regular iPhone will regularly wireless

charge. And also honorable mention to it didn't even fit on this table. The phone that I tested this year with the largest capacity battery which is this chunk right here. This is a Dooji S200 Ultra 11,000 mAh silicon carbon battery cuz of course. So next category, the design award. And this is always a fun one. I kind of love this category. I mean, look at this table. Like at first glance, sure, we've got a lot of phones that look pretty similar, but the more you

charge. And also honorable mention to it didn't even fit on this table. The phone that I tested this year with the largest capacity battery which is this chunk right here. This is a Dooji S200 Ultra 11,000 mAh silicon carbon battery cuz of course. So next category, the design award. And this is always a fun one. I kind of love this category. I mean, look at this table. Like at first glance, sure, we've got a lot of phones that look pretty similar, but the more you

look at them, the more interesting little details as far as shapes and textures and materials and colors all start to show up. There were phones with modules you could throw on the back. There were phones with screens on the back. There was even this. This is the the Realme GT8 Pro. And you see this camera bump, which kind of looks maybe a little bit generic, but there's two screws on it. It came with a screwdriver so you could pop this camera bump off and change it out to a different shape.

So you could have a circular or a rectangular camera bump just because those are clearly the two types of camera bumps you might want. But the philosophy for which one to award has actually changed a bit from year to year. I remember back in the day this used to just be the best built phone or the most durable phone and now it's kind of shifted to something that has a little bit more of a story to it and maybe takes more of a risk in design to achieve something really really cool and

I want to keep it that way. I mean this is my awards after all. There's a thousand ways that this could go. But my award winner is going to be this phone right here. This is the iPhone Air. What are the most beautiful and controversial products of the whole year? So, we've had a couple months now to get more cleareyed on the iPhone Air, and a couple things have become more clear. One is it's not nearly as successful as a product as Apple might have been hoping. Uh, but two is it is

clearly compromised in some very specific ways that you're either willing to live with or not. It is clearly a worse battery and it's dropped all the way down to a single camera. But also what they've ended up with is a phone that feels crazy. It feels impossibly light. It looks impossibly thin. It kind of resembles a piece of jewelry in many ways, but also really appeals to the minimalist in me. Just the idea of rearranging basically all the internals into the top section of this phone

around the camera bump is hilarious, but also surprisingly effective. Nobody asked for this. Nobody needs this. In fact, I've been asking specifically for change in the opposite direction. But then you use this phone and it starts to make other very normal phones feel like tanks. It's just one of those phones that feels so good in the hand and is so impressive that like I want to be able to use it daily. Like I want to be the type of person who could live with these sacrifices. Uh I tried. I

can't. Like I need this to have dual cameras and a silicon carbon battery and they didn't do that. But geez, just a ridiculously good-looking, awesome feeling piece of machinery this phone is. So, it's definitely getting the award. I definitely have some runner-ups though that I want to give out. One specifically, I have to this the the design of the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max with the full-on usable screen on the back of the phone. Just awesome, awesome phone in general.

And to have that design element actually be super functional was kind of a masterpiece. So, really well played. Nicely done, Xiaomi. And then the Galaxy S25 Edge is another one. Again, not a product that anyone in particular was asking for or needs, but a much more brutalist uh really rectangular version of the ultra thin smartphone. Uh and it actually has a flagship main camera and a little bit more of a usable battery, but just a a really different take here.

Also, I cannot wait for them to make a silicon carbon battery version of this phone. It's got to be around the corner. And I'm also going to give a shout out to this, which is the Fairphone 6, a phone that looks relatively normal, but that's the point because this just so happens to be the most repairable, the most sustainable, and most modular phone basically of all time. And that is no small feat. Definitely worth recognizing. So then, next category, best foldable. So, I don't have them all

here in front of me, but there are definitely a lot of phones that come out every year now that have some version of folding and flipping. And it seems like this is the year that a lot of them got way thinner. And obviously thin is mostly an aesthetic thing. But in a phone that folds in half like this, where you mostly use it open, but also sometimes use it closed, it goes a long way to making it feel a lot more like a regular phone that just happens to unfold into a tablet. So that was pretty

key for me. And so it was close between two for me. But I'm going to give my award for best foldable to this guy, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. If you deleted all the slab phones in the world somehow and made me daily drive something that folds, it would be this one. Not because it's the thinnest or has the best specs or the best cameras. It doesn't. But it's just it's the most rock solid across the board and usable as a daily in every way. Like really great software, very

good battery life. It has plenty of software features built in to take advantage of the 8-in display canvas when it's open. But it's also, like we can see, dramatically better to use while closed than any previous ZFold thanks to the new ultra thin form factor. This is just another phone I'm hoping for a silicon carbon version of at some point in the future. Samsung, please. But like I said, this one was actually close. There were a bunch of other foldables that I saw and one other

one that I actually daily drove this year uh for an extended period of time and it was it was this one, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. And this one is really nice. Again, not because it's the thinnest thing in the world, uh, but while using it closed, it's basically all the goodness of just a regular Pixel 10 Pro, but again, it is a little thicker, so not as fun to hold and use closed despite having all the great software. Uh, silicon carbon battery version again, maybe would be nice. Um, and I

also will give a shout out to the Z Flip 7 for the same reasons that I talked about earlier, which made it a good small phone. You can actually use it closed. So, the outside cover screen, the 4.1 inch corner to corner, you can triage notifications and do all sorts of full-time stuff out there. And then, of course, use it as a regular full-size phone open. But yeah, other foldables did individual really interesting things as far as like minimizing the crease or,

you know, actually having a silicon carbon battery. But as far as the overall package, I'm happy with my picks. Also, in case you're wondering, the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold, the triplefolding one, it got announced this year, but it's really coming out next year. So, I think we'll just make it eligible for the 2026 awards. So, next category, the most improved. And man, I am so glad I made this category. This is a good one. And you know, a lot of the discourse and the talk about smartphones

on Twitter and comments sections is that they hardly change from year to year. They rarely actually take a big leap from one generation to the next. And for the most part, I agree. But it's worth recognizing the ones that actually do. And when you see some interesting technologies or interesting new designs or developments between generations, sometimes people forget how far they've come from the last generation because a lot of phones come out around the same time and look similar. So, I'm very

happy I get to give this award out. It's one of my favorites. And this year's winner is this one. This is the iPhone 17. Apple just finally went ahead and did what they should have done years ago. They made the base iPhone a complete phone. It almost felt shocking to see them finally do it. And over the iPhone 16, they of course are giving it the new chip, but they also finally gave it a high refresh rate display. They doubled the base storage. They gave it a

massively upgraded new selfie camera. That's across the whole iPhone lineup. And so this entry-le iPhone has gone from being just kind of like the base placeholder iPhone that I kind of hated recommending, but it was fine, to being all the iPhone anyone really ever needs. like it's the easiest to recommend one in the whole lineup now. And so, yeah, it's that big of a difference from year to year. Definitely award worthy. And I do have a runner up as well, which is

going to be the OnePlus 15. And it's crazy. I was really liking the OnePlus 13, like I said, which was earlier this year. And so to have them come out with the 15, they skipped the number 14 in between. But this phone having more power, way more battery, way better design, but then also having slightly worse cameras, it was still a pretty impressive difference between the phones from less than 12 months apart. Maybe if the next one has awesome cameras, it can

be a phone of the year contender. Also, shout out to the Samsung Galaxy ZFold 7 for moving to this ultra thin design, but actually keeping the exact same size battery as a previous one, but feeling way better in the hand. Good work. All right, next category, bust of the year. the award that I hate to have to give, but you know what? We've been doing it for this long, so every year someone has got to win win the best of the year. And the funny thing is, there were a few

phones that came out this year that didn't quite hit their mark. Either they didn't land with their typical fan base or they weren't quite what people are expecting or they were confusing or they got worse. Unfortunately, this year there was one phone that did all of that. So, uh, the trophy is yours this year, Apple. It's the iPhone 16. The mission was actually pretty simple here. Apple was looking to create a new entry-level iPhone at the bottom of the lineup. It's

not for spec chasers. It's not for people who want the best performance. It's just for the basic buyer to get in the door and get a smaller, less premium iPhone. So, they made a smaller, less premium iPhone basically by taking things out of the base phone. So, we have a bend A8 chip in here. Fine. It's also a smaller 60 Hz display with a notch. Fine. But then they kept going. Uh they took the cameras out. So, it's a single camera on the back. No telephoto, no ultrawide. Fine. Uh then they kept

going. They took all the color options away. So, it's just black. Fine. But then they kept going. No Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7. No ultra wideband. No millimeter wave, no camera control, no Mag Safe. Okay, this must be like a super cheap iPhone then, right? But no, the starting price was $5.99. And actually, when I reviewed this phone in a couple months ago, the the higher tiered storage version I was reviewing cost $900. So, just a crazy swing in a miss here. I It is the cheapest new iPhone, but it is

going. They took all the color options away. So, it's just black. Fine. But then they kept going. No Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7. No ultra wideband. No millimeter wave, no camera control, no Mag Safe. Okay, this must be like a super cheap iPhone then, right? But no, the starting price was $5.99. And actually, when I reviewed this phone in a couple months ago, the the higher tiered storage version I was reviewing cost $900. So, just a crazy swing in a miss here. I It is the cheapest new iPhone, but it is

not a cheap iPhone. And if anyone was considering buying one, they were recommended to get a 16 or a 15 Pro instead. Now, I do actually have a runner up, too. Uh, the Nothing Phone 3 was sort of a a uniquely disappointing phone this year. Not because it was a particularly bad phone, but it was just a big delta between what their very passionate fans were hoping and expecting from this phone and what they actually delivered, which kind of a wonky design and also really nuking one

of their most popular features and turning it into like a tiny pixelated display on the back. Just didn't hit the way people like me were hoping it would. So then last but not least, next category, MVP. So so, so phone of the year. So many stories, so many so many options, and so many well-deserving ones here. I feel like every year when I talk about the MVP for this show, I I almost always use a sports analogy. Like there's typically more than one deserving winner of the MVP. It's almost

never unanimous unless their name is Steph, my goat. But the point is, there's a bunch of really good stories and a bunch of really good phones uh to recognize here. And to be clear, this is not the uh best phone of the year award. Like I think it would actually be kind of boring to sit here and just pick the phone with the highest benchmark scores and the biggest numbers as the number one phone of the year, which I'm sure there is a phone that can qualify for

that, but this is more of the one that had the story that represents the year for me. If you go back and watch previous winners, it'll make a lot of sense. So, of all the phones that came out during 2025, the winner for MVP is this guy, iPhone 17. This phone was a long time coming. And what a story this year. Hidden in the most expansive iPhone lineup we've kind of ever had among the iPhone Air, the most interesting one, and the iPhone Pro, the most capable one. is this base iPhone

that leveled up to be the most complete and actually kind of a great deal. Like aside from the obvious stuff that they can kind of sleepwalk through, like a new chip, toss that in, new colors, whoop-dedoo, slightly updated camera, they also did the bigger stuff. They updated to a much brighter, but more importantly, finally, high refresh rate 120 Hz display. Thank you. Is this the only Prolleabeled feature ever to come to a nonpro iPhone? I think so. Why was

it ever called Pro in the first place? I don't know, but it's finally here. And then they also gave it a really good new selfie camera upgrade. This upgrade is across the entire iPhone lineup, but it's this big square sensor that can take portrait or landscape selfies. Huge underrated upgrade that I think a lot of people are going to copy next year. And then they went ahead and doubled the base storage, which was kind of the cherry on top because they kept the

price the same. So now this base iPhone is a better deal than the base S25 and the base Pixel. It's about damn time. I mean, it's not something I ever thought I would say, but a phone with basically an 8 out of 10 in every category, great battery, great cameras, great software, and an eternity of software support, it's just nice to see them finally coming through and delivering what they should have a long time ago. So, shout out to the most improved and the MVP,

iPhone 17. Now, I do have a runner up as well. uh probably my favorite phone release of the year because it kind of almost shamelessly wrote on the back of the iPhone 17 Pro Max and that is the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max and just a treat to use but also hilarious that they just copied the name and then did a bunch of oneuping. They went up the design, they went up the battery, they went up the power, and they add this display on the back, which is actually super functional

iPhone 17. Now, I do have a runner up as well. uh probably my favorite phone release of the year because it kind of almost shamelessly wrote on the back of the iPhone 17 Pro Max and that is the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max and just a treat to use but also hilarious that they just copied the name and then did a bunch of oneuping. They went up the design, they went up the battery, they went up the power, and they add this display on the back, which is actually super functional

and turned out to be an incredible design choice. And they might as well keep doing it with this phone. So, really, really good phone, and they undercut the price, by the way. Just a lot going on here. Very, very worthy of a trophy. Just short. Really well done. And that is it. People always want to know also what's the phone that I used the most during the year, which I mentioned in a previous video, but I will say it was Galaxy S25 Ultra for a long time and then it was Pixel 10 Pro

for a long time and now lately it has been OnePlus 15 in my pocket. But there you have it. It's the smartphone awards 2025. Let me hear in the comments section. Let me hear what you would have picked for which category, which ones you disagree with, which ones you do agree with. I always look forward to that discourse in the comment section below. But until next time, catch you guys later. Peace.