Ranking: Best smartphones reviewed by Notebookcheck

The ROG Phone 9 Pro is a high-end gaming smartphone that impresses with its enormous performance and special gaming features. Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, it offers 24 GB of RAM and a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with 185 Hz, delivering a peak brightness of 2,500 cd/m².

Special features include the ROG GameCool 9 cooling solution along with the AeroActive Cooler X, which improve the gaming experience and prevent overheating. The product is robust, with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and IP68 certification. There are additional physical buttons for gamers here as well as features such as AirTrigger and two USB-C ports.

Technically, Asus's ROG Phone 9 Pro is a top-notch product. However, corners were cut with regards to cameras and updates.

Its camera set is solid, with the Sony Lytia 700 sensor delivering usable results even in unfavorable lighting conditions. The 5,800-mAh battery supports fast wired and wireless charging. The phone consumes more energy than expected when gaming, and just two major Android updates are guaranteed.

The 15 Ultra proved to be a powerful smartphone in our testing with a special focus on camera features. The product has a Leica quad rear camera, consisting of a 50-megapixel primary 1-inch sensor, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, a 50-megapixel telephoto lens with triple zoom and a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto lens with 4.3x zoom.

Xiaomi's 15 Ultra impresses with its powerful camera and wide range of functions, which should appeal to photography enthusiasts in particular.

The 6.73-inch LTPO AMOLED display offers a resolution of 3,200 x 1,440 pixels and a variable refresh rate of 1 Hz to 120 Hz. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, supported by fast LPDDR5x RAM and UFS 4.1 storage. Its 6,000-mAh battery can be charged via USB-C at up to 90 watts, or wirelessly at up to 80 watts.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra focuses on artificial intelligence (AI). Hardware improvements compared to the predecessor model are moderate at best. Cameras-wise, the phone offers a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with the Samsung GN3 sensor, which is also used for macro shots. The main camera sensor has 200 megapixels, producing 12-megapixel photos through pixel binning. 3x and 5x optical zoom hardware is onboard. Image stabilization quality is remarkable, especially with the 5x zoom. Videos can be recorded in resolutions from 720p to 8K, with neat new features available, such as "Audio Eraser" to reduce background noise and "Nightography" for better recordings in low-light conditions.

Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra is a strong product that comes with 7 years of software updates.

The smartphone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor, supported by 12 GB of RAM. Performance in benchmarks is excellent at first glance, but is reduced under continuous load to prevent overheating.

The Magic7 Pro offers important bits of technology such as a fast USB 3.2 port, NFC and an IR blaster, but UWB and Bluetooth LE never came to the party. Its ultrasonic fingerprint sensor works flawlessly; its OS is called MagicOS 9.0 and has numerous AI features such as live translation and effortless image editing. With IP69 certification, the device is dust and waterproof, and can also withstand high pressure and steam jet cleaning.

Its OLED display offers dynamic 120 Hz, high brightness and precise colors, with high-frequency PWM dimming easy on the eyes. The Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers strong performance, but the Honor smartphone is slightly inferior to the competition in benchmarks, presumably due to weaker heat dissipation.

Honor's Magic7 Pro offers a lot, and its price was attractive right from the start.

Its cameras are what truly gives this phone its magic. The 50-MP main camera sensor offers variable aperture, improved portrait photos and good results in poor lighting. The 200-MP zoom lens enables lossless magnification up to 6x, while the ultra-wide-angle one also works as a macro lens, and does it well. Video recording in 4K60 is supported. The front camera offers 50 MP and UHD video recording.

Battery life is good despite the smaller EU model's battery (5,270 mAh). Fast charging is supported at up to 100 watts wired and 80 watts wirelessly, enabling short charging times.

The Pixel 10 Pro has a high-quality glass-and-aluminum casing with IP68 certification. Running the town here is the Tensor G5 processor with 16 GB of RAM, which runs smoothly in everyday use but lags behind the competition in benchmarks. Storage options up to 1 TB are available, but transfer rates are lower than expected despite the UFS 4.0 specification.

Google's Pixel 10 Pro impresses with its lovely display, excellent camera and long updates. It's the SoC performance, storage performance and PWM display flickering that are dragging it down.

The 6.3-inch LTPO OLED display resolving at 2,856 × 1,280 achieves peak brightness of up to 3,200 cd/m² and has a 120-Hz refresh rate, but uses rather low-frequency PWM. The Pixel's key features include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, UWB, NFC and dual-band GNSS. The latter is not very precise indoors.

Its 4,870-mAh battery can be charged at up to 30 W wired and 15 W wirelessly. Its triple primary camera with 50, 48 and 48 MP delivers impressive photos, and its ultrasonic fingerprint scanner recognizes fingers quickly. The phone's vibration motor provides precise feedback.

The Galaxy S25 is a relatively compact flagship smartphone with a 6.2-inch screen. It comes equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, which promises a significant boost in performance compared to the previous model. The device offers 12 GB of RAM and is available with 128 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB of storage.

Its AMOLED display supports an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120 Hz and offers a Full HD+ resolution. The primary camera has optical image stabilization, and there is a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera as well as a telephoto lens with triple optical zoom supporting it.

Samsung's Galaxy S25 is positioned as a powerful and compact flagship smartphone with modern AI functions, but with few changes compared to its predecessors.

The 4,000-mAh battery supports wired charging at 25 watts as well as wireless charging via Fast Wireless Charging 2.0. The product is IP68-certified, which offers protection against water and dust. Despite its high-quality features, the S25 remains light and compact at 162 grams. The phone also offers advanced AI functions, including Google's Gemini Assistant.

The Galaxy S25 Plus is a slightly larger and better brother of the base S25.

The iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max are almost identical in most regards, with the display used, as well case and battery size, being the differentiating factors. Both models are powered by Apple's A18 Pro which provides a lot of computing, AI and gaming power. The display gets very bright while also boasting true-to-life color reproduction. Thanks to the LTPO technology, refresh rates are dynamically adjusted with up to 120 Hz possible.

The iPhone 16 Pro makes for a powerful proposition (just like the Pro Max) with only a few shortcomings.

The triple rear camera offers good to very good image quality with all lenses. In particular, its videography talents deserve some kind words, with Ultra HD video capture at up to 120 frames per second now supported, as well as Dolby Vision. Rival phones are left biting the dust for the time being.

The drawbacks to consider are the lack of support for 320-MHz Wi-Fi as well as absence of high-res Bluetooth audio codecs.

The Xperia 1 VII is a high-end smartphone for photo and video professionals. It uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite with 12-GB RAM and offers a 6.5-inch OLED display (4K, 120 Hz). The panel can be as bright as 1,979 cd/m², and 240-Hz PWM dimming is supported. The triple camera comprises a 48-MP main lens, 48-MP ultra-wide-angle lens and 12-MP telephoto lens with continuous 3.5x to 7.1x zoom. It delivers high-quality results, especially in Pro mode, but the automatic mode is not great.

Sony's Xperia 1 VII impresses with its brilliant 4K OLED display, professional camera with continuous zoom, and strong battery life, but shows weaknesses in charging speed and digital telephoto zoom performance.

The Sony phone has 256 GB of storage, micro-SD card support, a 3.5-mm jack, USB-C video output and Wi-Fi 7. The 5,000-mAh battery offers long runtimes, but only charges at 30 W. On the software side, the device ships with Android 15 and receives four years of system updates and six years of security updates. Overall, the Xperia 1 VII impresses with its precise technology, excellent display and professional camera options, but is weaker when it comes to charging speeds and the automatic camera modes.

Xiaomi's 15 is a compact flagship smartphone with a 6.36-inch display that offers top performance despite its compact size. It uses the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC from Qualcomm. Its LTPO OLED display is characterized by exceptional brightness; we saw over 3,500 cd/m² with HDR content in our testing.

The Xiaomi 15 sets new standards in terms of performance and battery life in the compact flagship smartphone category.

Another highlight is the battery life. Thanks to a large battery with a silicon-carbon anode, which enables a higher energy density, the Xiaomi 15 delivers almost 23 hours of simulated Web surfing. That's over four hours more than its predecessor. The triple rear camera with three 50-MP sensors has seen some downgrades; the telephoto lens is now good for 2.6x optical zoom instead of last year model's 3.2x, reducing the flexibility of the Leica camera system somewhat.

The ultra-slim Galaxy S25 Edge is 5.85-mm-thick with a robust finish on its titanium frame, Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 in charge of protecting the display, and IP68 certification. Despite the size and weight reduction, the 163-g-lightweight product is surprisingly torsion-resistant. It also relies on modern technology: A bright 6.7″ LTPO OLED panel with 120 Hz and the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip with 12 GB of RAM.

Samsung delivers an impressively thin, yet powerful flagship with the Galaxy S25 Edge.

Other features include Wi-Fi 7, UWB, dual eSIM, USB 3.2 and up to seven years of software updates. In terms of the camera system, Samsung uses the same 200 MP main camera here as in the Ultra model. A 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera is onboard as well, whereas a telephoto lens is missing due to the thin nature of the phone. The battery only has a capacity of 3,900 mAh, but still delivers solid runtimes in everyday use.