2018: the year Apple’s iPhone XS Max made this Android fan a convert
- Chinese smartphones – from OnePlus, Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei – take four of the top five spots in our ranking of the best handsets of 2018
- But the No. 1 spot goes to Apple – and that’s not because its iPhone XS Max is the best at anything
Unless you live in the United States or South Korea, it’s just about impossible to ignore the aggressive emergence of Chinese smartphone brands in 2018.
Huawei is now in the same league as Apple and Samsung (critical and commercial success back this up); another Chinese brand, Xiaomi, expanded into Europe; Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus – who share the same parent company – grabbed headlines with some wild designs (pop-up cameras; two-screen phones and in-display fingerprint scanners); and every Chinese smartphone company seemingly launched a sub-brand (Honor, Realme, Poco and Nubia) that immediately made a splash in the emerging Southeast Asia market.
Of course, the established names – Apple, Samsung, LG and Sony – haven’t gone away, and each had compelling new releases in 2018. Between all these brands, it felt like there was a new phone launching every week; I alone tested at least 35 handsets this year.
Narrowing them down to a top five wasn’t easy, but, after much consideration, these are my five best smartphones of 2018.
5: OnePlus 6T
Once the value king, OnePlus lost that title this year to Huawei’s sub-brand Honor, which expanded aggressively. But while the OnePlus 6T no longer offers the most bang for your buck, it still has easily the best software of any Android smartphone.
