Top 10 Best Smartphones of 2022 | Articles | Phones

In 2022, the smart­phone mar­ket began to recov­er after a long stag­na­tion caused by the pan­dem­ic. Man­u­fac­tur­ers are active­ly releas­ing new prod­ucts, delight­ing the con­sumer with top flag­ships and bud­get devices. Our today’s rat­ing is formed by the best of the best new prod­ucts in 2022 — the most pro­duc­tive and mod­ern gad­gets of such well-known brands as Sam­sung, Apple, Xiao­mi and oth­ers.

The wide range of smart­phones on the mar­ket makes it dif­fi­cult to choose the best one. Pho­to: techadvisor.com

iPhone 14 Pro Max is the top smart­phone of 2022 from Apple
Galaxy S22 Ultra is the most stuffed Android smart­phone of 2022
Google Pix­el 6a is the top cam­era phone in the bud­get line
One­Plus 10 Pro is a flag­ship with a rec­og­niz­able design
Galaxy Z Fold 4 — a huge clamshell from Sam­sung
Sam­sung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a new com­pact “frog“
Zen­Fone 8 is a com­pact flag­ship from ASUS
Xiao­mi 12 Pro is the com­pa­ny’s top flag­ship
Huawei P50 Pock­et Pre­mi­um is a styl­ish clamshell that looks like
cig­a­rette case
Hon­or X7 is a bud­get flag­ship
Results

iPhone 14 Pro Max is the top smartphone of 2022 from Apple

The nov­el­ty was pre­sent­ed on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2022. The main dif­fer­ence from its pre­de­ces­sor is the absence of the usu­al and bor­ing wide bangs. Instead, it now has an oblong Dynam­ic Island cutout, which hides the face recog­ni­tion sen­sors and the front cam­era. Anoth­er Apple inno­va­tion that fans of the brand have been wait­ing for is the cus­tomiz­able Always-On Dis­play fea­ture.

The usu­al cur­tain was replaced with a neat Dynam­ic Island cutout. Pho­to: computerworld.com

The hard­ware has also been updat­ed. The gad­get is based on the new A16 Bion­ic proces­sor. It also has an improved 48-megapix­el cam­era built into it. In gen­er­al, it shoots almost the same as the 12-megapix­el cam­era in the iPhone 13 Pro, but in low light it pro­duces bet­ter detail. There is a down­side: night shots are some­times too sharp and look unnat­ur­al.

Night por­trait qual­i­ty tak­en on 14 Pro Max and 13 Pro Max. Pho­to: YouTube, Tech­no Are­na chan­nel

There are ques­tions about proces­sor per­for­mance, as it is not much high­er than the pre­vi­ous A15 Bion­ic (by 8% in Geek­Bench 5 tests and 4% in 3DMark). In fact, the iPhone 14 Pro Max has become a kind of remix of last year’s 13 Pro Max mod­el. The smart­phone has become a lit­tle bet­ter in all respects, although the gad­gets of the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion are still rel­e­vant. For exam­ple, in terms of pho­to capa­bil­i­ties, they are supe­ri­or to many com­peti­tors.

Read also:

What cam­eras does the iPhone 14 have: what’s new, detailed spec­i­fi­ca­tions and fea­tures

Galaxy S22 Ultra is the most technologically advanced Android smartphone of 2022

The top ver­sion of the lat­est flag­ship Sam­sung Galaxy S22 Ultra in design is almost an exact copy of the last year’s Note20 Ultra mod­el. The top and bot­tom of the smart­phone has straight edges, and the side ends are round­ed. The phone has a large 6.8‑inch dis­play with a max­i­mum fre­quen­cy of 120 Hz.

From a tech­ni­cal point of view, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the most advanced Android flag­ship in the first half of this year. The smart­phone was equipped with an Exynos 2200 proces­sor with 5G sup­port and mod­er­ate pow­er con­sump­tion. The bat­tery charge is enough for the whole day.

The qual­i­ty of the cam­eras in the Galaxy S22 Ultra is excel­lent. The gad­get has a 108-megapix­el main sen­sor, a good 12-megapix­el ultra-wide-angle lens and two mod­ules with 3x and 10x opti­cal zoom of 10 megapix­els each. The smart­phone pro­duces high-qual­i­ty pic­tures in any con­di­tions, and laser aut­o­fo­cus works instant­ly.

Com­par­i­son of pic­tures tak­en on the Galaxy S22 Ultra and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Pho­to: YouTube, Dan­ny Winget chan­nel

Anoth­er fea­ture of the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the pres­ence of a sty­lus that is insert­ed into the bot­tom end of the case. It allows you to cre­ate quick notes, con­trol the cam­era and play­er, trans­late text on the screen and per­form oth­er actions.

Google Pixel 6a is the top camera phone in the budget line

Google released the Pix­el 6a in 2022, which has become one of the top cam­era phones in its price seg­ment – ​​it costs about 37,000 rubles. In Rus­sia, the phone has been on sale since August 2022.

The smart­phone has a 6.1‑inch OLED dis­play and a pow­er­ful Google Ten­sor proces­sor that sup­ports 5G. On board 128 GB of per­ma­nent and 6 GB of RAM.

The man­u­fac­tur­er installed a dual cam­era with a main sen­sor of 12.2 megapix­els and a wide-angle of 12 megapix­els. Imple­ment­ed opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion. The cam­era pro­duces high-qual­i­ty pic­tures in any con­di­tions — dur­ing the day, at dusk, at night and even against the light.

Even at night, the smart­phone allows you to cre­ate high-qual­i­ty pic­tures. Pho­to: petapixel.com

With the release of the Google Pix­el 6a smart­phone, the com­pa­ny has man­aged to achieve the per­fect bal­ance of per­for­mance and price. In the mid-bud­get seg­ment, it is dif­fi­cult to find a gad­get that can cre­ate bet­ter qual­i­ty pic­tures.

OnePlus 10 Pro is a flagship with a recognizable design

The lat­est flag­ship of One­Plus, sold in Rus­sia since the spring of 2022. In it, the man­u­fac­tur­er installed an AMOLED dis­play with a diag­o­nal of 6.7”, oper­at­ing at a fre­quen­cy of 120 Hz. The tech­ni­cal equip­ment is impres­sive: a Snap­drag­on 8 Gen 1 proces­sor, 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of per­ma­nent mem­o­ry. In this con­fig­u­ra­tion, One­Plus 10 Pro costs about 55,000 rubles, but there is also a sim­pler ver­sion — 8/128 GB for 47,000 rubles.

Com­par­i­son of pho­tos tak­en on One­Plus 10 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro and Galaxy S22 Ultra. Pho­to: cnet.com

A fea­ture of the smart­phone that the man­u­fac­tur­er is proud of is the cam­era set­up in con­junc­tion with the Swedish com­pa­ny Has­sel­blad, which has been pro­duc­ing pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment for more than 180 years. The main cam­era mod­ule of One­Plus 10 Pro has a res­o­lu­tion of 48 megapix­els and is equipped with opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion. It is com­ple­ment­ed by an 8MP tele­pho­to lens and a 50MP wide-angle lens. The res­o­lu­tion of the front cam­era is 32 megapix­els.

Among the inter­est­ing fea­tures of the cam­era is the XPan mode. When it is acti­vat­ed, the aspect ratio changes to 65:24, and a cou­ple of addi­tion­al pro­files are added: with the effect of film and b / w.

Dur­ing the day, the One­Plus 10 Pro cam­era shoots well. At night, the qual­i­ty is expect­ed to decrease, but the result is still decent — the main thing is not to for­get to switch to night mode.

Galaxy Z Fold 4 — a huge clamshell from Samsung

The fourth gen­er­a­tion of the fold­able smart­phone has received a lot of improve­ments over its pre­de­ces­sor. When unfold­ed, the diag­o­nal of the screen is a record 7.6″. The user of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 actu­al­ly gets a mini-tablet on which it is con­ve­nient to watch movies, read books, view pho­tos and play games.

Like its pre­de­ces­sor, the front cam­era is hid­den under the screen. The top-end Snap­drag­on 8+ Gen 1 proces­sor and the Adreno 730 graph­ics core were built into the smart­phone, which are com­ple­ment­ed by 12 GB of RAM and a built-in stor­age of 256, 512 or 1024 GB.

When unfold­ed, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 looks like a small tablet. Pho­to: sammobile.com

The res­o­lu­tion of the main cam­era has been increased from 12 to 50 megapix­els. Pic­tures from it are bright and clear — both dur­ing the day and at night. Even at night in con­di­tions of poor vis­i­bil­i­ty, the gad­get does not fail. The Galaxy Z Fold can be con­sid­ered the best fold­ing smart­phone to date, and its main draw­back is the price — it costs about 120,000 rubles for the 12/256 GB ver­sion.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a new compact “frog”

Galaxy Z Flip 4, com­pared with the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion, received a num­ber of impor­tant changes. For exam­ple, using a small 1.9‑inch exter­nal screen, send­ing tem­plate text mes­sages became pos­si­ble. The main dis­play is 6.7” and is a mod­ern 120Hz AMOLED dis­play.

Galaxy Z Flip 4 can be used in a semi-unfold­ed state. Pho­to: androidcentral.com

The device runs on a Snap­drag­on 8+ Gen 1 proces­sor, has 8 GB of RAM and 128, 256 or 512 inter­nal mem­o­ry. The body is made of alu­minum, and the screen is pro­tect­ed by Goril­la Glass Vic­tus+. The fin­ger­print scan­ner is placed on the side.

Image qual­i­ty is excel­lent in all con­di­tions. The main unit includes two mod­ules of 12 megapix­els — one main with opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion and the sec­ond wide-angle. As a pho­to and video smart­phone is only slight­ly infe­ri­or to the flag­ship Galaxy S22.

ZenFone 8 is a compact flagship from ASUS

In 2022, ASUS released a flag­ship unlike its pre­de­ces­sors — a small but pow­er­ful Zen­Fone 8. The smart­phone case has no sharp cor­ners. The perime­ter frame is alu­minum and the back pan­el is glass.

Com­pact Zen­Fone 8 equipped with a 5.9‑inch dis­play with a fre­quen­cy of 120 Hz. The flag­ship was equipped with a pow­er­ful Snap­drag­on 888 5G proces­sor, and the amount of RAM depends on the ver­sion – 8 or 16 GB. The size of the built-in stor­age also varies — 128 or 256 GB.

The com­pact Zen­Fone 8 fits com­fort­ably in even the small­est hand. Pho­to: pocket-lint.com

There are two mod­ules in the main cam­era unit — the main one at 64 megapix­els and the ultra-wide-angle one at 12 megapix­els. There is also a 12MP front cam­era. The pic­ture qual­i­ty is accept­able. With good light­ing, the smart­phone takes excel­lent pic­tures, but at dusk and at night the sit­u­a­tion wors­ens — the pho­tos are blur­ry and with a lot of noise.

Do not for­get that Zen­Fone 8 is not a cam­era phone. This is a qual­i­ty com­pact smart­phone with good per­for­mance and a good dis­play, but for rea­son­able mon­ey — about 55,000 rubles.

Xiaomi 12 Pro is the company’s top flagship

This is the new flag­ship of the Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­er, which is equipped with a Snap­drag­on 8 Gen 1 proces­sor, a 6.73” AMOLED dis­play with a fre­quen­cy of 120 Hz, a good cam­era and 12 GB of RAM.

In Xiao­mi 12 Pro, three cam­era mod­ules were installed on the back of the case — each with 50 megapix­els. Day­time shots look great — all col­ors are nat­ur­al and nat­ur­al. With the onset of dark­ness, the sharp­ness and bright­ness of the pho­to decreas­es, but not crit­i­cal­ly.

The Chi­nese gad­get falls short of the flag­ships of Apple and Sam­sung quite a bit, but the image qual­i­ty is still decent. The new­er iPhones and Galaxy S shoot almost per­fect­ly in auto­mat­ic mode, and Xiao­mi some­times miss­es. For exam­ple, por­trait pho­tos are some­times giv­en in yel­low­ness.

An exam­ple of a por­trait shot tak­en on Xiao­mi 12 Pro. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

Com­pared to its pre­de­ces­sor, Xiao­mi 12 Pro turned out to be more bal­anced in terms of price and qual­i­ty. This is a real flag­ship with a high-qual­i­ty AMOLED screen and a pow­er­ful proces­sor, suit­able for games, tak­ing pho­tos and oth­er tasks.

Huawei P50 Pocket Premium is a stylish clamshell that looks like a cigarette case

In 2022, sales of Huawei P50 Pock­et Pre­mi­um, a smart­phone with a flex­i­ble dis­play, start­ed in Rus­sia. This is a clamshell with a pow­er­ful Snap­drag­on 888 proces­sor, 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. When unfold­ed, the dis­play mea­sures 6.9″. The body of the smart­phone is made of met­al and has trans­par­ent glass lin­ing on both halves.

When the gad­get is unfold­ed, it can­not be dis­tin­guished from ordi­nary smart­phones. The edges of the case are round­ed and they are slip­pery — because of this, the smart­phone is uncom­fort­able to hold in your hand, it seems to slip out.

On the back of the case, under the round block with cam­eras, there is a mini OLED dis­play with a diag­o­nal of 1 “. It dis­plays infor­ma­tion about incom­ing calls and noti­fi­ca­tions. You can also use it to switch tracks in the play­er and use the cam­era. The fin­ger­print scan­ner is built into the pow­er but­ton on the side of the case.

Huawei P50 Pock­et Pre­mi­um looks like a cig­a­rette case. Pho­to: techadvisor.com

Huawei P50 Pock­et Pre­mi­um has three cam­eras built into the round block:

• the main one at 40 MP;
• ultra wide-angle 13 MP;
• ultra­spec­tral at 32 megapix­els.

The lat­ter has UV illu­mi­na­tion and is designed to pho­to­graph details that are invis­i­ble to the human eye. A fun tech­nol­o­gy allows you to high­light the teeth and even con­trol the uni­for­mi­ty of the appli­ca­tion of the cream on the face. An inter­est­ing fea­ture, but almost use­less in prac­tice.

The main mod­ule cre­ates good shots, the qual­i­ty of which pleas­ant­ly sur­pris­es: accu­rate col­or repro­duc­tion, wide dynam­ic range, fast focus­ing and high detail. In the dark and in rooms with poor light­ing, the sit­u­a­tion wors­ens a lit­tle, but the qual­i­ty is still on top.

Honor X7 is a budget flagship

Among fans of Hon­or gad­gets, the X series is very pop­u­lar — this is due to the suc­cess­ful com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and afford­able price. Hon­or X7 is a nov­el­ty of 2022, which was equipped with a HiSil­i­con Kirin 659 proces­sor that is not the most pow­er­ful by mod­ern stan­dards. There is also only 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of per­ma­nent mem­o­ry on board, but it is pos­si­ble to install a microSD card.

The smart­phone was equipped with a large 6.74 ”IPS screen with a refresh rate of 90 Hz. The main cam­era with a res­o­lu­tion of 48 megapix­els in the day­time allows you to cre­ate good pic­tures, and in poor light­ing the qual­i­ty drops sharply — noise appears, detail dete­ri­o­rates.

Hon­or X7 is only capa­ble of high-qual­i­ty shots in day­light. Pho­to: camerajabber.com

In addi­tion to the main mod­ule, a 5 MP ultra-wide-angle and a 2 MP depth-of-field sen­sor were installed to blur the back­ground in por­trait shots.

Hon­or X7 is knocked out of our rat­ing, but it got into it thanks to its low price in the region of 15,000 rubles. This is just a high-qual­i­ty smart­phone that can work on a sin­gle bat­tery charge for up to two days. But do not expect high per­for­mance and high-qual­i­ty images from it.

Results

Our top 10 includes a vari­ety of smart­phones, and it is impos­si­ble to sin­gle out the best among them. Some users want to have a gad­get with the largest pos­si­ble dis­play — in this case, you should def­i­nite­ly buy the Galaxy Z Fold 4. If com­pact­ness is a pri­or­i­ty, you should take a clos­er look at the Zen­Fone 8, and you can also buy a Galaxy Z Flip 4 mini clamshell or Huawei P50 Pock­et Pre­mi­um.

For users who are just look­ing for a good mod­ern flag­ship, Xiao­mi 12 Pro, Sam­sung Galaxy S22 Ultra or iPhone 14 Pro Max will do. When the qual­i­ty of the pho­to is in the first place, but you don’t want to over­pay, the choice is obvi­ous — this is the Google Pix­el 6a for 37,000 rubles.