These are the 5 best phones I’ve ever had the pleasure of using daily

Summary

• Over the years, I’ve owned a diverse range of smartphones.
• I’ve tested out many different makes and models, but some handsets have stood out to me more than others.
• Here are 5 smartphones that I’ve previously daily driven, and that hold a special place in my heart.

Over the years, I’ve owned a great number of excellent smartphones. From a young age, I remember being fascinated by phones as a product category, and I’ve remained so to this very day. For me, I understand phones to be a microcosm of human ingenuity, technological prowess, and innovative spirit.

In all honesty, referring to our handsets as ‘phones’ is a bit of a misnomer. For all intents and purposes, our modern-day cellphones are pocket computers, the likes of which our ancestors wouldn’t have believed possible to engineer, let alone mass produce at an industrial scale.

There are certain phone models that have left a lasting impact on me — both personally and professionally — more so than any of their contemporaries. Here are five handsets in particular that I’ve personally used as my daily driver, and that hold a special place in my heart.

1 HTC 10 (2016)

My favorite smartphone of all time

Bar none, my all-time personal favorite smartphone is the HTC 10. I’ve always been fond of HTC as a phone maker, with its eye for beautiful industrial designs, slick software packages, and an early embrace of the Android OS.

In my eyes, the HTC 10 was the last phone of an era for HTC — it was the final flagship from the company to embrace an aluminum unibody chassis, the last to include a powerful 3.5mm headphone jack, and the (first) and last to offer up an optically stabilized front-facing selfie shooter.

2 Apple iPhone 4 (2010)

The very first phone design I fell in love with

I was in middle school around the time that the iPhone 4 launched, and I remember it being a very big deal. This was a time in which fans would camp outside Apple Stores to be first in line for product launches, and it was a time when year-over-year generational jumps were significant.

The iPhone 4 was a milestone release for Apple in a number of ways. It was the first iPhone with a pixel-perfect ‘Retina Display,’ and the first with a front-facing camera for FaceTime. Perhaps most notably, it was also the first iPhone to ship with a physical design that looked and felt like a finely-crafted luxury good.

3 Honor Magic V3 (2024)

My first foldable phone was a magical experience

When I reviewed the Honor Magic V3 last year, it was the first time I had ever experienced using a book-style foldable phone. In retrospect, I consider myself lucky to have gotten to break the proverbial foldable ice by way of the V3.

Unfortunately, the Magic V3 never launched within the North American market. This is a shame as the phone is simply brilliant. It’s a remarkably light device, and it’s as thin as most regular candy bar-style slab phones — a seriously impressive feat of engineering.

4 Samsung Galaxy S9 (2018)

The magnum opus of Galaxy handsets

When I think of a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, I think of the Galaxy S9. In many ways, I view the S9 as the pinnacle of Samsung’s mobile phone efforts, with no other S series model even coming close to dethroning it.

At its core, the Galaxy S9 is a refined version of Samsung’s S8 from the year prior, and it nails just about every aspect of smartphone excellence. The gorgeous waterfall or edge ‘Infinity’ display, the hidden pressure-sensitive home button, and more — it’s all here.

5 LG / Google Nexus 5 (2013)

The phone that gave rise to my love of Android

I attribute the Nexus 5 for inspiring my love for the Android operating system. This downright-iconic phone was made in collaboration between LG and Google, and it was my first experience with ‘stock’ or the ‘vanilla’ flavor of Android.

The Nexus 5 was an early example of a ‘ flagship killer,’ offering incredible value and hardware bang-for-your-buck at a time when smartphone prices were beginning to creep up on a yearly basis. I’m also partial to the Nexus 5’s physical design — to this day, the phone is what I would describe to be the perfect size in terms of display and footprint dimensions.