The best Metro by T-Mobile phones offer some decent choices for T-Mobile's pre-paid carrier. You can go for a top notch handset or budget-friendly option, all of which are guaranteed to work on the network.
Metro's performance is comparable to parent network T-Mobile's, making Metro the best performing prepaid carrier we tested. It is definitely one of the best prepaid options on the market.
Many of the same phones offered by the likes of T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are available through Metro by T-Mobile. And some of those happen to be the best phones you can buy right now. Many new models are often offered right at launch, too.
Here are the best phones Metro offers right now.
The best Metro by T-Mobile phones
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Samsung has followed up last year mid-range champ in the Galaxy A54 with the Galaxy A55, but sadly it's not coming stateside. Instead, we get access to the Galaxy A35. Nevertheless, the A35 features a healthy set of rear cameras featuring the same 50MP lens that Samsung used for the pricier Galaxy S24 flagship. That helps the Galaxy A35 take pictures that measure up well against most camera phones, particularly budget models.
The Exynos 1380 chipset powering the Galaxy A35 doesn't turn in blazing performance, but it manages to deliver fluid results navigating around the interface, which helps too that it's packing a 120Hz display refresh rate. Speaking of its display, the Super AMOLED panel delivers outstanding viewing angles and rich colors that make video watching such an entertaining experience. Add all those features together, and you get quite a value-packed phone for under $500.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy A35 hands-on review.
The iPhone SE is the cheapest iPhone Apple offers, and it packs stellar performance for a very easy-to-stomach $429 price. Buyers receive an A15 Bionic CPU — the very same one that debuted with the iPhone 13 — as well as a 12-megapixel camera system that benefits from the company's latest computational photography tricks. (Well, except for Night mode.)
The iPhone SE surely doesn't have the best battery life of any iPhone, given its relatively tiny battery. You'll probably want to spend an extra $50 and upgrade to 128GB of storage as well, if you can. But for the price, the SE's premium features — like wireless charging and water resistance — make it well worth a look for Metro by T-Mobile customers, especially since it supports sub-6GHz and C-band 5G.
Read our full iPhone SE (2022) review.
The OnePlus Nord N30 5G is a reminder that 5G phones don't have to break the bank. Coming in at $279 — a shockingly low price for a device that can connect with T-Mobile's 5G network — the OnePlus Nord N30 5G is one of the best bangs for your buck.
Opt for this phone, and you can expect long battery life — almost eleven and a half hours on our test. The cameras perform okay in daylight, though we found it strange lacking a proper ultrawide camera. And you also get a 6.72-inch AMOLED display on the Nord N30 5G. There are definitely compromises, but this is the best 5G value on Metro.
Read our full OnePlus Nord N30 5G review.
Apple’s latest and greatest smartphone, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, wowed people everywhere with just how impressive it is. It’s even bigger, more beautiful than ever before, and it does everything you could possibly want it to do. Apple refreshed the ultrawide camera, making it much more equipped for low light and macro photography. Battery life hits a new reocrd for any iPhone and the performance is incredibly impressive.
New this year is a Camera Control button that better gives shutterbugs more control with the camera, along with new Apple Intelligence features that transforms the way it's used for everything.
If anything, the biggest complaint you could leverage against the iPhone 16 Pro Max is that it's still expensive. Otherwise, you have a very good device here and it’s by far one of the best devices that Metro has to offer.
Read our full iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max reviews.
It's the iPhone 16 is the all-around phone for everyone. Apple's standard iPhone delivers a fantastic camera experience in a compact design. That's partly due to how it shares a similar main camera to the iPhone 16 Pro, delivering sharp details and good low light performance. It's also incredibly snappy thanks to the powerful A18 processor.
Other highlights include a brighter 6.1-inch display and a smaller notch up top so you get more screen real estate. The biggest improvement is battery life, as we saw about 13.4 hours of endurance, which is an improvement of over 1.5 hours from the iPhone 15. Add in a base 128GB of storage for your $799 and you can’t go wrong with this iPhone.
Read our full iPhone 16 review.
If the latest Galaxy S flagships at Metro are too much for your budget, the carrier does offer the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, a lower-cost version of some earlier Galaxy S models. You get a beautiful and much larger 6.7-inch 120Hz display, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU, and great camera performance with the triple lens setup.
One complaint about the Galaxy S24 FE is that the front selfie camera performance is a bit underwhelming, but the triple camera arrangement. The phone also feels rather heavy and doesn’t feel as premium as some other phones, but that's a compromise that's more than acceptable given what you get for your money.
Read our full Galaxy S24 FE review.
Who says foldable phones can't be cheap? Metro by T-Mobile takes the already affordable Motorola Razr 2024 and discounts it down by even more. Since it's a flip-style phone, it does things you can't do with a traditional slate smartphone — like being able to take selfies hands-free by folding it in half.
Even more impressive is that the cameras are quite good, especially for a foldable, since it does decent with low light. And even though it's a slim phone, it offers outstanding long battery life that can easily get you through the day.
Read our full Razr 2024 review.
The iPhone 12 is the best new iPhone for those looking for an affordable option. For $629, you get improved cameras across the board with better low-light performance (thanks to Photonic Engine), and speedy graphics processing courtesy of the A14 Bionic chip.
While the overall design remains similar to the previous model, it's subtle changes make it easy to handle one handed. The only thing we wish Apple offered is a 120Hz display at this price, but overall the iPhone 12 is a winner.
Read our full iPhone 12 review.
How to choose the best Metro by T-Mobile phone for you
While we regularly update our best Metro by T-Mobile phones page with the carrier's most compelling deals, you'll want to check the network's smartphones store page for the latest and greatest offers — especially if you're interested in switching from a rival carrier. Metro, like all wireless providers, offers the best discounts for new customers who bring their numbers over with them.
Otherwise, Metro offers a complete range of devices across all prices, so prospective buyers should consider those most critical smartphone features — like battery life, performance and camera quality — when choosing a new handset. Cheaper models, like the Galaxy A20 and Moto G7 Power, tend to prioritize battery life above those other factors. In other words, if longevity on a charge is all you need, you could be in an ideal position to save.
However, if premium specs, design and a great camera are really important to you, it's a better idea to look to one of the iPhones or Samsung Galaxy S devices on this list. They are more expensive, but their capabilities far outshine those of the less-expensive models Metro offers. They'll also likely last you a few more years and are sure to be supported with more frequent software updates going forward.
How we test smartphones
In order for a smartphone to make our best phone list, it needs to excel on several tests that we run on every handset. We perform some of these tests in our labs and some in the real world.
When it comes to performance, we rely on such synthetic benchmarks as Geekbench 5 and 3DMark to measure graphics performance. These tests allow us to compare performance across iPhones and Android devices. We also run a real-world video transcoding test on each phone using the Adobe Premiere Rush app and time the result. (We unfortunately have to skip this test on some phones due to app compatibility issues, but we attempt this benchmark with each device we get in to review.)
To measure the quality of a phone's display, we perform lab tests to determine the brightness of the panel (in nits), as well as how colorful each screen is (DCI-P3 color gamut). In these cases, higher numbers are better. We also measure color accuracy of each panel with a Delta-E rating, where lower numbers are better and score of 0 is perfect.
One of the most important tests we run is the Tom's Guide battery test. We run a web surfing test over 5G (or 4G if the phone doesn't have 5G support) at 150 nits of screen brightness until the battery gives out. In general, a phone that lasts 10 hours or more is good, and anything above 11 hours makes our list of the best phone battery life.
Last but not least, we take the best phones out in the field to take photos outdoors, indoors and at night in low light to see how they perform versus their closest competitors. We take shots of landscapes, food, portraits and more, and also allow you to be the judge with side-by-side comparisons in our reviews.
