Best big phones in December 2024

The best big phones are some of the best phones overall, but if like me you want as much screen and battery as possible in your device, this is a guide tailored especially for you.

Right now, our top big phone is the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max (the phone I'm currently using) coming in a close second. We have other picks depending on your budget or preferred feature, but these two will suit basically any user.

I and the rest of the TG team test these phones thoroughly for our reviews, which then inform guides like this one to hopefully then direct you toward the right device. Read on for more details on our current best big phone picks, plus some guidance on what to look for and more information on our testing methods.

Richard Priday

I'm a little sad to have seen the small phone basically go extinct over the six years of my phone-reviewing career. But as a big phone fan and fan of big phones, I'm one of the people the industry is trying to cater to by making their phones larger! Having a big, but still pocketable, smartphone gives me lots of screen space to enjoy video or games on, and a large battery to keep enjoying them on while I'm out away from a charger. And if you're reading this guide, you likely feel that way too.

The quick list

Best big phone overall

The Galaxy S24 Ultra deserves its status at the top of the big phones list. First off, with a 6.8-inch, 120Hz QHD OLED and impressive color and brightness levels, its display makes great use of the handset’s size. The rest of the phone’s excellent too, offering top-quality cameras, battery life, benchmark results and software update schedule. And that’s not to mention the new Galaxy AI features, or the included S Pen.

Samsung has made the Galaxy S24 Ultra more expensive than last year, and the 5x telephoto does feel like a downgrade compared to Samsung’s old 10x camera. This is still the ultimate phone if you want to live large.

However, watch out for news of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, the phone that should replace this one in Samsung's line up early in January. The S24 Ultra's days on this list could be numbered.

Read our full Galaxy S24 Ultra review.

Best big iPhone

Now measuring 6.9 inches, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is not just the largest iPhone we’ve ever seen, but also the biggest non-foldable on this list. And we were very happy to discover during testing that Apple’s put this extra-large canvas to good use.

The increased size has allowed Apple to up the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s battery capacity, meaning the largest iPhone ever is also the longest-lasting iPhone ever. The new Camera Control makes taking impromptu photos or adjusting your settings last-minute easier too, helped by the new 48MP ultrawide camera sensor. And while it isn’t present at launch, we have high hopes for the potential of Apple Intelligence to help users out across all their apps and tasks.

We’re less happy to see that Apple’s still not changed the charging speed of the iPhone 16 series, meaning the Pro Max takes an extra-long time to fill up its battery. Plus anyone buying the phone early’s could be disappointed with the drip-feeding of Apple Intelligence features. Still, there’s no better iPhone if you want the most features in the largest package.

Read our full iPhone 16 Pro Max review.

Best big phone value

OnePlus always offers a great value when it comes to flagship phones, which makes the OnePlus 12 the perfect option for wanting a top-quality display for less than the competition. As well as offering a 6.8-inch 2K OLED display with 120Hz, you also get one of the biggest batteries of any current smartphone, and other cutting-edge tech like a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, 80W or 100W wired charging (depending on the region), 50W wireless charging and RAM and storage to spare.

The cameras on the OnePlus 12 perform well thanks to their Hasselblad tuning, although we weren’t that impressed with what they capture in dark conditions. And OnePlus is currently steering away from AI features, which you could see as neglecting a key developing area of smartphone tech. There’s little in terms of actual complaints to make about this phone though, and it should suit a wide variety of users very well.

OnePlus has confirmed that the OnePlus 13 will be launching globally early in 2025. Since it's already official in China, and that is likely the same as the international version, you can already get a good idea of if you should wait for the new OnePlus or go with the current 12.

Read our full OnePlus 12 review.

Best big phone for cameras

At 6.8 inches, the Pixel 9 Pro XL remains about the same size as the Pixel 8 Pro before it, but with a new subtitle and redesigned flat sides, it wears its big phone status much more openly. I still find it comfortable enough to handle though, and it's still a reasonable weight too.

More importantly though, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is a fantastic phone for photos. Even if the cameras haven't changed all that much from last year, Google's well-balanced color science, and high resolution sensors still produce great images. And if you don't like them, you can easily edit them to tidy up parts you don't like, or add whole new elements with generative AI tools. While I've tried Samsung's equivalents of these features and appreciated them, the Pixel 9 Pro XL's are on another level.

Praise also has to be given to Google for improving the Pixel 9 Pro XL's battery life significantly, after years of lagging behind the competition. Big phones should last you a full day of constant use, and the Pixel can now claim that too. If only it offered a higher basic storage capacity, it would earn a higher spot on this list through its sheer value.

Read our full Pixel 9 Pro XL review.

Best big foldable phone

The first-ever OnePlus foldable is an amazing first attempt, so if you need the biggest-possible screen in your pocket, we recommend the OnePlus Open.

It's the most expensive phone on this list, but it is at least cheaper than an equivalent foldable from a brand like Samsung. It's also got a surprisingly long battery life for its size, and speedy 67W charging. And on the software front, the Open Canvas system lets you open multiple windows more flexibly to suit whatever tasks you need to do at the same time.

Our main complaints are that the night mode photos are lagging behind the quality of the Open's other shots. Plus OnePlus has once again forgotten to offer wireless charging. Thought you'll probably forget all about that once you open up the 7.8-inch main display and start enjoying your apps, photos and videos in all that space.

Read our full OnePlus Open review.

Best big iPhone value

Sporting a new look and some notable upgrades over its predecessors, the iPhone 16 Plus is the best of Apple’s new-generation Plus phones so far. And for the money, we can’t recommend a better big iPhone.

It doesn’t have some premium features like a 120Hz display or a telephoto camera, but it’s still got a 6.7-inch OLED display backed up by a sizeable battery. The new Camera Control is joined by the Action button for greater control over your photos, apps and other functions, plus with its new A18 chipset, the iPhone 16 Plus can run your apps and games at top speed.

Without all its Apple Intelligence features at launch, and with the same old charging speeds as generations of iPhones prior, Apple’s shown it is in no hurry top address these long-standing complaints. That shouldn’t be enough to put people off of the iPhone 16 Plus though. It’s a great option we’d happily recommend to any user who isn’t fussed by the Pro features, or doesn’t like their price.

Read our full iPhone 16 Plus review.

Best budget big phone

It's astonishing how low Nothing, the company behind the CMF brand, has managed to get the price of this phone. The CMF Phone 1 is, as my colleague John Velasco mentioned in his review, "a refreshing take on what a budget phone should offer," showing how stingy other brands are with their specs/price ratio. And it just so happens that this phone has a 6.7-inch display, making it a natural candidate for this list.

I'm fascinated by CMF's decision to make the Phone 1 customizable. You can swap the back panel out for a different color option, or add accessories like a kickstand or lanyard with just a screwdriver. I'm also impressed that there's still a 5,000 mAh battery in here, with 33W charging for a quicker-than-average refuel. Plus the display's an AMOLED model with 120Hz refresh. You don't even get 120Hz on the iPhone 16 Plus, a phone that's over three times as much.

But cheap phones always have to cut corners somewhere, and with the CMF Phone 1, it's with its low-powered chipset and single main camera on the back (the other's a depth sensor to help with portrait effects). I prefer my big phones to make the most of its size by offering a variety of photography options and a mighty chipset to provide smooth and beautiful graphics for apps and games on the screen. But if my budget was tight, I would have a hard time saying no to all the stuff you still get for just $239 on the CMF Phone 1.

Read our full CMF Phone 1 review.

How to choose the best big phone for you

• Android or iPhone? Android phones give you more choice in terms of price, size and innovative designs — many of them happen to be larger, too. However, iPhones offer speedier software updates, better games and apps and better security and privacy. See our iPhone vs Android face-off.
• Unlocked or carrier? Most shoppers in the U.S. buy new phones through their wireless carrier. But an unlocked phone gives you the freedom to buy the device without any sort of contract and then bring it to the provider you want to use.
• Screen size: For fans of big phones, 6 inches and up is a good place to start. The biggest phones are 6.5 to just under 7 inches. If you want something you can easily use with one hand, go with one of the best small phones with a screen under 6 inches.
• Cameras: Don't pay attention to the megapixel count. Instead, look at camera face-offs between phones to see the photo quality and look for special features like Night Mode to get better quality in low light. Also see our best camera phone roundup.
• Battery life: Generally, phones with larger batteries (measured in mAh) offer the longest battery life, but that's not always the case. That's why we run our own custom battery tests, where phones repeatedly load webpages over a T-Mobile data connection while set to 150 nits of display brightness until they run out of juice.

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.