The 5 Best Android Phones of 2024 | Reviews by Wirecutter
Samsung SPH-A500
Average RatingsPlease log in to post a review.
Greatest Samsung Ever?PROS: Everything! Strong flip mechanism--Great screen for its time--Very tough construction--Excellent keypad--Good reception--Great talk time with extended use battery Samsung threw in for free!
CONS: None. I mean it. I think it's the best phone Samsung ever built.
I used this phone waaay back--around 2002-03 on Sprint's network in South Florida.
My favorite PhoneI had a Nokia 3588i, but I dropped in the toilet and well, it died. So I bought this one. I LOVED IT. It was love at 1st sight. I had this phone for over two years but I recently upgraded to a phone with text messaging. I really do miss my a500 like whoa. It was my first true love.
I'd totally recommend this phone to teens who parents only want them to havea phone, with no extra perks. It is a color phone though
Best phone so far!I work at Radioshack, and I see a lot of phones every day, and I buy several phones for both sprint and verizon a year; keeping that in mind, this is the best one I've ever owned. The only thing that holds this phone back from the perfect five rating is the lack of call screening and innability to download pictures and ringers directly from a pc through a cable, both of which you could do with the Sanyo 5000/5150 and 6000/6200 phones. Two valuable features that Samsung overlooked, but besides that no complaints. The TFT screen, though smaller than the 5150, is much nicer to look at, beats many TV's and computer monitors. Java gameplay is flawless, new Sprint Vision browser is fast and easy to navigate, despite the lack of useful content. I'm sure Sprint is working on that though. The reception is awesome, just as good as any Sanyo phone, only second to that of the Motorola Startac/Timeport. Battery life is decent considering the tiny size of the battery; I played Pacman with backlight and sound for over half an hour and saw the battery go down only one bar, as opposed to Sanyo's crabcatch, which is not only far less entertaining, but kills the battery in a matter of minutes. The digital camera attachment, though somewhat expensive ($100) for the use you get out of it, is very easy to use, but often takes several tries to upload pictures, and uses up precious few megabytes that sprint gives you for $10. Picture quality is not too great either, faces are barely recognizable. Smartest voice dial I ever used; you can dial a whole number without ever pressing a button, regardless of whether it's programmed in or not. Works great in noisy areas too. Intuitive and colorful menus make operation easy and pleasant. Calls are crystal clear. Very small and light, looks sharp and tough design and finish is hard to break, scratch, or chip. Endless features. Samsung finally made a winner, well worth $300.
SPH-A500 RainbowOk the first thing I noticed about this phone was its stylish desgin. The second thing was the TFT color screen. The third WAS the free extended life battery. I fell in love with the phone almost immediatly. Yes the battery life on the slim line battery is poor, but with the extended life battery the life is greatly improved. I work for Radioshackâ„¢ and have seen alot of cell phones come and go the A-500 will be around for a long while. This phone is perfect for business applications, it will also be kind to even the newest of users. This phone is the best that sprint has out so far Yes the 8100 and the 5300 have built in cameras and the A-500 does not, but if your not going to be using the camera then the A-500 is the phone for you. It also has dropped a greast deal in price which makes it a Great phone at a GREAT price.
Good Phone, Overpriced...Well, here it is, Sprint's flagship 3G phone. This is the phone I currently own, it has some great features and is probably the top 3G phone (besides the Sanyo 5300) As a Sprint Employee I get to play with all phones so here is my take on the A500:
Good Stuff:1. Great color screen, gets really good picture quality. Not a Sprint Phone out there besides the 5300 that can really match it.2. Great web browser. I had the N400 for a while and the brower had some major problems, this phone is smooth and fast no problems as of yet.3. Loud speaker, rings come through clearly and I can hear people talking a mile away.4. Voice tools, voice activated dialing was all the hype back in the day, now this phone has Voice Activated tools including being able to access the web browser, phone book and dialing by numbers all by voice alone.
Yuck!:1. Samsung has always been bad about signal strength (with exception of the I300) and this phone is no different. Better than the N400 though...2. Battery life is very very low. If you really like this phone and have to buy it, get yourself an extended life battery.3. Phone tends to get really hot after long periods of use, seen this problem alot.4. PRICE! This phone would be good at 199.99 but it really doesn't have the features of a 300 dollar phone.
Overall: I really think the High points outweigh the low points on this phone. I've seen all the 3G phones in action and this is my favorite by far. The only thing I really have a problem with is the price, it's a little too much for the features, but otherwise a sweet phone.
Questions about phones or Sprint? Email me at --
Awsome phone but SOME bad parts...Lets see, this phone is completely awesome in every single frigging possible way except for one. The TFT screen is 4096 color. When having an picture on it, u can see a NOTICABLE difference between shades of colors, giving the picture a horrible look. The rest of the phone is great though. Cm-on, what kind of phone can u say "digit dial", then "736-3759" and it dials it for u? The phone is awesome mainly cause the sleek design and of course the TFT display. 4096 color sucks though. Would you rather have 4 level Gray color, 256 colors, 4096 colors, 16,000 colors, or even 250,000 colors! I would get the 16k or 250k. 4096 is good but others are better. The phone tends to have a signal from 1-3 bars mainly. The camera works only if u don't move it and u have good lighting. This is the coolest design phone in my opinion. U need to get this phone.
The Search is Over!!!!!!!!!!I am truly impressed with the a500. I LOVE the TFT screen and the external display. THE SCREEN IS LIKE LOOKING INTO A PC'S MONITOR. The calls are crisp and clean sounding. The reception is about the same as my Sanyo 5150-I dropped one call since I had it and that was in Walmart where my 5150 dropped also. I think the battery life is very good but not excellent (neither was my 5150 battery life excellent). The only con I see in this phone is Sprint holding back the ability to import pictures and ringers via a data cable...I think in time that will come. I searched 5 days to find this phone...And I must admit this phone is more than just hype. Sure I miss my ringers on my 5150 but they aren't missed enough for me to go back...
NOT WORTH THE PRICEThis phone promises a lot and appears attractive in the beginning, but has serious flaws which only show themselves after an appreciable amount of use.
First off, in theory this phone is a great idea. The interface is well thought-out, the screen is crisp and bright, and the audio is superb. Web browsing on this phone using Sprint PCS Vision service is also remarkably fast, compared to other Vision phones I've seen.
On the other hand, these strengths are made unusable by the fact that this phone's browser is, at best, a work in progress. It crashed frequently, and whenever the slightest error was encountered, the browser became unusable until I power-cycled the phone. Battery life was dismal, and not even approaching half what the promised talk and standby times were as listed on the website and on the box. Lastly, the phone could not hold a call to save its life, even in a well covered area. In a 15-minute call made in a 3 to 4 bar area, I experience no less than three drops, requiring me to redial. This was a trait that appears to be largely typical of all the SAmsung 2G phones I had tried and I hoped that they gotten things right on the 3G model. How wrong I was.
In short: it's sad when Sanyo's 3G entry-level phone, costing just a little over half the price of the Samsung, can glowingly outperform this phone. Save your money: this phone's not worth the price tag.
Best Samsung so farThis phone has exceeded my expectations. The greatly improved voice dialing has made this a usable feature. The vibrant color screen is an extra added bonus. The menu is rather intuitive so I haven't had to open my instruction book to date. I do wish it would let me add lists in my phone book rather then just use the four default ones. I'm in San Diego and using Sprint PCS (obviously) and have had no problems with signal strength and even less dropped calls then I had with the 3500, 8500, n200, or A400 (all Samsung). The only down fall I have encountered is the battery life on the stock battery I can make it two days without charging it but that is stretching it so make sure you either send away for the extended battery or charge it everyday. The price is kind of high but this phone has been worth every penny I spent. In fact I am hard pressed to say I will be changing handsets anytime soon.
This phone is tight!!!!!!!I've only had a Sprint service plan since June and I have already had 3 Sprint phones. First the LG 5250, which didn't even last me a week. Got rid of that and got a Samsung A460. That phone was nice. But when the A500 came out; it was a must. So far, I've had no dropped calls even in a 1-2 bar area. My only con is the browser, if you start gettin errors your best bet is to log out or power cycle the phone. One other thing is, they should of made the screen size bigger to compete with the Sanyo phones. The TFT screen on this phone is sick though. The brightness will amaze you just as it has all of my friends. Not even the sun can bring it down. The phone size is very nice and I found it easy to hold in my hand. The voice command feature is a definite plus. It worked in even some of the worst noisy conditions. I am simply waiting for the A600 to drop so i can upgrade from the A500. Make it quick Sprint. I wanna built-in camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Samsung SGH-S307
Average RatingsPlease log in to post a review.
Good phone with only minor annoyancesPROS:----------- small and light- large color screen for size of phone- multiple numbers per name- good battery life- five caller groups
CONS (mostly minor annoyances):----------
- ring and vibrate only on some ringtones- recieption is great... But it normally like on bar less than my samsung p107 when side by side.
____________________________________________Other notes:- Overall, Since I can't have a camera phone at work (if I could, I would have the P107 hands down) This is the nicest non-camera phone out there.- Compare to my P107 (favorite phone I have ever used), The ring tone quality is far superior with this phone.
Almost Perfect...This is definitely the most aesthetically-pleasing phone I have ever used; the screen is beautiful and it is smaller and lighter than my previous phone (Nokia 6590). In terms of features, it meets and exceeds all of my needs; I have no need (or desire) for a camera phone or MMS, although the release of the E600 has me reconsidering that.
PROS:----------- extremely small and lightweight- large color screen- concatenated SMS- multiple numbers per name- Hamster Ball, which is surprisingly fun and reminds me of a great game from the Ericsson T39m- decent battery life (considering the dual color displays)- customizable functions for the four directional keys- tons of caller groups
CONS (mostly minor annoyances):----------- the cover for the power port is not attached so you have to be careful not to loose it- no default number for a contact (cannot call contacts from phone book by selecting their name; have to go into their entry and select the number even if there is only one number for the contact)- simultaneous ring and vibrate only on some ringtones ("Vibra+Melody" vibrates first and then plays the ringtone for a very short time) and some very strange, basically unusable ringtones- no profile management; normal and silent modes only (and the silent mode is not customizable at all)- when composing text messages, symbol insertion is difficult; there is no consolidated list of symbols. Different symbols can be obtained from different buttons *and* from different modes (for example, some symbols can only be accessed when in uppercase mode, others only in lowercase mode, etc.). This isn't a travesty, but it is annoying when trying to convey certain thoughts.- T9 input for call group titles and contact names is in all capitals (but it's still predictive...)- the antenna is ridiculously long (but that can be easily remedied by buying a stubby antenna -- and it still gets the same quality of reception)
WAY AHEAD OF THE PACKIf you have Cingular - GET THIS PHONE!!! Everything about this phone is PERFECT. Appearance wise, it has a clean design and and the small size is AMAZING. The color screen - as expected - on the inside is GREAT, but the full color outside one ROCKS. This phone is made for looks. One warning to the guys out there- not exactly a manly phone. The welcoming screens and goodbye screens are animated with cutsie rainbows of color inside and out. A really cool feature is that you can set the service light to be any color (there are many!) you want. THe ringtones are AWESOME!!! The phone not only vibrates in rhythm w/ the tones, the lights also flash multi-colored pulses!!! The sound is UNBELIEVABLE!! It doesn't even sound like a mobile phone,it's just that clear. SERIOUSLY - THE PHONE IS FLAWLESS. The Samsung people just planned this phone out perfectly. The design, the fonts, the colors - its just such a MODERN AND FUN PHONE. Trust me, I switched to Verizon just for the service, and I have the new A610 swivel camera phone - and I still cry about the s307 phone every night. Well, may I'm exaggerating a little bit - but honestly, GET THIS PHONE and you won't be thinking about a dumb clunky camera phone ever again.
"totally pwned the competition"This is phone 2 of 3 so far that i have tried on the Cingular Network, in the South-East Texas, (Angleton) area, about 40/45mins south of Houston. Testing period approx. 20-days.
.::Pros::.1. Awesome sound quality, i was really suprised of the quality i got out of this phone.2. Clean look and interface, thou the "arrow" keys are kind of hard to use when gaming. Go Hampster! WOOOHOOO, yeah im a geek =P3. Small and light, like everyone else has said, can easily be put in a pocket without havin to feel "loaded" down with it.
.::Cons::.Cant say i had any, though i never had an opportunity to try the IR port.I guess the only real thing is the fact i seemed to miss more calls with this phone (while in my fortress of a house, that tests any phones signal strength), had to have it in another part of my room, which was really no big deal, just couldnt have it with me sittin at my PC.
.::Neutral::.1. The default ringtones, im one of the few people in the free world that actually likes a phone that still rings. The default tones didnt present this as an option for me. I am picky when it comes to this.2. Would have like to had the abilty to "wake up" the front screen by moving theside volume buttons, to be able to check the current time without having to crack open the phone and close it to see, or to just look in the phone for that matter. Unless i was not doing somthing right, i couldnt get this to work for me.
So overall this phone totally pwned the competition for phones in its price range, or friends phones ive used in my area, if it wernt for the fact that i missed more calls with this phone than i did with the sony, i would have kept this phone. It is by far the best i have used.
My next review is for the Nokia 6200, my previous review was for the Sony Ericsson T616, be sure to look at them to see my experiances with them.
WHATS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE THA PHONES FINEI DONT KNOW WHYPEOPLE THINK THE MICROPHONE IS BAD BECAUSE IT WORKS FINE .Pros-good sizeringer idpicture idcool ringersPIANOKEYSGOOD SOUNDCONS -NONE
GOOD PHONE VERY WELL MADE WORKS GREAT HAS ALL THE SUFF IM LOOKING FOR
Best Cingular Phone I've Owned Yet!!!!!!I am an Area Manager with a private owned Cingular Wireless Authorized Agent, and I have yet to see a better phone come out on GSM. This isn't just with Cingular... I'm talking about GSM all together- AT&T, T-mobile, and Cingular. This phone gets better reception than any phone I've ever seen on ANY network. I have it hooked up through Cingular, but I had my friends try it with their services (AT&T and T-mobile) after unlocking it, and it still out-performed any of their phones on THEIR networks. Not to mention, the phone never stutters, drops calls, or freezes up. As far as the comments on the microphone quality, I have had NO complaints. I have had comments that it sounds different than my Nokia, but NO bad feedback whatsoever. This phone is easily deserving of five stars.
Great PhoneFirst thing that caught my attention when I opened the box was the small size of the phone. It reminded me of the phone that was used from Zoolander the movie. Yea its that small people. With the small size of the phone, the screen is no doubt going to be smaller, but is very nice. Next that that caught my attention was the lack of accessories that came with the phone. For the price of the phone, you would have thought that they would include everything that the Samsung S300 would have but no. All it came with was a hand strap and a travel charger. I was expecting at least a holster or a headset but no. The first Samsung S307 that I bought from Best Buy in Springfield, PA was defective. The phone would power off but not power on. So I returned it and got another one and made sure it worked before I left the store. So I would suggest that everyone try as much as possible, test out the phone before you leave the store. When I got the phone up and running, first thing I wanted to do was check out the ringtones. The ring tones are loud and are very audible. The plus is that you can change the volume of the sound. One thing that I didn't like was the selection of ring tones. They did not have one single "normal" sounding ringtone. Sadly, the only one that was decent was the Cingular ringtone. Every single ringtone made me want to start break dancing everytime my phone rang. I guess the only way to get around this is to download more ringtones. As for the quality of the screen, I don't know what all this jive about UFB screen is. It seems to be the exact kinda screen that is used on other Samsung phones. In the sunlight, nothing is visible. As for the keypad, the phone has a great keypad if your used to the Nokia 8260 size keypad. Those with big fingers might have a difficult time dialing. The phone has many great features and I really like the quick buttons. They make setting shortcuts a snap. This phone is the best bang for the buck.
Phone from HeavenThis phone is AWESOME. Smaller than any oter clamshell out there, and has some of the best features and reception around. Nice job Samsung!
AWESOMEJust a great phone. Excellent features, great reception, nice microphone, and has the best design of any phone i've ever had! Get this phone: you'll be happy.
Best Cingular Phone...YetThis phone is absolutely amazing. I purchased it the day it was released after waiting months for it. The ringtones are absolutely loud and demand attention. The color displays both internal and external are absolutely gorgeous. (it is Samsung what do you expect?)Phone size is very nice as well. It is the smallest flip on the market, and after playing with it a bunch my Sony Ericsson T68i felt huge. The important stuff like call clarity, battery life, and signal strength are all there, again what more do you expect from Cingular Wireless GSM. I purchased my phone early on Saturday and it came with a full charge. Since then I have played the Java games numerous amounts of times played every single ringtone various times and even utilized the GPRS to surf some sites and download some ringtones and graphics, all without powering off. Today is almost the end of Monday and I have still not yet charged my phone. I also have a Nokia 6590i and a Siemens S40 which do really well on signal strength. In comparision the Samsung was comparable if not better everywhere I went. I placed numerous calls and everyone said I sounded great. If you are a Cingular GSM customer...This is what we have been waiting for. Do not wait to buy this phone, buy it now. You will be very happy.
It's Impressive Just How Truly Terrible Samsung Keyboard Is
Over the years, Samsung has made huge improvements to its Android skin, but there's one thing that's still pretty awful. Samsung Keyboard is very bad, and it's honestly a bit impressive just how bad it is in the year 2024.
This issue of 9to5Google Weekender is a part of 9to5Google's rebooted newsletter that highlights the biggest Google stories with added commentary and other tidbits. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox early! Samsung Keyboard is the default, out-of-the-box keyboard provided on all Galaxy devices. It supports most mainstream features, like swipe typing, voice-to-text, autofill from password managers, and more. It even has some unique offerings, like accepting handwriting input from the S Pen, and the new "Chat Assist" features from the Galaxy AI suite. It's that last bit that kept me trying out Samsung Keyboard while working our Galaxy S24 Ultra review. And I've never had a more frustrating week with a digital keyboard. Samsung Keyboard is bad. For the sheer basics, there's not much wrong with the keyboard. The keys are spaced properly, there's a handy toolbar at the top, and the number row is also super handy. But when you actually use it, it's a very poor experience. The core of the issue is autocorrect. Somehow, Samsung's autocorrect is both incredibly aggressive, but also not aggressive enough in catching typos. When I type a name or word that's doesn't match Samsung's dictionary, the keyboard will fight me time after time after time that it knows the spelling is correct. The name "Derrek" is just one example. Samsung refuses to acknowledge that some people spell that name with two R's instead of one, and the keyboard will change that back several times before finally letting you keep that second letter. Any autocorrection acts like this, too. If you go back and change it, the keyboard will just change it again. It's similar to Apple's keyboard handles this on iOS, but Samsung at least gets credit for leaving the text alone when you hit "send" in an app, where Apple will force the autocorrection even as you hit send. Google's Gboard, though, gets this right, by accepting that you might know better when you revert an autocorrection, leaving your change in place after you edit it. Yet, despite the keyboard fighting you that it knows what you were trying to say, it will miss glaring typos at random.
Another huge annoyance for me was with capitalization. The "shift" key works pretty normally, with one tap switching to capital letters, but "caps lock" mode is inconsistent. Where most keyboards will enter this mode on a double tap, Samsung Keyboard won't. A quick double tap will switch to and back from a single capitalization. Entering caps lock requires switching to single capitalization, then tapping again to enter the locked mode, but you can't do it too quickly. Often I need to tap the button four times to finally get to caps lock and, going back, three taps to enter caps lock is horribly unintuitive. This is one I'm not even sure how Samsung got wrong, because both Google's Gboard and Apple's iOS keyboard get this right. But if you think that all sounds bad enough, it gets worse. Voice-to-text is a travesty. 
Ironically, many the best examples of this were from me voicing my frustration with using Samsung Keyboard with a few folks, but it happened constantly through my usage. A couple of fantastically bad examples include: "I hate samsung voice attack" was supposed to be "I hate Samsung voice-to-text" "Why does a small one broadcast?" was supposed to be "Why does the smaller one look darker?" There's also this truly insane jumble of words and punctuation from a message I had to send to my wife while driving. I just realized I forgot to pick it up before I left. Amazon delivered a package To David's house instead of hours, he. Left it on the porch for us. Would you mind grabbing it The best/worst part was easily this series of messages. I'll let you try to decipher what was being said, just as poor Will had to do. 
I manually typed "WHAT" because I couldn't get over how bad it was. Samsung's voice-to-text works offline, which is always great to see, but it's crazy just how bad it is in practice. This is a terrible, awful, very not good experience and it's wild that it's the default option for devices that can easily cost up to $2,000. And that bad experience can leave a lasting impact on people, especially if they later opt to go elsewhere. 9to5Mac's Laura Rosenberg relayed the opinions of her father, Gary, who switched from a Galaxy phone to an iPhone recently. Gary has some great opinions about where he felt Android was better than iOS, but he also specifically brought up that swipe typing is on the iPhone compared to Galaxy. I can't help but think he's referring to Samsung Keyboard, where swipe is indeed "wrecked," as he put it. I frequently swipe out a word only to get a result that's awful compared to what I'd get from Gboard, or the iOS keyboard. But, that's the beauty of Android. If there's something on your device that you don't like, you can swap it out without really facing any consequences. Using Gboard on a Galaxy device comes with really no downsides, and it's a vastly better experience. This Week's Top Stories Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review While Samsung Keyboard is awful, the Galaxy S24 Ultra I was using it on is not. In our review this week, we talked about the stellar performance and battery life of Samsung's latest phone, but also the higher price tag and lackluster camera of the device. This will easily go down as one of the best Android phones of 2024, but it's not an easy sell at $1,299. Beyond that, a few other Samsung stories this week included a torture test where we got to see how much more scratch-resistant "Gorilla Armor" is on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, a Good Lock update that revives some gesture navigation options Samsung removed, and also got a new update to Bixby that makes it look suspiciously like Siri. Fossil smartwatches are dead In a turn of events that was entirely predictable, Fossil is done with smartwatches, Wear OS or otherwise. We first speculated this might be the case last year, but Fossil came out and confirmed the news in the past few days. There are some good trade-in values out there, though. Big things are coming for 'Gemini' Google is set to rebrand Bard as "Gemini" very soon, and the evidence just keeps piling up. This week we reported on a changelog that hints the change could be made as soon as February 7, as well as more information through Android. Meanwhile, Google also launched an image generator in Bard. More Top Stories From the rest of 9to5 9to5Mac: Tim Cook says Vision Pro costs $3,500 because it's 'tomorrow's technology today' 9to5Toys: Review: COSORI's new ceramic air fryer oven can be cleaned with a simple wipe Electrek: GM 'all-in on EVs' goes back to plug-in hybrids amid setback with its electric car plans Update: Mention of Samsung Keyboard not having GIF support has been removed, as the keyboard does, in fact, support the feature under the emoji menu. Follow Ben: Twitter/X, Threads, and Instagram FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. 
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