“What’s the best smartphone?” It’s a question I hear at least once or twice a month.

That’s fine. It comes with the territory, really. I write about all kinds of technology all day, every day, but none so much as smartphones. I’ve reviewed many of the major ones released in the past year, from the dirt-cheap to the metal and glossy. They all have something to add in their own way, but only a handful really stand out.

And as you’d imagine, the answer is complicated.

The funny thing about buying a smartphone in 2016 is that it’s hard to go wrong. Not too long ago, even great phones could have terrible battery life, be bogged down by gobs of unwanted software, have an awful camera, or be missing a crucial feature or two. Now, we find almost every major handset will last till bedtime, take decent photos, display them on an excellent screen, blaze through apps with a speedy processor, and browse the web with fast LTE connectivity.

If you want a great smartphone, all you really need to do is avoid phones that pretend to be excellent, but aren’t.

So if all good phones are great phones, what makes a phone The Best? It simply had to be better than every other phone at providing something people crave. That was the bar we set.

The Best Overall: The Galaxy S7 Edge

The Galaxy S7 Edge (and its smaller sibling, the S7) are two remarkable phones. In 2015, the Galaxy S6 held our Best Smartphone accolade for many months until it was eventually dethroned by the impressive Nexus 6P.

But Samsung improves on the S6 in all the right places. It keeps the classy glass-and-metal design but adds on impressive waterproofing without compromising design. It actually makes you wonder what the Galaxy S7 Active, Samsung’s “rugged” Galaxy lineup, will have to offer. But the Galaxy S7 camera is also a cut above what’s come before it. With an f/1.7 aperture so you can take phenomenal photos in lowlight, and a redesigned photo sensor means the S7 is almost always in focus.

The reason I’m singling out the 5.5-inch Edge over the 5.1-inch S7 isn’t for it’s Edge-like features (which are ok but whatever). The bigger Edge device also means a bigger battery and I saw noticeable differences in how much time I would get out of the S7 and S7 Edge comparatively. If you’re not the biggest fan of large phones, Samsung packs in a lot of screen into a relatively small frame. It’s the smallest 5.5-inch phone I’ve ever held.

Source: gizmodo.com