Last week, we unveiled Android Police’s Best of 2024, detailing all of our favorite smartphones, headphones, and so much more. This week, it’s your turn. Over the past ten days, we’ve asked AP readers to vote for their favorite Android phone of the year. It was a surprisingly close race, but winning with just 26 percent of the vote, Google’s Pixel 9 Pro has been crowned your winner.
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Despite its familiar name, the Pixel 9 Pro is an all-new release from Google. It’s what phone nerds have begged for for years: everything that makes the larger ‘Pro’ device worth getting in a smaller package. While I hesitate to call the Pixel 9 Pro “small” — it’s just about as tall as 2015’s Galaxy Note 5, after all — it does make for a much more comfortable experience compared to the Pixel 9 Pro XL, Galaxy S24 Ultra, or any other large-scale smartphone released this year. And that comes without making sacrifices to anything on the specs sheet aside from its battery size.
Speaking of the Pixel 9 Pro XL and Galaxy S24 Ultra, those are your second and third-place smartphones, respectively. The Pixel 9 Pro XL finished with 23 percent of the vote, showcasing that, yes, Google was right to anticipate demand for Pro-series devices at different sizes. The Galaxy S24 Ultra wasn’t quite as close, finishing with 19 percent of respondents choosing it. Despite some (valid) criticism facing its camera performance, the large 6.8-inch display and built-in S Pen were clearly enough to win over Galaxy fans for another generation. It won’t be long until we find out if the Galaxy S25 can do the same.
For now, though, it’s the Pixel 9 Pro’s victory worth celebrating. Personally speaking, it’s been my daily driver for most of the year following its release, only pausing while reviewing other devices or taking brief detours into the world of foldables. While I’d love for its successor to be even smaller — my kingdom for a Pixel 5-sized flagship — it’s a great smartphone in its own right, and the markings of a particularly great year for Google’s lineup.
A couple of other devices worth calling out from our poll. The regular Pixel 9 came in a distant fourth place, netting 8 percent of the vote, while the OnePlus 12 scored 6 percent to close out the top five. Both excellent smartphones, in my opinion, but both struggled to outshine our top three flagships of the year. The comments section, meanwhile, saw love for a handful of devices you can’t officially buy in the US, including the Honor Magic 6 Pro, Magic V3, Vivo X100, and Sony’s Xperia 1 VI.
Considering the palpable excitement around channels like Reddit towards Google’s rumored swap to TSMC for its Tensor chip manufacturing, the Pixel 10 Pro — in some undisclosed size — feels like the obvious favorite for 2025. Still, with the Galaxy S25 and OnePlus 13 right around the corner, alongside potential spoilers from companies like Motorola, I wouldn’t be shocked to stumble on some serious surprises over the next twelve months of smartphone launches. Of course, only time will tell.
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Google Pixel 9 Pro
The Pixel 9 Pro is a new addition to Google’s lineup, slotting in as a smaller premium flagship to pair with the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The latter is the direct successor to 2023’s Pixel 8 Pro despite its new XL moniker, whereas the Pixel 9 Pro brings a new form-factor to Google’s high-end offerings, sporting the same dimensions as the standard Pixel 9 model while packing all the AI and camera prowess we’ve grown accustomed to from Google’s Pro lineup.
