The best smartphones of 2021 according to the editors of MôjAndroid.sk

We have the end of 2021 here and it is time to take stock. In this article, we have looked at the smartphones that we consider to be the best in 2021. At the same time, we didn’t look at the price very much, we simply mentioned what we consider to be the absolute best.

Miroslav Schwamberg

The year 2021 was very interesting from the point of view of smartphones. Samsung has improved its folding smartphones, which are not my cup of coffee, Apple has significantly worked on the battery life of its novelties, Huawei in Slovakia is improving its AppGallery store and adding local applications to it. Xiaomi became our No. 1 in sales (in some months), and OPPO smartphones came on the market. And other manufacturers are trying.

It is difficult to mention just one smartphone that fascinated me the most. And that’s why I’ll mention two. One of them is officially sold in Slovakia, the other is not, but I had the opportunity to try it for a few days. And to make matters worse, I’ll add one more.

So fine. He didn’t win the award for the best smartphone of the year for me, but he definitely deserves my praise. Ide o Google Pixel 6 Pro. I like its display, of course the system and its support. Everything on it is pretty smooth and works. But there are several problems that we have also written about on our website. For example, I personally refused to charge with the original 25 W Samsung charger and the original cable that I received in the Pixel package. Charging was slow overall and the endurance didn’t make me sick either.

Just so I’m not kidding, two smartphones won for me. The first is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, which is in the version with its predecessor a real leap forward. The new Exynos is more powerful and doesn’t overheat, the design has matured and there is virtually no feature on it that would explicitly interfere with me. The functional equipment is absolutely maximum, but the price is also high. But I do not evaluate the price in this article, I am looking for the best smarrfon regardless of the price.

The next “best” is for me Vivo X70 Pro Plus. A smartphone that is not sold here and is known only to technology enthusiasts. It has everything a real flagship should have and adds something extra to it. First of all, I really like the design and its color schemes. The display is a 120 Hz LTPO with QHD + resolution and a brightness of up to 1700 nits. The cameras are perhaps the best in the world, not to mention the ultra-wide sensor with gimbal image stabilization.

It does not lack water resistance, 55 W charging, 50 W wireless charging, reverse wireless charging, stereo speakers or Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ processor. I had the opportunity to play with this model for about two weeks and it literally took my heart.

Tomáš Kanálik

For a very long time this year, my smartphone served me perfectly Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. I was thrilled not only with its design, but also with the 120 Hz display, which looked really stunning. I chose the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra mainly because of its photographic equipment.

I had the whole Samsung ecosystem and I can’t say I wasn’t happy – quite the contrary. It was a great smartphone that made me happy every day. Problems arose when the battery life was slightly below average compared to the competition and after a few months it slowed down significantly. The OnePlus Nord 2 5G, which I had for testing over the summer, also came to me faster – and that’s very bad, because this particular OnePlus belongs to the middle class and the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra ranks among the best Android smartphones in the world.

Personally, I’m not a supporter of the One UI superstructure, but I quickly got used to it. After a while, I decided to change, as I was planning to buy an older SLR and therefore top cameras and several optical zooms of the telephoto lens were no longer a necessity for me. Also, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra was quite large and I wanted to switch to something smaller, which I would be able to operate more comfortably with one hand.

Anyway, I fell in love with the phone and I think that despite the mentioned imperfections, it is the best phone for this year. I mean, at least from my point of view. It is quite possible that the Snapdragon edition would not have problems with performance or battery life after a while, but I will not change anything. We will only receive the Exynos version.

Google Pixel 6 Pro I liked it extremely and can also run for Android Smartphone of the Year. Unfortunately, I have no experience with it yet, so I can’t judge if it can beat the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Zdenka Smalecová

In the first half of the year, my favorite was the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, mainly due to the super design and excellent quality of the cameras. However, the new Google Pixel 6 Pro recently took the place. It offers high-end cameras that few smartphones can compete in all directions, a quality display, an original and attractive design or a clean Android 12 with a number of improvements compared to older versions of the system.

However, it is not perfect and users have been bothered by a number of errors when releasing it, from signal problems to a slow fingerprint sensor and poor battery life. Some of them have been at least partially removed, but they are still not, for example, the smartphone with the best endurance on the market. The first generation of Google’s own chipset also lags behind the competition in terms of overall performance.

Denis Jules

Unequivocally Google Pixel 6 Pro. However, he is not perfect either – even after the big December update, the UI of the system crashes once a day, I am slightly disappointed with the battery life (I waited maybe 10 hours SOT, but QHD + display and 120 Hz + Always-on are quite demanding).

I got it because of the latest Android 12, which I personally like – so far I considered the pure Android OS to be empty and indistinct. However, the exclusive Pixel features are great and give it the juice it needs.

Google Tensor may be exceptional in AI and powerful (although less than Snapdragon 888), but I don’t really like its frequent warm-up. You will feel a slight warm-up even when you read the content as usual, it is much worse when you use the camera or play games for a long time. During those games, the phone can be uncomfortably hot.

Otherwise, it is absolutely super – super system, super camera, super screen and super performance. In addition, it also has super support – 3 OS updates (after Android 15) and up to 5 years of security updates.

Jakub Marcin

For me, he is clearly the favorite on the most popular smartphone of the year Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. The smartphone is top notch in terms of performance, camera, system or processing. The only drawback (for me personally) is the processor, in which case I would rather see the Snapdragon 888 in our market. Samsung has excellent communication with devices within its ecosystem, and if you are a demanding user or a fan of a large number of smart Samsung devices and you are looking for a leader in the market, the Galaxy S21 Ultra is clearly the number one choice.

Not to forget, of course, there is also the Pixel 6 Pro, which ranks among one of the most anticipated smartphones of 2021 with the company’s own chipset. The advantages of Pixels are familiar to anyone who knows them anyway, so the timeliness of the system and its fluidity does not need to be mentioned. Google smartphones are constantly being compared to the competition (Apple) and I think in 2021, in my opinion, Pixel has the upper hand. Of course, apart from a few Google trips in the case of this model.

Milan Mensik

The best smartphone in 2021 is for me Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. A reason? It is the ultimate device, which is dominated by a top camera with an almost 1-inch sensor and 5x optical zoom. It was a surprise for me this year too Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G,. It is the first folding smartphone with a flexible display, the purchase of which makes sense.

Lastly, I would like to mention the Asus ZenFone 8. Currently, it is one of the few powerful compact Android smartphones with good equipment, that a Slovak customer can buy.