The 20 best phones of the year 2023

2023 has brought us several hundred new smartphones, some more popular than others. Now as we move forward to 2024, it’s time to revisit what the best performers were based on one very important criterion: their popularity among you, our readers.

Here are the top 20 phones you searched for most in the last 12 months. Of course, the list is dominated by launches from the first half of the year: those had more time to accumulate page views, but some late arrivals did so well that they still managed to crack the top 20.

Samsung remains the dominant force in this ranking, even though it has one fewer entry than last year. The Korean manufacturer made up for it by taking all the top 5 places.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is the overall champion, followed closely by the Galaxy A54. The mid-range might have been at the top in this case, but the flagship’s month-and-a-half lead and the greater initial interest it enjoyed proved decisive.

Behind these we have the Galaxy S23, Galaxy A34 and Galaxy A14. Further down the ranking we find the Galaxy A14 5G in eighth place, the Galaxy A24 4G in thirteenth place and the Galaxy S23+ in fifteenth place.

Apple’s new lineup only debuted in September, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max was still immensely popular, which helped it take sixth place.

Tecno has made huge progress this year, offering plenty of noteworthy phones, and its entry-level Spark 10 Pro offering has done so well that it has become the seventh most popular phone in our database this year.

Xiaomi is certainly taking a step back compared to the last two years, but it still has three representatives in the top 20 – the Redmi 12 and the Poco X5 Pro in ninth and tenth place as well as the Poco F5 in twelfth.

The OnePlus 11 sits in eleventh place, while sister brand Realme has seen its C55 and 11 Pro+ climb the rankings.

Surprisingly, Infinix has three phones in the top 20: Hot 30, Hot 30i and Note 30 occupy positions sixteen to eighteen. A true rise of the Transition brands!