The 6 best Android phones of 2016

Android smartphones get better every year, but there are a lot more good ones than there used to be. The hardware is faster, Android is more refined, and designs are smarter. It all adds up to an embarrassment of riches. Phones that would have been blockbusters a few years ago are seen as middle-of-the-road.

This last year had a ton of great devices, and I’ve used them all — here are the six best Android phones from 2016 in ascending order of awesomeness.

HTC 10

You can think of this as a sort of "honorable mention" award. The HTC 10 is a very good phone—the best one HTC has made in years, but it just didn't sell very well. That's a bummer, because I quite liked it. Packing a Snapdragon 820 and 4GB of RAM, this device is blazing fast and the build quality is excellent. The aluminum unibody frame is incredibly solid and clean. The display is 5.2-inches and 1440p resolution. As an LCD, the colors aren't quite as nice as a modern AMOLED, but it was nicer than past HTC displays. The price at launch was $700, which is probably what made sales sluggish. Still, it was a great device.

ZTE Axon 7

It used to be that ZTE was little more than a white label manufacturer for carriers, but it's come a long way. In 2016, it released the $400 Axon 7. This device has an aluminum unibody frame, front-facing speakers, HiFi headphone DAC, and a rear-facing fingerprint sensor like Google's phones. The 5.5-inch AMOLED screen has a resolution of 1440p and it looks great. With a Snapdragon 820 and 4GB of RAM inside, the Axon 7 can keep up with phones that cost much more. The 20MP camera is strong, but not as good as some other phones in this price range, and the hardware buttons are awkward. I was also not in love with ZTE's modifications to Android. The Axon 7 was and continues to be a very good value if you value display quality and audio in your budget flagship.

OnePlus 3 and 3T

OnePlus usually only releases one flagship smartphone per year, but this time it released two. They're basically the same phone, though. The OnePlus 3 had a Snapdragon 820, 64GB of storage, and 4GB of RAM. The OnePlus 3T came along in late 2016 with a Snapdragon 821 and a larger 3400mAh battery. They're both extremely fast phones and have fantastic fingerprint sensors, but yes, the 3T is slightly faster. These phones also have the best cameras you can get in a phone that costs around $400 (the 3T is a bit more expensive at $440). The 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED isn't the best I've seen, but the other hardware features make up for that. The build of Android 6.0 is free of clutter and has some useful extras. Nougat is on the way in a few weeks as well. Even with the higher price for the OnePlus 3T, this is one of the best deals of 2016.

Moto G4

You don't have to be the fastest to be one of the "best" Android phones of 2016. Motorola's Moto G4 is only $200, and you get a lot for your money. The 5.5-inch 1080p LCD is bright and clear, and the Snapdragon 617 chip is more than sufficient for basic usage and multitasking. The $200 version has 16GB of storage with a MicroSD card slot and 2GB of RAM. The 13MP camera isn't the best but it's better than I'd expect for $200. Likewise, the build quality is impressive for something so inexpensive. It's all plastic, but solid nonetheless.

Motorola uses a clean, well-optimized build of Android that has great add-ons like Moto Display. That's the feature that shows your notifications on the display while the phone is asleep. You can spend a little more to double the storage to 32GB or upgrade to the G4 Plus with a better camera and a fingerprint sensor, but the $200 device is the sweet spot. All versions of the Moto G4 are unlocked for use on both GSM and CDMA networks, which is fantastic.

Samsung Galaxy S7

Samsung had a disastrous end to 2016 with the Note 7, but before that was the Galaxy S7. That phone was (and still is) very good. It packs a Snapdragon 820, 4GB or RAM, and 32GB of storage with a microSD card slot. Its 12MP camera is one of the best on any phone, and it focuses faster than anything else I've used. The centerpiece of this device is the 1440p Super AMOLED display, which is still the nicest you can get. The standard GS7 has a 5.1-inch flat display, and the Edge variant has a 5.5-inch curved display. The regular one is easier to hold, but the Edge is really, really pretty. The GS7 has extraordinary build quality, and it's water-resistant.

The Galaxy S7 runs Marshmallow with Nougat rolling out to some variants late in 2016. It's more cluttered than what you get from Google, OnePlus, or Motorola, but Samsung has improved greatly in recent years. Its TouchWiz UI is no longer an eyesore, and performance is consistent. It's not the fastest phone, but it's fast enough.

Google Pixel

Google sold Nexus phones for years, but they were always geared toward keeping the price low. The Pixel and Pixel XL are the first uncompromising flagship phones Google has made. This phone comes in two sizes -- a 5-inch model with a 2770mAh battery and a 5.5-inch version with a 3440mAh battery. Both have AMOLED displays, with the smaller at 1080p and the larger one at 1440p. They are otherwise the same with solid aluminum frames, highly accurate rear-facing fingerprint sensors, and the best overall camera on any Android phone. The hardware design isn't flashy, but it's very solid. Sadly, it lacks water-resistance.

Google launched the Pixel with Android 7.0 Nougat and since updated it to 7.1. The Pixel will always have the latest version of Android for at least two years, and will get monthly security patches for at least another year after that. In addition, it has exclusive software features that not even Nexus phones have including Google Assistant voice control and the new Pixel Launcher home screen. Google has tuned this phone to be lightning fast and have better battery life than any other phone in its class. It's the best Android phone released in 2016.

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