PhoneArena Readers' Awards 2022: Google triumphs winning multiple categories in an epic battle

Smartphone innovation has surely slow down from the early years of the industry, but it's alive and well, and this category was actually one of the most contested ones!

Your votes were split between the Variable Zoom lens technology that the Sony Xperia 1 IV brought into this world and Apple's cool new Dynamic Island, but it was the variable zoom tech that emerged as the winner. This technology moves an element inside the lens that allows you to zoom at different levels without losing quality! Typically, you would need two separate zoom lens for that, but this technology squeezes it all down into one.

The Dynamic Island is a cool software features that animates the Face ID cutout in the iPhone 14 Pro and turns it into an interactive element that acts as a status bar of sorts.

At number three, you voted for fast charging technologies by the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus. With these 100W chargers or often even more powerful, a full charge takes less than 30 minutes, and with some phones even less than 20 minutes!

BEST DESIGN of 2022

This smartphone pushed smartphone design forward

In another contested battle, the Pixel 7 series design scored a win over the Galaxy S22 series. The Pixel won 25% of your votes, while the Galaxy family got 23%, so they were really close!

Our team's choice, the exciting Nothing Phone (1) finished third fourth in your voting, outclassed by the design of Samsung's foldable series.

BEST AGING PHONE of 2022

This 2021 phone aged best in 2022

Which 2021 phone still seemed incredibly relevant in 2022?

Well, this was a relatively easy win for the iPhone 13 series, which got 40% of the votes compared to 30% for the Galaxy S21 series and 22% for the Pixel family.

The iPhone 13 series introduced larger battery sizes and it was an extremely solid launch by Apple, and you the readers, seem to have appreciated these improvements. 

BEST GAMING PHONE of 2022

The best one for the mobile gamer

In the battle for the best gaming phone, one phone stood tall in your votes: the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro!

This monster of a phone with a large screen, cool design and a massive, 6,000mAh battery is equipped with some useful toggles for gaming, it supports fast refresh rates for games and is just a pleasure to use for the mobile gamers out there. It got nearly 55% of the votes in one of the most convincing wins in this year's awards!

BEST BUDGET PHONE of 2022

The budget phone that gives you most value for your money

Talk about doing a good job in one particular area, and that surely has been what Google did with the Pixel 6a.

By equipping it with the Tensor G1 chip, same as in the Pixel 6 series, this phone outperforms most Android budget phones by a mile, and it has a much more modern display and camera system than the Apple iPhone SE 2022.

You, the readers, recognized its excellence and gave it the overwhelming win with nearly 55% of the votes!

BEST "AFFORDABLE FLAGSHIP" of 2022

The "flagship killer"!

OnePlus used to be the company that makes the "flagship killers", but this year it was all about Google which priced the Pixel 7 incredibly aggressively at $600, which made it essentially the no-brainer purchase in this class.

This phone got nearly 62% of the votes, which constitutes the biggest win in a category in 2022! Congrats to Google for making the Pixel 7 not only great, but very reasonably priced, so many people can afford it.

BEST FOLDABLE PHONE of 2022

One phone dominated this vote!

Foldable phones still feel kind of new, but they have already been on the market for around three years and they are better than ever in 2022. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4 are the most mature foldables on the market, and it's no surprise the Fold 4 ran with this award, followed by the other Samsung foldable, the Flip 4.

Together these two had nearly 76% of your votes, an impressive number!

BEST CAMERA PHONE of 2022

Camera phone of the year was...

Ranking the very best camera is an extremely difficult task, but most of you agreed that if one phone deserves it, it is the Pixel 7 Pro.

With its new 5X zoom camera, improved processing and video recording, the Pixel 7 Pro got nearly 39% of the votes.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra was the runner up with 28.5% of the votes and the iPhone 14 Pro series finished third with nearly 19%.

MOST IMPROVED PHONE of 2022

Compared to its previous version, this phone made the biggest leap

We are also curious to hear your thoughts about which phone underwent the biggest improvement since its last year's version, and you didn't think twice: it was the Pixel 7 which got a whopping 57% of the votes.

Google scores yet another win and this just once again confirms that it is set for success in 2023!

BEST ANDROID PHONE of 2022

The king of Androids

If we look at just the beautiful and vast world of Android smartphones, which phone deserves the title "king of Android phones"? Well, in your votes that was the Google Pixel 7 Pro.

Imrproved, best camera, this phone was the gift that kept on giving.

With nearly 48% of the votes, it is deservedly voted as the best Android phone of 2022. The runner-up here, however, is the excellent Galaxy S22 family, which got about 37% of the votes.

BEST OVERALL SMARTPHONE of 2022

The ultimate award: best overall smartphone

Finally, this is the big award: best overall smartphone! Here, the best Android phones of the year clash with the iPhones in an ultimate battle to determine which phone deserves the title! 

Not surprisingly, the big three brands got the most votes: Google, Samsung, and Apple.

But we were somewhat surprised to see the Google Pixel 7 Pro score one more win in this category, as it was the most dominant phone in this year's voting!

The Galaxy S22 series finished second, and the iPhone 14 Pro series ended up in third place.

Google seems to have really improved a great deal in 2022, and we are extremely curious to see what's next for the company and whether it can repeat the success in 2023.