Best Mobile Phones in India (September 2023)

Samsung's "ultra-flagship" for 2023 tops our list of the best smartphones that you can buy in India. While the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has many similarities with last year's Galaxy S22 Ultra, there is a fair bit of improvement. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with a new custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that has a higher max clock speed than other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chips that power other Android flagships. This results in one of the highest benchmark scores that we have seen, especially in CPU-based tests given the higher max clock speed on the S23 Ultra. In the camera department also, Samsung has made many improvements. This time around, there is a new 200-megapixel ISOCELL primary shooter, and we get a bunch of new features to play around with like Astrophotography, Astro Timelapse, quad-pixel autofocus, and more. The camera performance of the Galaxy S23 Ultra remains top-notch, taking after its predecessor.

Apple's latest and greatest, the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is second in our list as the smartphone still holds one of the highest benchmark scores and offers one of the best camera experiences. The Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is the first Apple iPhone to come without the infamous notch, which was replaced by a Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro models. Apple's new A16 Bionic chip still has the highest Geekbench score with an 1884 single core score and a 5348 multi-core score. In our review last year, we liked the Dynamic Island, the performance, the camera system with the new 48-megapixel sensor, and probably one of the best battery life ever on an iPhone.

While the Google Pixel 7 Pro isn't as powerful as other devices in this list, it still makes for a third spot in our list, given the streamlined Android experience that the device offers, along with a brilliant display and kickass cameras. The Google Pixel 7 Pro is powered by Google's in-house Tensor G2 chip, which doesn't give out very impressive numbers, but offers enough room for users to take advantage of Google's AI smarts. The triple rear camera setup on the Pixel 7 Pro consists of a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 12-megapixel ultra wide angle lens, and a 48-megapixel telephoto lens. In our review back in October, the Pixel 7 Pro's camera impressed us quite well. With flagship-level camera hardware, and Google's super powerful algorithms, the images from the Pixel 7 Pro are stunning.

The latest gaming smartphone from Asus, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate is one of the most outrageous Android smartphones out there. It comes with an all-new octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC clocked at 3.2GHz (max). The smartphone comes with up to 16GB of RAM paired with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which allows the ROG Phone 7 to put out a ridiculous AnTuTu score of 1325105 - highest on any smartphone so far. The ROG Phone 7 also has many other gaming traits. For example, there's a hidden door adjacent to the frame. Called the AeroActive Portal, the door opens when you put attachments on the ROG Phone 7. It also helps blow cool air into the smartphone for an added cooling mechanism. The Asus ROG Phone 7 also has a secondary LED display on the back panel, which can be customised to show anything a user wants to put on the device. We get a triple rear camera setup that includes a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 13-megapixel ultrawide angle lens, and an 8-megapixel macro shooter. Up front, the Asus ROG Phone 7 has a 32-megapixel selfie snapper. Images out of this camera setup are very good for a gaming smartphone. If compared to the rest of the flagships, the camera kind of struggles.

The latest flagship from Vivo, the Vivo X90 Pro sits prominently in our list of the best mobile phones to buy right now, mainly because of the superb camera performance and an overall premium feel. The Vivo X90 Pro is the first MediaTek Dimensity 9200-powered smartphone to arrive in the India market, and the performance numbers are right up there with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered Android flagships. The Vivo X90 Pro uses a triple rear camera setup that is co-developed with Zeiss. This includes a 50-megapixel Sony IMX989 shooter with a 1-inch type sensor, a 50-megapixel telephoto portrait shooter, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide angle lens. Apart from the flaghsip-level hardware, the Vivo X90 Pro also offers a lot of software-based camera features that make the smartphone ideal for the smartphone photographers among us!

Another smartphone brand and legacy camera brand partnership, the Xiaomi 13 Pro comes with a camera setup that is co-engineered with German brand Leica. Like the Vivo X90 Pro, the Xiaomi 13 Pro is also one for smartphone photographers. Here also, we get a 50-megapixel Sony IMX989 shooter with a 1-inch type sensor, which is equally good. The 1-inch type sensor is accompanied by a 50-megapixel ultrawide and a 50-megapixel telephoto shooter. The lens on the Xiaomi 13 Pro is tuned by Leica, and the camera quality shows. Similar to its most fierce competitor, the Vivo X90 Pro, the Xiaomi 13 Pro also has a lot of camera features that have been developed with the help of the German camera maker. In terms of performance also, the Xiaomi 13 Pro is right up there with competition. With the help of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip paired with 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage, the Xiaomi 13 Pro is capable of putting out blazing fast performance, apart from handling all the processing from the camera.

The vanilla iPhone from last year is still one of the best and most convenient option for users. The iPhone 14 is the natural progression for any non-Pro iPhone user upgrading from an older iPhone. With a compact "single-hand-friendly" design, flagship-level performance, and one of the best cameras, the iPhone 14 deserves a spot in our top 10 mobile phones list. The Apple A15 Bionic is still good enough to hold-up against the Android flagships of 2023, and the seamless iOS experience is what drives everyone towards the iPhone. However, there are shortcomings as well. For example, we still don't get a high refresh rate display on the Apple iPhone 14 and there is no fast charging. Further, the A15 Bionic chip has been borrowed from last year’s iPhone 13 series, but that doesn’t really make the iPhone 14 slow.

Like the vanilla Apple iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy S23 also deserves a spot in the best mobile phones to buy right now. The Samsung Galaxy S23 is the closest competitor to the iPhone 14 in the Android world. The smartphone has very similar specifications to its elder siblings. It uses the same chip, similar cameras, and this time around, the design is also in-line with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Another good thing about the vanilla Samsung Galaxy S23 is that this time around, Samsung has improved the battery backup with a bigger battery and more optimised usage. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 consumes less battery, and we get a bigger 3,900mAh battery on the smartphone.

The iQOO 11 was the first smartphone in India to come with QUalcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip in India. With up to 16GB RAM, the iQOO 11 is a beast of a performer. The smartphone has the highest AnTuTu score in all the Android flagships we have tested at Digit.in (1,272,241 points). With the iQOO 11, we also get Vivo's V2 ISP chip that handles all the camera processing, which leaves enough room in the CPU to be able to handle other tasks more efficiently. Talking about the camera, that is also pretty good on the iQOO 11. We get a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 13-megapixel telephoto, and an 8-megapixel wide angle shooter. The images are nice, and you can easily take very good looking images on the iQOO 11. The iQOO 11 also has a 144Hz LTPO4 AMOLED display, which is only beaten by the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate in this list. There is no wireless charging but we get 120W fast charging, which charges the iQOO 11 in less than 30 minutes.

The latest OnePlus 11 is one of the best smartphones the company has made in a while. With bleeding-edge specs like a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, a 6.7-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The display is very colour accurate, showing good viewing angles, good colour accuracy, and very good responsiveness. Apart from the display, the OnePlus 11 also scored similar points in benchmark tests. The smartphone has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with up to 16GB of RAM, helping it achieve similar performance figures to its competitors. This is also the last Hasselblad-branded OnePlus camera setup, and the quality still isn't as good as some other competing devices. However, there has been significant improvement in the quality of images we get from the OnePlus 11. We get a 50MP primary shooter, a 48MP ultrawide shooter, and a 32-megapixel telephoto lens.