Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Best phone of 2017

Don't hate. This is the future of phones whether you love it or not

Best Phones of 2017 AwardsEvery year, Digital Trends editors hand pick the most exciting products we’ve had the privilege of handling this year. Make sure to check out award winners in categories from cars to computers, plus the overall best product of 2017! Read on for the mobile products that floored us this year. 

Winner

Apple iPhone X

Recommended Videos

It has been a spectacular year for smartphones, from the Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30 to the Google Pixel 2 and OnePlus 5T. Modern phones look great, perform brilliantly, and have cameras that take stunning photos — but only one rolls off every tongue: The iPhone X.

 

Most phones released this year are iterative improvements over 2016, but the iPhone X is a whole new beast, and the changes introduced set the bar for the next decade of iPhones. Gone are the chunky edges flanking the screen, and the iconic home button. In their place, say hello to a gorgeous bezel-less OLED screen, and Face ID, a futuristic and far more secure way to unlock your phone. It’s not as convenient as Touch ID yet, but it is improving day by day.

Face ID makes interactions with your phone seamless, from unlocking the screen to accessing secure apps and making payments. The iPhone X is also sandwiched by glass, which allows support for wireless charging. While both of these technologies have been on other phones before, expect them to be a highlighted feature in smartphones next year.

But the iPhone X isn’t just the best because it’s so different from its predecessors — it maintains the crown in key areas. The A11 Bionic processor is a powerhouse that easily bests the Android competition. ARKit, Apple’s augmented reality platform, uses this processor to bring the world around you to life, and there’s a respectable growing list of apps that are actually useful.

When Apple implements a feature, expect it to become standard.

iOS 11 introduced a drastic and great redesign of the App Store, a faster way to send money through Messages with Apple Pay Cash, and more. It’s all better on the iPhone X, because of the new way to fluidly interact with the operating system with gestures. The animations are slick and satisfying.

Throw in immediate iOS version and security updates for quite a few years, a great camera with fun Portrait Lighting features on both the front and rear lenses, as well as excellent customer support, and the iPhone X a phone that’s nearly unmatched.

The iPhone X is revolutionary. When Apple implements a feature, expect it to become standard not just for the smartphone industry, but for many others: Bezel-less screens, wireless charging, and facial unlocking are the future, and so is the iPhone X.

Read our full iPhone X review

See it

Runners up

Julian Chokkattu
Former Mobile and Wearables Editor
Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…
Adobe made the best iPhone camera app you haven’t tried yet, and it’s free
Indigo camera core controls.

A year ago, a rather interesting camera tool came out from the house of Lux, makers of the fantastic Kino and Halide apps. The tool is called Process Zero, which essentially ripped the images of Apple’s computational adjustments and delivered a pristine photo. 

I even compared the current-gen iPhone with the iPhone 6s and realized the ills of computational photography. What I noticed repeatedly was that algorithmic processing makes the photos look sharper and more colorful, but they aren’t always accurate. And in doing so, they lose their natural charm. 

Read more
This one iPadOS 26 feature has me excited for the iPhone Fold
Semi-open state of a foldable iPhone concept

Samsung is set to launch the seventh generation of its Galaxy Z Fold book-style folding phone this Summer, but its biggest rival is yet to show its folding phone hand. Apple has long been expected to unveil an iPhone Fold, and the latest rumors suggest that it will launch next year.

I’ve used almost every folding phone released globally, with some exceptions for extremely obscure ones. While I've always been curious what an iPhone Fold would look like, I was fairly certain that Apple shouldn't build it, as I wasn’t sure they could deliver on one necessary feature.

Read more
These three iOS 26 beta features are my favorite so far
The Liquid Design lock screen on the iOS 26 developer beta 1 running on the iPhone 16 Pro

For fans of the Apple ecosystem, it’s been an incredible week. Apple’s annual WWDC 2025 keynote revealed a whole new Liquid Glass design that’s unified across all its platforms. Also unified across all platforms is the numbering scheme, with iOS 26 designed to represent the year of release… plus one. 

The new platform doesn’t deliver one of the key things I asked for — multitasking, which is available on iPadOS 26 — but it does bring several new features that make the iPhone far more usable. 

Read more