There are many smartphones on the market today, and we here Android Authority seeks to cover all. But what about the phones we use every day as our daily drivers? After all, it’s one thing to review a phone and call it one of the best, but it’s another thing to use one as your primary device.
We did a daily manager survey of Team AA in 2018, as well as another one last year. With some fantastic phones already released this year, we thought this might be a good time to do a 2021 edition of this poll to see how things have changed over the past twelve months.
21 Team AA members from around the world contributed to these results, while also giving their daily managers a score out of 10 and letting us know what they like or dislike.
What phones do Android Authority team members use? Let’s find out!
The results
We mapped the results according to telephone models as well as by telephone brand. We will look at the details later in this article, but you can check the raw numbers below:
This is a Samsung party in here
Last year’s poll put Samsung ahead of the package with a very slim lead over Google’s phones, but the South Korean manufacturer widened this gap in 2021. By 2020, nearly a quarter of all Team AA members used a Samsung device as their daily driver. , followed by 21% of members using a Google device. Now a third of all members use a Samsung phone.
The Galaxy S20 (two) and Galaxy S10 Plus (two) were the only phones that used more than one Team AA member. Otherwise, no other phone model appeared twice in our poll.
Samsung owners generally praised the cameras, performance, battery life and size (large and small models). One notable complaint regarding Samsung phones comes from social and SEO expert Luka Mlinar and his Exynos Samsung Galaxy S20:
“You would expect a € 1,000+ COD Mobile phone to run without stuttering, and yet not.”
Almost a quarter of the questioners Android Authority members (five) use a Google Pixel phone as their daily driver, and praise was mostly about the camera, the size of the phone, and the software experience. There have been complaints against the aging main camera sensor of the Pixel 5, while Sam Moore – editor of our sister website SoundGuys – regrets the lack of IP rating and wireless charging on the Pixel 4a.
OnePlus was rounding out the top three brands, with four AA members reporting using a OnePlus device as their daily driver. Interestingly, it also achieves the highest average rating among the top three manufacturers (8.75 / 10 versus 8.1 / 10 for Samsung and 8/10 for Google).
Presenter editor Matt Horne also scored his OnePlus 8 points – the only perfect score this time around. Matt said he liked everything about the phone, noting that it was his first device with a fingerprint sensor and that he also liked the design. But he admitted that the praise could also be attributed to the fact that his previous phones were not on track.
Apple Authority strikes again
Credit: David Imel / Android Government
Believe it or not, two members of our team use iPhones as daily drivers. Resident reviewer Eric Zeman and Audio Editor Lily Katz chose the iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Mini, respectively.
Eric cited the camera, battery life, performance and app selection for choosing the iPhone. Meanwhile, Lily preferred the Mini model because she says she has small hands, carries a charger and does not use her phone regularly anyway.
The iPhone owners did have some criticism, with Eric rejecting the size of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the notch and the lack of a high refresh rate. Lily also criticized the iPhone 12 Mini for the lack of a 3.5mm port and a camera lens.
Three outliers
Credit: David Imel / Android Government
What else did our AA members use as their daily managers? Well, Huawei, LG and Xiaomi have all appeared once.
From Huawei, I still use the Mate 20 Pro as my daily driver. It’s still fast enough for my needs, the cameras are pretty versatile, I can take more than a day out of the battery, and the fast charge is still pretty handy. However, it certainly feels like the battery has deteriorated, and the lack of a high refresh rate screen and 4K at 60 fps recording is a bit disappointing compared to more recent devices.
Meanwhile, executive editor Kris Carlon is going into the LG wing with a rather unusual choice. He reckons the T-shaped phone is LG ‘at its most peculiar’:
‘It’s far from perfect, but it’s one of the most interesting phones I’ve used in years. The use cases are certainly pretty niche, but once you find the ones that work for you, they feel strangely indispensable. It’s also a fairly fixed ‘regular phone’. ”
However, this is not all good, because Kris does not like the software of the Wing. Nevertheless, he admits that it was better than he first expected.
There’s only one Xiaomi phone used as a daily driver in this poll, and that’s Gary Sims’ Mi 9T Pro. He praised the performance, the amount of storage (128 GB), the on-screen fingerprint sensor and the MIUI updates. But he also had special praise for the battery, noting that he rarely went to bed with less than 50% juice. However, Gary regrets that the camera on the front is too wide and said it distorts selfies.
Other takeaways
- Only one Team AA member said they would not recommend their phone to readers, and that is managing editor Ollie Cragg and his Pixel 4 XL. He hates the 64 GB fixed storage and calls the phone’s battery horrible. In the case of the latter, he said it now barely reaches him until 6 p.m. However, he still gave it a high rating of 8/10. It is a complicated relationship between love and hate.
- There was a large amount of transfer from last year’s poll, with eight models returning in 2021. These were the Google Pixel 4 XL, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10, Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, OnePlus 7, OnePlus 7T, OnePlus 7T Pro and Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro.
- There is only one Huawei phone on this list, compared to five members who owned a Huawei device a year ago. The lack of Google Mobile Services suggests that many Team AA members are taking away Chinese-branded phones for now. I know I would upgrade to a Mate 40 Pro within a heartbeat if supported by Google.
- This is our first daily driver survey with an OLED series, as the 2020 survey includes LCD phones such as the Huawei P20, Huawei Mate 9 and older, cheaper iPhones. And even if middle-class guards get OLED screens with a high refresh rate in 2021, we guess this trend will continue next year.
- Just under 24% of our daily drivers offered 3.5mm ports. These were the Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 4a, Mi 9T Pro and Galaxy S10 Plus. This is in line with last year’s poll, for better or worse.
- Only one phone (Pixel 4 XL) packed a traditional forehead, while three offered a pop-up selfie camera. The rest have a notch or punch hole cutout.
- The average battery size works at 3,861mAh, with the iPhone 12 Mini and Google Pixel 4a making it lower on average.
- The oldest phone on the list is the Mate 20 Pro, which was released in late 2018. I think it’s time I get an upgrade …
- Only six phones out of the 21 choices (28.5%) were manufactured by Chinese brands. Meanwhile, South Korean brands made up eight choices (38.1%), while US brands made up seven devices (33.3%).
- According to Counterpoint Research, Oppo is the fifth place for shipments in 2020, but it is completely missing in this year’s poll. However, it is not the only top 10 world player missing in this poll, as Vivo (sixth), Realme (seventh) and Lenovo / Motorola (eighth) were all absent.
Our next phones
We also asked the team if there were any phones that announced or rumored, and the biggest option was ‘nothing’. Seven team members were lucky enough with their current phones that they did not plan to upgrade anytime soon – up from five a year ago.
As for the most popular brand, five team members have said they want to upgrade to a Samsung phone. Two Android Authority members said they want a 2021-foldable Samsung, while three others want the Galaxy S21, Galaxy Note 21 and Galaxy S22. The second most popular manufacturer was Google, as two team members watched the Pixel 6 and one considered the Pixel 5a.
We also saw two brands make the cut that does not appear in our daily driver survey, as Kris chose the Asus ROG Phone 5 and Ollie the Oppo Find X3 Pro. Finally, we also saw two choices that weren’t actually brand-specific, as newsletter editor Tristan Rayner simply wanted a Snapdragon 888-powered phone, while accessory guru Ankit Banerjee simply went for a phone with a selfie camera under the screen.
What is your daily manager at the moment? Do you have any preferences or dislikes to share? Let us know by commenting below.