Tested by a small phone fan!

Outside of the difference in size, the Pixel 10 Pro makes almost no other cuts from its XL sibling. Yes, the battery is a bit smaller (4,870mAh vs 5,200mAh) and the gap in wired charging is bigger than the previous generation (30W vs 45W), but the battery life itself is still rock-solid, and there’s no difference between the Tensor G5 chipset and the monstrous 16GB of RAM that you get under the hood. Sure, some of that is reserved for keeping Gemini running at top speed, but it still means you have around 12GB to do with as you please, which in my case means playing Pokémon TCG Pocket and Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus whenever I have a free moment.

Speaking of Gemini, the Pixel 10 Pro packs more clever AI-powered tricks than you or I could count. It builds on the mountain of apps introduced on the previous generation, like Pixel Studio and Pixel Screenshots, adding Pixel Journal to the mix for logging thoughts. Perhaps the most exciting new Pixel 10 Pro feature, however, is Magic Cue. It still has a few wrinkles to iron out, but the idea of an assistant being able to pull context from one message or email and insert it into another is exactly how AI should be used.

Let’s round out the best small Android phone with a Pixel favorite: The cameras. Google’s trio of 50MP primary, 48MP ultrawide, and 48MP 5x optical telephoto sensors is excellent, and it comes with a serious new upgrade thanks to Gemini: 100x Pro Res Zoom. Granted, that maxed-out zoom is best saved for buildings and landscapes — it handles people kind of funny — but I’ve been impressed with the way it handles far-off parts of Baltimore’s harbor. And, as they say, the best camera phone is the one you have with you.

More specifically, you’ll have to live with the fact that Google still stubbornly refuses to bring glass to the back of its Pixel A series. Once again, the Pixel 9a has a plastic back surrounding its now bar-less camera bar — a choice I wasn’t originally sure about but now really like. Yes, I still miss the camera bar for its dose of personality, but I appreciate that the design team at Google made the design change more because they freed up space inside the phone than because they just wanted to take a minimalist approach. Besides, the fun colors like Peony and Iris more than make up for the slimmed-down design.

Otherwise, the main downgrades for the Pixel 9a come as part of its charging setup. It steps down to 23W wired charging with Google’s in-house Pixel charger and 7.5W wireless charging, though at least it’s an upgrade from when the Pixel A series only had wired charging. And yet, the Pixel 9a’s battery situation is as good as I could have asked for. Its 5,100mAh cell is the largest on any Pixel to date, and it easily outlasted both the Pixel 8a and Pixel 9 in my testing.

This mid-ranger also packs the same Tensor G4 chip that powers its flagship siblings, offering a stellar slate of AI features. It doesn’t have everything that the true Pixel 9 series has due to its limited 8GB of RAM, but Pixel Screenshots is the only true casualty I’ve noticed. That loss comes down to running Gemini Nano XXS, which only accepts text inputs, rather than the Nano XS model on Google’s other 2024 launches. If you ask me, though, it’s a small price to pay when saving a few hundred bucks.

That said, if you’re dead-set on a small Android phone and already entrenched in the Galaxy ecosystem, it only makes sense to give the Galaxy S25 a shot. It’s impressively well-made, combining an Armor Aluminum frame with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on both the front and back, and pairing that durability with an IP68 rating against water and dust. Yes, maybe the design is a little played out at this point — it’s tough to pick out the differences between the three camera cutouts and those on the Galaxy S24 — but Samsung has never worried about fixing what wasn’t broken.

Besides, the actual changes on the Galaxy S25 lie under the surface. It’s more efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset and 12GB of RAM are behind a laundry list of AI-powered features, from a revamped Drawing Assist that’s more like Google’s Pixel Studio to the Now Brief that does its best to keep you updated on your calendar and the current weather conditions throughout your day. I’ve been more impressed by the Now Bar, which works something like Apple’s Dynamic Island, but I appreciate that Samsung is trying to find ways to integrate Galaxy AI into my everyday life rather than making me search for it.

And yes, this is where I remind you that picking up an iPhone will mean ditching Android for iOS. I don’t love that, and you might not either, but it’s a necessary sacrifice to save space. Honestly, using iOS isn’t as bad as it used to be. It looks and feels a little more like Android than it used to, letting you drag and drop apps and widgets anywhere on your display and change the color of your icons to better match your wallpaper. Even the Apple Intelligence rollout has begun to iron itself out, with Apple reintroducing notification summaries and smoothing out the details of Clean Up in Photos.

Apple’s latest iPhone 17 Pro also makes a few hardware changes that longtime fans may or may not like. It’s the first to shake up the corner-mounted camera bump, stretching it all the way across the back of the unibody aluminum frame. Apple has also brought back the Camera Control, doubling down on a hardware way to swap between Photographic Styles and features like portrait mode without ever tapping your display. My usage has waxed and waned, usually depending on how much time I have to grab a shot, but it’s a clever way to make your iPhone feel a little bit more like a traditional camera.

Of course, there are still times when Apple’s pocket-sized designs work against it. The iPhone 17 Pro still packs a smaller battery than rival Android phones, which usually means less space for cooling technology. Apple is also as committed to its 12GB of RAM as it is to ditching the SIM tray (all iPhones are still eSIM-only in the US). On the bright side, the iPhone 17 Pro’s upgraded 48MP telephoto sensor means it can finally zoom in to 40x magnification or tap in for an 8x optical crop.

See, what the Razr Ultra gets so right is its willingness to push the envelope. We watched Samsung trickle out changes and upgrades for several generations of the Galaxy Z Flip, and Motorola did the same with its base Razr, but the Razr Ultra goes right to 11. It adopts Gorilla Glass Ceramic on its cover screen, puts fun materials like wood and Alcantara on the back, and packs its frame with the best internals it could realistically hold.

Inside the glass and aluminum shell lives a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, a whopping 16GB of RAM, and a 4,700mAh battery that still towers over its closest competitors (it’s a full 400mAh larger than the upgraded Galaxy Z Flip 7). Sticking with its more is more mentality, Motorola paired that bigger cell with the fastest wired charging in the US outside of the likes of OnePlus. The Razr Ultra supports 68W wired TurboPower and 30W wireless speeds, at least if you have compatible chargers. If not, it’s worth spending the extra cash to experience a charging speed that Samsung hasn’t come close to yet.

The last piece of the puzzle that keeps Motorola’s top-end flip phone ahead of rivals like the Galaxy Z Flip is, well, what makes it a good small Android phone to begin with. I’ve been onboard with Motorola’s open, flexible approach to its cover screen since it first adopted a larger panel on the original Razr Plus (2023), and the ability to launch any app I need has only become more useful as Samsung has doubled down on Good Lock for its Flex Window. You’ll have to pony up a few hundred more dollars to put the Razr Ultra in your pocket, but I think it’s worth the splurge.