GSMArena 2026 End-of-Year Awards Finalists Announced: Four Phones Vie for Phone of the Year

GSMArena has announced the finalists for its 2026 End-of-Year Awards. The team tested over 200 devices over the past twelve months and has decided the nominations, which span 13 categories — from Phone of the Year to Best Accessories. Readers can vote now, with voting closing on December 29, 2026, and the results announced as part of the winners ceremony in early January. There is also a Readers' Choice award, where readers vote for which of the four Phone of the Year finalists stands out, with the exact counts and percentages for all four models revealed at the ceremony.

Phone of the Year

Four phones are in the running: the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max with three 200MP sensors, the vivo X500 Pro Max with its exceptional camera and ZEISS T* coated lenses, the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, and the Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max with the Apple A20 Pro. No foldables are in this category.

Best Camera

The camera finalists are the Oppo Find X9 Ultra (two 200MP and two 50MP cameras, with a 10x/230mm lens), the Xiaomi 17 Ultra (a 1-inch-type sensor and a 200MP telephoto with variable focal length of 75–100mm, or 3.2–4.3x continuous zoom), and the vivo X300 Ultra (Dolby Vision recording and superb stabilization).

Best Battery Life

The battery finalists are the Poco X8 Pro Max (only 13 minutes short in the Active Use Score rankings), the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max, the Realme P4 Power (which sits on top of the battery chart) and the Poco F9 Ultra.

Best Foldable

The foldable finalists are the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra (8.9mm thick, 215g), the Motorola Razr Fold (Moto's first non-flip foldable), the Honor Magic V6 (8.8mm thick) and the vivo X Fold6. The iPhone Duo didn't get the nod.

Best Compact

The compact finalists are the Apple iPhone 18 Pro, the vivo X500 Pro (a trio of ZEISS cameras), the Xiaomi 18 Pro (200MP telephoto) and the Samsung Galaxy S26.

Best Gaming

The gaming finalists are the Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max (Apple A20 Pro), the RedMagic 12 Pro and the RedMagic Astra 2 — a tablet, which GSMArena notes is something you might get in addition to a phone.

Best Value and Best Budget

The Best Value finalists are the Poco F9 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), the Xiaomi 17T Pro, the Honor 600 Pro and the OnePlus 15R (a large, bright, Dolby Vision display). The Best Budget finalists are the Samsung Galaxy A57 (which looks like a Galaxy S phone), the Poco X8 Pro (one telephoto camera short of perfection) and the Nothing Phone (4a) (a love-it-or-hate-it design).

Design Excellence

The design finalists are the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro (instantly recognizable), the Infinix Note 60 Ultra (designed with the Pininfarina design studio), the Oppo Find X9 Ultra (in the color "Tundra Umber") and the RedMagic 12 Pro (a gaming aesthetic with transparent panels).

Innovation of the Year

Five innovations made the list: the Honor Robot Phone with its retractable camera gimbal, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra with its privacy display, the Huawei Mate XT 2 Ultimate with its tri-fold design, a Tecno bezelless concept, and the TCL P80 Ultra with NxtPaper tech on an AMOLED display.

Best Tablet

The tablet finalists are the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra (DeX desktop-like multitasking, optional keyboard, external displays), the Honor MagicPad4 (less than half the Galaxy's price, with up to 20 windows simultaneously) and the OnePlus Pad 4 (sleek, powerful and well-priced, with a new keyboard and stylus).

Best Smartwatch

The smartwatch finalists are the Huawei Watch GT 7 Pro (a nano-crystal ceramic bezel on the recognizable octagon design, which lasted 15 days in testing while tracking all exercise sessions), the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra (the most rugged and most capable of Samsung's three classes, with rich health tracking and the Samsung Health app), the Xiaomi Watch 5 (a 930mAh silicon-carbon battery that lasted a full 5 days with all-day health tracking and notifications, plus a secondary OS for lower-power operation) and the Oppo Watch X3 (a 646mAh battery that lasted 4 days with always-on display enabled, 10W charging to about 50% in 15 minutes and a full charge in under an hour, with a titanium body, sapphire glass and the Dynamic-Link strap). The section calls them its "top five picks" but lists four finalists.

Best Accessories

The accessories finalists are the Xiaomi UltraThin Magnetic Power Bank 5000 (just 6mm thick and 98g, versus 7.7mm and 126g for Apple's Air MagSafe battery; 15W only on Xiaomi phones, 7.5W for everything else; it brought a nearly dead iPhone 15 Pro to 91% before depleting its charge), the TORRAS FlashEye Dot Smart Display Charger 45W, the UGREEN Nexode Pro 300W Smart Display Desktop Charger (six ports, with its top USB-C port reaching 100W), the Anker Prime 160W (three USB-C ports, one delivering 140W, compact enough to travel and feed even a top-end MacBook) and the Oppo Bubble Mag E-Badge (a tiny display that magnetically attaches to the back of a phone as a viewfinder for the main cameras, and a remote control from up to 10m away).

Sources

• GSMArena — Announcing the finalists for the GSMArena 2026 End-of-Year Awards