Ever more 5G phones are landing and there’s now quite a large selection, with some great ones to choose from, offering a wide range of specs and features.
While they tend towards the high-end - and the high-price - there are some slightly more budget options such as the OnePlus Nord and Google Pixel 5, which we’ve included in this list alongside true flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro.
You’ll find details about these and more below, and we’ll keep updating this list as more 5G phones arrive. But for now, ranked from worst to best, here are the best 5G phones available to buy today.
The OnePlus Nord isn’t quite one of the very best 5G phones you can buy if money is no object, but it is one of the cheapest and best value.
That’s enough to earn it a place in our list, but it does more than just offering 5G for cheap, as the OnePlus Nord also has a whole lot of cameras, with four on the back and two on the front. You get a 48MP main snapper, an 8MP ultra-wide one, a 5MP depth one, and a 2MP macro one, while around the front there’s a 32MP main and 8MP ultra-wide pairing.
The OnePlus Nord also has a big and bright 6.44-inch 1080 x 2400 Fluid AMOLED screen with 408 pixels per inch, plus a 90Hz refresh rate, so it’s smooth too.
The design is also stylish for the money, and there’s a sizeable 4,115mAh battery, a speedy Snapdragon 765G chipset, and up to 12GB of RAM – which is an enormous amount for a mid-ranger.
The Oppo Find X2 Pro isn’t a huge name in phones but it should be, as it’s one of the very best handsets you can buy – and of course it also includes 5G support.
The Find X2 Pro is a flagship, so everything is top-end, from its 6.7-inch 1440 x 3168 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, to its triple-lens camera, with a 48MP main sensor, a 48MP ultra-wide one, and a 13MP telephoto one, with an impressive 5x optical zoom.
The Oppo Find X2 Pro also has serious power thanks to a Snapdragon 865 chipset and 12GB of RAM, a big 4,260mAh battery with super speedy 65W charging, a stylish (and water resistant) build, and up to 512GB of storage.
All those features mean it also comes in at a high price, rivalling the best phones from Samsung and OnePlus, but it’s certainly worth the money.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 5G was Samsung’s first and main 2020 flagship (alongside the S20 Plus and S20 Ultra).
As such it’s reasonably recent, and packs a cutting-edge Exynos 990 chipset, which is more powerful than the chipsets you’ll find in 2019’s phones, and is paired with 12GB of RAM.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 5G also has a 6.2-inch 1440 x 3200 Dynamic AMOLED screen with a silky smooth 120Hz refresh rate, plus a triple-lens camera with 12MP main, 64MP telephoto, and 12MP ultra-wide lenses.
There’s a big 4,000mAh battery too, along with an in-screen fingerprint scanner, a stylish build, and water resistance.
The Google Pixel 5 is Google’s latest flagship phone – except it’s not quite as high-end as that might suggest, packing just an upper mid-range Snapdragon 765G chipset.
Still, that means it’s cheaper than most top tier phones, and along with the Pixel 4a 5G it’s the first Google phone to support 5G.
It also has plenty of other decent features, including a class-leading dual-lens camera, with both a 12.2MP main lens and a 16MP ultra-wide one. While this is fewer lenses than most modern phones, they’re also a lot better, easily rivalling the cameras on top-end handsets.
The Pixel 5 also comes with a decent 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and stock Android – along with the promise of day-one updates to new software releases.
Its 6.0-inch 1080 x 2340 screen looks good too, thanks to OLED tech, a 90Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support. It’s perhaps not the most exciting phone – or the Pixel flagship many were hoping for, but as a dependable, affordable way to get 5G, great cameras, and slick software, the Pixel 5 is a top choice.
The OnePlus 8 Pro is – at the time of writing – the very best OnePlus phone you can buy. Its headline feature is arguably its screen, which at 6.78 inches is big, at 1440 x 3168 is a crisp 518 pixels per inch, and which also has a silky smooth 120Hz refresh rate, support for HDR10+, and uses AMOLED, for great colours and contrast.
You also get loads of power, thanks to a high-end Snapdragon 865 chipset and up to 12GB of RAM, while the quad-lens rear camera impresses with 48MP main and ultra-wide sensors, an 8MP telephoto one (with 3x optical zoom), and a 5MP colour filter camera.
The OnePlus 8 Pro additionally has a massive 4,510mAh battery, 30W fast charging, water resistance, a stylish metal and glass build, an in-screen fingerprint scanner and more.
Of course, the OnePlus 8 Pro also supports 5G, and while it’s certainly expensive it’s not quite as pricey as, say, the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, found below.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra isn’t the highest ranking Samsung phone in this list, as while it’s newer than the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and S20 Plus, it’s not really any more powerful and it’s arguably not as mainstream. That said, it’s still very, very good.
The highlight of course is its S Pen stylus, which lets you sketch, write by hand, and make use of shortcuts. And the Note 20 Ultra’s massive 6.9-inch 1440 x 3088 screen ensures you can make the most of that stylus.
Like many flagships, this has a 120Hz refresh rate and support for HDR10+, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra also has an excellent camera, with a 108MP main sensor, a 12MP telephoto one (with 5x optical zoom), and a 12MP ultra-wide one.
Plus, there’s a 4,500mAh battery, a top-end Exynos 990 chipset, 12GB of RAM, and up to 512GB of storage. This is a phone that has it all – including 5G, but just make sure you’re prepared for the price and actually need the S Pen and enormous display.
The iPhone 12 along with its siblings is Apple’s first 5G phone, and it’s a great first attempt. While it’s not the top of the range it achieves a tempting combination of price and features, so may well be the model that most people buy.
It has a 6.1-inch 1170 x 2532 OLED screen with HDR10 support, potentially more power than any 2020 Android phone from its A14 Bionic chipset, a great dual-lens camera (with 12MP main and 12MP ultra-wide lenses), a premium design, and a surprisingly durable build – with Ceramic Shield protection keeping the screen safer from drops than most phones, and water resistance to depths of 6 metres.
With MagSafe tech too (allowing you to attach accessories using magnets), plus Apple’s unrivalled Face ID facial recognition, there’s a lot to like here.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus 5G is basically the Samsung Galaxy S20 with more of most things. You get more screen space from its 6.7-inch display, more cameras with the addition of a depth sensor for a quad-lens setup, more battery life from its 4,500mAh juice pack, and more storage with up to 512GB built in.
Otherwise this is a very similar phone, with the same 1440 x 3200 resolution, same 120Hz refresh rate, same top-end power and more or less the same design.
The additions make the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus that little bit better and more premium, but it really is a very similar phone.
The iPhone 12 Pro is arguably the best iPhone you can buy, packing in most of the same top-end tech as the iPhone 12 Pro Max, but in a more manageable size and at a slightly lower price.
As well as 5G it also has a quad-lens camera, adding to the 12MP main and ultra-wide sensors of the standard iPhone 12 with a 12MP telephoto one and a LiDAR scanner, which can judge depth and distances.
It also builds on the standard iPhone 12 by having a stainless steel frame, rather than a less premium aluminium one, while in most other areas it’s much the same – with top-end power, a 6.1-inch OLED screen, MagSafe, Face ID, and all the other features Apple’s phones are known for.
The best 5G phone you can buy at the time of writing is arguably the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, as where the S20 Plus simply adds more to the S20, the S20 Ultra makes some significant changes – for the better.
Key among these is its quad-lens camera, which has a 108MP main sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide one, a depth sensor, and a 48MP telephoto lens, capable of 10x hybrid optical zoom (meaning it’s basically lossless) and an insane 100x digital zoom.
The Galaxy S20 Ultra also has up to 16GB of RAM, which is more than most other widely available phones, and it has an enormous 6.9-inch screen and 5,000mAh battery, plus a great 40MP front-facing camera (while the rest of the range settles for 10MP).
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra – alongside the newer Note 20 Ultra - is basically a whole new class of ultra-premium handset, and as such it will be too expensive for most people to justify, but if you want the best of the best, this is it.
So there you have it, the ten best 5G phones available now. Given the high cost of 5G phones there’s not an option for everyone, but if you’re on a slightly limited budget then the OnePlus Nord would be a good choice.
If you’ve got a bit more to spend and want a flagship then consider the Oppo Find X2 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S20, Google Pixel 5 or OnePlus 8 Pro.
Towards the top of our list though we have the top-end Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, then the high-end iPhone 12 and Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, then the ultra-premium iPhone 12 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra – the latter of which is for our money the best 5G phone you can buy.
Whichever one of these phones you choose though you’ll end up with a great, future-proofed handset that will help you make the most of 5G. Just make sure there’s 5G coverage in your area first.
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