The best phones in New Zealand might be difficult to find with so much variety on the market. You need to find a handset that fits within your budget, while also offering the performance that you crave. You might want a phone with the best battery life or the best cameras, or, depending on how you use your phone, you might want the nicest, largest display.
There are so many options to choose, with companies such as Apple, Google and Samsung all offering premium smartphones with high price tags. At the other end of the scale, these phone makers, along with a lot of smaller brands, also make budget handsets that offer lower performance but are ultimately more affordable.
With your price range in mind, keep performance, the display, cameras and battery life in mind as we dive into the best smartphones in New Zealand.
The best phones in New Zealand at a glance
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The iPhone 16 Pro represents the best smartphone that Apple has ever built, with a smaller 6.3-inch size than its bigger sibling, the iPhone 16 Pro Max. That smaller size is the only difference between the two phones, apart from a much more attractive price for the iPhone 16 Pro that makes it a much better phone for most people.
Compared to the iPhone 15 Pro, the iPhone 16 Pro isn’t an across-the-board refresh, but it does provide a bunch of welcome upgrades and new features, including the A18 Pro chip, a slightly larger display than last year, and the all-new Camera Control button, a capacitive button on the side that allows you to quickly adjust camera zoom.
The camera array didn’t receive a massive upgrade this time around, but the ultrawide sensor was bumped up to 42MP on the iPhone 16 Pro. The cameras in the Pro iPhones are still some of the best you can currently buy in a handset, but you’ll get slightly better shots with Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra.
But we weren’t impressed with everything. AI features were a letdown with the iPhone 16 range. As we wrote in our review, “It's hard to argue for Apple Intelligence as an upgrade driver when Google and Samsung are selling smartphones with far more complete AI offerings.” Similarly priced Samsung phones also come fitted with slightly more impressive displays, not that the iPhone 16 Pro’s is bad at all.
Still, it’s no wonder why the iPhone 16 Pro received a 'TechRadar Recommends' seal of approval in our review.
Read our full iPhone 16 Pro review
Samsung has stuck to a tried-and-tested design formula with the Galaxy S24 Ultra it seems: it looks nigh-on identical to both its S23 Ultra and S22 Ultra predecessors. But that's pretty much where the similarities end, because Samsung's latest is a far more powerful – and far smarter – beast entirely, so much so it is realistically the best phone you can buy right now if you're not an iOS loyalist.
To start, the S24 Ultra has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 at its core, and this already impressive processor gets a further boost thanks to a collaboration between Samsung and Qualcomm for the former’s new device. The result, which Samsung calls the 'Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform for Galaxy', is a processor that can comfortably run multiple apps and games at once, without so much of a stutter. This new processor is also the brains behind Samsung's on-device Galaxy AI capabilities.
Truth be told, the screen and battery of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra are pretty much identical to the model it replaces, but perhaps most importantly, the camera has received a small but significant upgrade. While the insane 200MP wide sensor makes a comeback, you'll now find a new 50MP 5x zoom periscope camera (which replaces the S23 Ultra's 10MP 10x telephoto lens). While the physical zoom capabilities have effectively been reduced, you'll be able to pick out far greater detail in the images you take and, for our money, we'd take a more detailed photo over one that employs far too much zoom.
Naturally, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra isn't a cheap phone, and you will have to dig deep if you want to own one.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review
Google’s latest high-end phone takes what we love about the Pixel series and supercharges it. With a new rounded design (including a camera bar that separates it from every other phone on the market) and a huge amount of RAM, the Pixel is better than ever this year. Just note that this year the larger model is called the Pixel 9 Pro XL, whereas it was previously called the Pixel Pro.
Google’s Pixel phones are celebrated for their brilliant and easy-to-use operating systems which are backed entirely by the Google Suite of apps. Underpinning the device is the Tensor G4 chip, the latest SoC built by Google and Samsung exclusively for the Pixel range, with a screen size bump over last year’s Pixel 8 Pro. Google’s camera hardware and software is also extremely impressive (including 50MP wide, 48MP telephoto, 48MP ultrawide and 42MP selfie lenses) and is well worth considering if you’re after beautiful, easy-to-take snaps. There’s also 37W fast charging for the first time, a significant bump from 30W fast charging on the previous Pro model.
The device also comes with the best of Google’s AI smarts, but you will have to put a lot of trust into Google if you want to use them. The Gemini Nano model runs on-device as a new virtual assistant, with a new Google Studio for generating AI images, and most notably a new tool that organises your screenshots and allows you to search for the text and image contents inside of them.
There are, however, performance limitations with the Tensor G4 chip when you put it in competition with similarly expensive phones powered by Snapdragon silicon. It’s still a great phone, but you may notice more lag if you put it in competition with the Samsung Galaxy S24+ or S24 Ultra.
Read our full Google Pixel 9 Pro XL review
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is the best pick for a budget handset at the moment, given that Google’s great Pixel 8a has seen a price bump. At the NZ$799 price point for the 256GB storage option, Samsung’s budget handset feels premium without needing the ‘S’ suffix.
The Galaxy A55 takes style points from the S series, while retaining a gloss back that makes it unique, and obviously more related to the A range. Slightly upgraded internal specs and Samsung’s proprietary Knox Vault security system spearhead the big changes from last year’s model. Low-light photos have also seen a buff from improved signal processing.
The cameras you can expect on the Galaxy A55 include a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultrawide, a 5MP macro and a 32MP selfie camera. It can record video at up to 4K/30fps.
The 6.6-inch AMOLED display runs at 120Hz, with a max brightness of 1,000 nits. It also has a brilliant battery life, and we had no trouble getting it to last all day during our testing.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy A55 review
Offering substantial upgrades to the iPhone 15 of 2023, including an upgrade to RAM, the more impressive A18 chip, a slightly bigger battery and a new “fusion” main camera, the iPhone 16 is the best value phone that you can currently buy in New Zealand.
Interestingly, the iPhone 16 was released in New Zealand with a lower RRP than the iPhone 15 did in 2023 (dropping from NZ$1,649 to NZ$1,599). Apple is still holding the iPhone 16 back with a 60hz display, compared to most similarly priced competitors that have 90hz or 120hz displays, but the screen is perfectly fine for casual use. There’s also the Camera Control capacitive button on the iPhone 16, that allows you to adjust camera zoom without touching the screen, and the Action Button, which replaces the mute toggle to allow for deeper functionality.
If you’ve been waiting a while to upgrade a base model iPhone, this is one of the better ones to switch to, just for the sheer amount of changes year-on-year. It’s no wonder TechRadar gave the phone a Recommended seal of approval.
Read our full iPhone 16 review
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 continues to improve upon Samsung’s brilliant work in the foldable screens department – and although improvements upon last year’s Z Flip 5 aren’t massive, it does have a more durable design and a powerful swathe of features. For its clamshell folding factor, we’ll happily call it the best compact phone you can currently buy in New Zealand.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 oozes style, with a slightly different two-tone design approach to previous models that sees the camera lenses surrounded by colour rings. The screen on the back is brilliant to interact with, although the full phone experience is reserved for the unfolded screen. For the back screen, though, Samsung’s new live translation feature (which shows what you’re saying in a translated language on the back screen for the person you’re conversing with) is an absolute win.
Though the Z Flip 6 is a frontrunner in the foldable space on price and performance, those two points don’t ring as true when you put the Z Flip 6 against non-foldables at similar price points. With this in mind, if you’re going to get the Z Flip 6, you best be married to the folding form factor. Its cameras aren’t bad either – including 50MP wide, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP selfie lenses – but you’ll want to gravitate to another phone if snaps are super important to you.
Additionally it’s only IP48 resistance rated (meaning it’s not resistant to dust) and battery life is below average.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 review
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 doesn’t change much over its predecessor from the year before, but it does hit all the same notes perfectly, with a refreshed design and some more refined features.
The 7.6-inch, 1856 x 2160 resolution display doesn’t stray far from last year’s model, though aesthetically the device is a lot more square, packed with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and a 4,400mAh battery. The display is brighter, and Samsung’s packed the company’s Galaxy AI kit right into the phone from the get-go.
All of this said, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is one of the most expensive phones in New Zealand, and the largest storage capacity model is in fact the most pricey handset in the country.
Additionally, while it is a huge phone with a gorgeous screen, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has much more capable cameras that might impress you more if you want to take snaps. Despite being more expensive, being bigger, and having a pretty cool gimmick, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 isn’t entirely a better phone over the S24 Ultra.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review
What is the best phone in New Zealand in 2023?
While there’s no ‘best’ phone among the phones listed above, there might just be a brilliant pick for you to consider. When it comes to being a one of the best all-rounders, the iPhone 15 Pro takes the top spot, but if you’re after a similarly powerful alternative, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is well worth considering (especially for its camera performance).
The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL makes for a brilliant third option too, if you want Android hardware and an Apple-like software experience. If the price is your biggest concern, you should absolutely consider the Samsung Galaxy A55, or the standard iPhone 15 if you’re a fan of iOS.
