In 2022 I saw a ton of cracking smartphones hitting the market place; so many, in fact, that information technology's getting harder to pick something you will regret. And nevertheless whenever I receive a new smartphone to review, I experience like I'chiliad e'er able to observe a fault or major tradeoff that's been made. I run across phones with really dainty bodies and powerful hardware that fall behind on battery life. I meet bully cameras in phones with terrible camera apps. I see stock Android in phones with no expandable storage. I see big batteries in phones with mediocre processors.

There have been some smartphones that have come close to exactly what I want in a daily driver – the Google Nexus 6P, Apple iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy S6 are all dandy examples – simply I'g yet to see the elusive 'perfect' device; the phone with no compromises in hardware or software. And after everything I've seen over the past year, and because what tech we can expect in 2022, I truly believe it's possible for a visitor to produce an platonic, perfect smartphone this year.

In this commodity I'll go through every aspect of the modern smartphone and listing exactly what I want to see, with every attribute of the hardware and software firmly grounded in reality. This means no side by side-generation lithium-air batteries or desktop-class graphics processors: sorry everyone, simply these features are however many years abroad. This is a smartphone that should be possible to create, and something I would absolutely love to see hit the market.

Display: 5.3-inch 1440p AMOLED from Samsung

The display tends to dictate the size and blueprint of the phone, which is why I had to cull this first. While I dear the Nexus 6P and Galaxy Notation 5, I'm not a fan of the phablet-course brandish, and the LG G4's 5.5-inch display is besides slightly also large. This is why I opted for something slightly smaller, at v.iii-inches.

The resolution to use was a tough pick. I was originally going to opt for a 1080p display every bit the difference in sharpness between 1080p and 1440p isn't hugely significant, and several generations ago in that location were ability and operation implications from choosing a higher-resolution display. Nevertheless, in 2022, I believe that 1440p is a better choice for several reasons.

Across the handsets I reviewed in 2022, I saw no reason to suggest that phones with 1080p displays had improve battery life than 1440p displays. The HTC One M9, Sony Xperia Z5 and Google Nexus 5X all achieved pretty average battery life, even though they all packed 1080p displays, while some 1440p phones like the Galaxy Note five accept groovy battery life. Second, performance is not an outcome with the current ingather of SoCs beingness more than capable of playing today's mobile games.

And lastly, with the increasing popularity of virtual reality solutions, there are advantages to having a high-resolution display on your phone. The Gear VR, congenital for Samsung devices, is an excellent case of a inexpensive consumer device that tin can turn your telephone into a decent VR experience. It'southward enhanced by the fact that most Samsung phones have 1440p displays, which allow for greater clarity when the display is so close to your face. I wait telephone-based VR solutions volition just get cheaper and better, and a 1440p display volition be needed to get the best out of it.

I opted for AMOLED technology over LCD because they produce better contrast and black levels, which leads to amend credible vibrancy. Samsung has done particularly well in developing high quality AMOLEDs that are efficient and capable of decent maximum brightness, and when properly calibrated to sRGB standards as I'd expect from this platonic telephone, they can look improve than competing LCDs.

Body: Nexus 6P-fashion all-metal with Gorilla Glass 4

I don't want the ideal smartphone to replicate the Nexus 6P, but the matte silver aluminium used in its structure is the exact metallic I'd desire to wrap around the unabridged dorsum panel and the sides. For ergonomic reasons this slab of metal would be a slightly rounded rectangular prism, with both the power and volume buttons located along the right-hand edge in an ideal location. The dorsum panel would be essentially constant width, indicating a lack of camera bump.

The front of the smartphone would see the v.iii-inch display flanked by very small blackness bezels, similar to the LG G4. The unabridged front end assembly would be protected by the latest Gorilla Drinking glass, which would curve downwards slightly at the left and right edges to provide a swooshable, seamless infinity display. To keep a clean aesthetic, the front panel would include no logos or any other distracting elements.

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820

When it comes to high-finish smartphone SoCs, there are three principal contenders to consider: Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, and Apple A-serial. Apple has routinely produced some of the best smartphone silicon on the market, simply as this handset isn't running iOS and every bit Apple doesn't sell their chips to other OEMs, that unfortunately rules out their hardware for this handset.

Last year, the race for the best flagship SoC heated upward significantly betwixt Qualcomm and Samsung. The Exynos 7420, seen in the Milky way S6 and Note 5, was the outset SoC from Samsung in a long fourth dimension that actually challenged Qualcomm from both a performance and power efficiency perspective. Meanwhile, overheating, throttling and efficiency problems led to a disappointing twelvemonth for Qualcomm and its Snapdragon 810.

So why have I chosen to return to Qualcomm when Samsung had the best hardware last year? Why wouldn't I opt for the upcoming Exynos 8 Octa? Well, there's a couple of reasons.

Admittedly it'southward early on days, only I'm a much bigger fan of Qualcomm'due south CPU design in the Snapdragon 820 than the rumoured Exynos 8 Octa. Qualcomm has an first-class rails record when it comes to in-house CPU core design, whereas the Exynos 8 Octa is reportedly using 1 of Samsung'due south first in-house CPU cores. On superlative of that, a 2+2 core all-custom design, which the Snapdragon 820 implements, is closer to what I anticipate is the platonic CPU layout, as opposed to the iv+iv core design of the Exynos eight Octa.

Feature wise, I look both the Exynos eight Octa and Snapdragon 820 to compete in many means, including high-bandwidth LPDDR4 support, Cat 12 LTE, MU-MIMO, and fast Wi-Fi. Where the Snapdragon 820 might get an edge is in GPU performance: Qualcomm uses custom Adreno designs, whereas Samsung uses Republic of mali, and historically Adreno outperforms Mali in flagship fries.

It'due south withal early days for these chips, as neither has been seen in whatsoever product devices, simply I doubtable the Snapdragon 820 will become a pop option for phones released throughout 2022.

Camera: Sony Exmor IMX300 with f/1.9 lens and OIS

The rear camera I'd use in this platonic smartphone is basically a mashup of the 2 best bits of camera hardware I saw in 2022: Sony's Exmor IMX300 sensor – a 23-megapixel, one/2.3" sensor with ane.1μm pixels – paired with a 24mm-equivalent f/1.9 lens with optical paradigm stabilization. Essentially, this is combining the Sony Xperia Z5's splendid camera sensor with the Samsung Galaxy Note five's lens and stabilization rig.

I decided to use the IMX300 over the Nexus 6P's larger-pixel IMX377 considering both Samsung and LG take managed to deliver excellent indoor and depression-light performance with a 1.1 μm pixel sensor combined with OIS. Choosing a sensor with larger pixels would be meliorate for night time photography, just considering almost smartphones are restricted to 1/2.iii" sensors or smaller, adding OIS to a high resolution sensor is the best solution available today.

The rear sensor would be capable of optically-stabilized 4K video and slow motion 720p footage at 240 fps. I'd also pair it with LG's light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-assisted autofocus organization for lightning-fast photography, and a dual-tone high-power LED flash.

Where I would use the IMX377 is on the forepart of my ideal smartphone, paired with an f/two.0 lens. By taking the Nexus 6P's 12.3-megapixel rear camera and placing it on the front of this ideal smartphone, it would achieve excellent low lite performance without the demand for OIS. Considering many selfies are taken at night, such as in bars, restaurants or nightclubs with groups of friends, the benefits of 1.55 μm pixels would really smooth in these use cases.

The front photographic camera, although information technology wouldn't feature OIS, would still be capable of 4K video recording. There wouldn't exist a flash, merely it would use the screen displaying an all-white image if needed, similar to the current-generation iPhones.

The camera would combine Samsung's fantabulous image processing with LG'due south fantastic photographic camera application, seen in the LG V10, for an awesome photography feel. This would give the user full manual control over settings in both photo and video fashion, as well as an excellent automatic mode with auto-HDR. Thanks to Samsung'south image processing (with some tweaks to the sharpness filter to tone information technology down slightly), images would always wait great.