These are the top 7 smartphones of 2018

• The best smartphones of 2018 included the OnePlus 6T, Google Pixel 3, iPhone XS, Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 9, and the LG V40.
• Any one of these could be a great option for your next phone upgrade, depending on the features you're looking for.
• The Google Pixel 3 has the best smartphone camera, while the LG V40's high-quality DAC has the best sound.
• Watch the video above for a full review of the best smartphones to buy right now.

Antonio Villas-Boas: 2018 was the year of boring but really, really good smartphones.

First, let's begin with the OnePlus 6T.

This is my personal favorite, but I think in a lot of ways, it's also objectively probably the best smartphone out there. Now, the thing about the OnePlus 6T is that it's the same power and specs and almost the same features as those super-expensive smartphones for almost half the price. It starts at $550.

It has a phenomenal design, a really, really good camera, and it's the fastest smartphone out of all of the smartphones that I'm aware of. The 2% of features from the big smartphones that the OnePlus 6T doesn't have, that includes no official water resistance rating and no wireless charging either. But if those things aren't worth a few hundred dollars more for you, then OnePlus 6T has gotta be for you.

Moving on to the Pixel 3 from Google.

This phone is a really, really good phone. You're getting a Google phone for the insanely good camera. It has two selfie cameras at the front. One is a normal selfie camera, and the other is an ultra-wide selfie camera, and that's really cool. That means more people in your selfies, but also more of your location.

You're also getting a Google phone for the pure and clean version of Android, so you're getting the Google Android experience. You're also getting the Google Pixel phones for the latest Android updates. Starting at $800, it's tough. The price tag is really tough for those phones. The Google Pixel 3 is for pretty much any Android fan, I would say, but I think it's especially for iPhone users who are looking to see what else is out there.

For the next device, the iPhone XS.

It's for the iPhone fan who just won't accept anything less but the best from Apple.

They get iOS. It is very good at being simple. It's also a very well, beautifully designed phone. You feel like you're holding this jewelry, luxury thing, right? And that makes people feel good. That's an iPhone thing. XS is just the newest version of that. The starting price of $1,000.

The XR is for the iPhone fan who just doesn't want to spend 1,000 bucks on a new iPhone. 750 bucks for pretty close experience to the iPhone XS and XS Max.

You're getting a really nice, big screen with the XR. It's available in more color options. The XR doesn't have an OLED display. People again don't really notice, I don't think. You can't have everything, right?

On to Samsung's offering. I'm gonna talk about the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy Note9. They're pretty similar phones, the Note9 just having a stylus and some stylus features.

These are beautiful devices. They are very, very well-designed, and they have probably the best displays in all the land right now. The Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy Note9, too, is for the feature junkie. You know, the person who just wants everything under the sun. Of course, those feature junkies are gonna have to be willing to pay the price, because they are expensive phones as well. That said, the Galaxy S9 was released quite a little while ago. The Note9 as well, so they've come down in price recently.

You want a fingerprint scanner, you want facial recognition, fast charging, wireless charging, water resistance, super, super slow-mo? It's there, too. I just feel like it's got everything, it's got it all.

And the last phone, but not least, I would say, is the LG V40.

It runs well, it performs well, it's a fairly light Android skin on there, but it has five cameras on it total, which is crazy! Most have two cameras, maybe three, but this one has five, and that's why this phone is for someone who wants the most versatility in photo-taking on a smartphone. It gives you the normal angle lens, it gives you the zoom lens that you get in a lot of phones, as well as a ultra-wide lens. The other two are in the front. One is a normal angle selfie mode camera, but it also has an ultra-wide angle selfie camera.

Lest we forget, LG V40 has a headphone jack. That is very quickly becoming extinct these days. The reason why I mention LG's own headphone jack is because it sounds the best out of any smartphone. LG put in a high-quality DAC, digital-to-analog converter. Basically, it's just a little thing that makes music sound better and higher quality. 900 bucks at launch, a little steep. A little steep, but, you know, it is a very good phone.

To be honest, there is no such thing as a perfect phone, but you can decide which specific feature or feature set is best for you. Each phone does one or two things really, really well, so pick the one that does what you would like it to do best.