2024 has been an exhilarating year for mobile and consumer tech, bringing thinner foldables, DSLR-challenging camera phones, and pocket-sized PCs that outmuscle yesterday’s desktops. After months of testing prototypes and retail units, benchmarking chipsets, and lugging gadgets across three continents, we’re ready to name our champions. From an impossibly slim foldable you can actually one-hand to a mini PC that costs less than a monitor, these are the nine products that earned top honors in our annual awards. Whether you’re hunting for your next daily driver or simply curious about where the industry is heading, start your tour below.
The Year’s Best Tech, According to Our 2024 Awards
2024 has been an exhilarating year for mobile and consumer tech, bringing thinner foldables, DSLR-challenging camera phones, and pocket-sized PCs that outmuscle yesterday’s desktops. After months of testing prototypes and retail units, benchmarking chipsets, and lugging gadgets across three continents, we’re ready to name our champions. From an impossibly slim foldable you can actually one-hand to a mini PC that costs less than a monitor, these are the nine products that earned top honors in our annual awards. Whether you’re hunting for your next daily driver or simply curious about where the industry is heading, start your tour below.
Best Foldable Phone: Honor Magic V3
Sliding a tablet-sized screen into a jeans pocket still feels futuristic, but Honor’s Magic V3 makes it look effortless. At a wafer-thin 4.8 mm when open and 9.9 mm folded, it undercuts most slab phones while squeezing in a 5,100 mAh battery and 66 W charging. The titanium hinge survives 400,000 folds and leaves the 7.9-inch OLED virtually crease-free. A Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 keeps multitasking fluid, and the 50 MP triple camera finally gives foldables daylight parity with bar-style flagships. Add stylus support and IPX8 water-proofing, and you’ve got 2024’s undisputed foldable champion.
Best Affordable Flagship: iQOO 13
Delivering flagship fire-power for mid-range money, the iQOO 13 nails the value equation. For roughly US$600 in China, you get Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a 6.8-inch 144 Hz LTPO AMOLED, and 120 W charging that tops the 5,000 mAh cell in under twenty minutes. Photography impresses, too: a 50 MP main, 48 MP ultrawide, and 3× telephoto all tuned by Vivo’s imaging team. You also get Wi-Fi 7, stereo speakers, an IR blaster, and IP64 sealing, features many US$1,000 phones still skip. When your wallet says “mid-range” but your heart screams “premium,” the iQOO 13 is waiting.
Best Camera Phone: Vivo X200 Pro
Few phones blur the gap between pocket shooter and mirrorless camera like Vivo’s X200 Pro. The headline 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor teams with fourth-generation gimbal OIS and Zeiss T* glass for tack-sharp, low-noise results. Supporting it are a 50 MP 3.5× periscope and 50 MP ultrawide; both share the same optical coating, so portraits pop and landscapes stay edge-to-edge crisp. Vivo’s V3 imaging chip renders 14-bit HDR stills and 8K60 video in real time, keeping colors balanced even in nightclub lighting. If impeccable photos outrank gaming frame rates on your wish-list, this is 2024’s camera king.
Best Cameras on a Foldable: Vivo X Fold 3 Pro
Foldables rarely top camera leaderboards, yet Vivo’s X Fold 3 Pro rewrites the script. It packs a 50 MP GN1 main with gimbal OIS, a 64 MP 3× periscope, and 48 MP ultrawide, all tuned by Zeiss. Whether shot closed, propped in Flex mode, or used as its own tripod, images retain flagship-level range and color fidelity. The rest of the spec sheet is equally uncompromised: an 8.03-inch 120 Hz LTPO inner screen, a 5,500 mAh cell, and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 juggle work and play with ease. Finally, a foldable that treats photography as a first-class citizen.
Best Video Shooter: iPhone 15 Pro Max
Apple’s video supremacy continues with the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The A17 Pro chip lets you shoot 10-bit ProRes Log at 4K60 straight to an external SSD via USB-C, trimming edit time. A new 5× tetraprism telephoto grants creamy background compression, while Dolby Vision HDR keeps skin tones accurate and highlights under control. Rock-Steady stabilization, powered by sensor-shift OIS and gyro data, delivers gimbal-like smoothness. Add spatial audio capture, Dynamic Island live meters, and seamless hand-off to Final Cut Pro, and you have the easiest pocket cinema rig of 2024.
Best Value All-Rounder: OnePlus 13
OnePlus built its brand on value, and the OnePlus 13 rekindles that spirit. For about US$700 you get Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a Hasselblad-tuned 50 MP camera, a 6.74-inch 120 Hz OLED, and 100 W SuperVOOC that fills the 5,000 mAh battery in 25 minutes. OxygenOS 15 remains near-stock and promises four Android upgrades plus five years of patches. A flat Gorilla Glass Victus 2 display, iconic alert slider, IP68 sealing, and Wi-Fi 7 all scream premium without the price creep. When you need a balanced daily driver that won’t wreck your budget, start here.
Most Innovative Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 9400
MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 leads the silicon race by moving to TSMC’s 3-nm node ahead of Qualcomm. One 3.4 GHz Cortex-X5, three X4s, and four A720 cores provide roughly 30 % more multi-core speed at 20 % less power. The Immortalis-G920 GPU enables hardware ray tracing and variable-rate shading for console-class graphics. A 45 TOPS APU 6 tackles on-device generative AI, while the built-in modem already flirts with 10 Gbps 6G speeds. If efficiency and future-proofing top your list, this chip will power 2024’s most advanced Android flagships.
Top Gaming Handheld: ROG Ally X
PC-class power in a couch-friendly shell, that’s Asus’s ROG Ally X. The 2024 revision upgrades to AMD’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme on 4 nm and squeezes in a 90 Wh battery, doubling playtime over the original. A brighter 7-inch 120 Hz IPS screen, new hall-effect joysticks, and rear paddles give esports-grade control, while Armoury Crate SE toggles between Windows installs, Xbox Game Pass, and cloud services. Twin fluid-dynamic fans keep temps tamed at just 20 dB, so the only noise you’ll hear is in-game. Want your Steam and Epic libraries on the train? This is the handheld to beat.
Best Mini PC (No dGPU): Beelink SER9
Barely bigger than a paperback, Beelink’s SER9 proves a discrete GPU isn’t mandatory for a capable desktop. The 0.6-litre box packs AMD’s Ryzen 7 8845HS with eight Zen 4 cores and Radeon 780M graphics good for casual 1080p gaming and AV1 hardware encoding. Two DDR5 5600 slots, twin M.2 bays, and Wi-Fi 7 cover future upgrades, while dual USB-C and two HDMI 2.1 ports can run four 4K60 screens. Power draw hovers between 15 W and 45 W, making it ideal for home offices, Plex servers, or a silent living-room PC that won’t hammer your power bill.
