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What phones do the Android Authority team use as daily drivers? (2021 edition)
July 09, 2025
There are loads of smartphones out there on the market today, and we here atAndroid Authorityendeavor to cover them all. But what about the phones we actually use every day as our daily drivers? After all, it’s one thing to review a phone and call itone of the best you can buy, but another thing entirely to use one as your primary device.
We did a Team AA daily driver pollback in 2018, as well asanother one last year. With some great phones already released this year, we thought now is as good a time as any to do a 2021 edition of this poll to see how things have changed in the last twelve months.
21 Team AA members from around the world contributed to these results, while also giving their daily drivers a score out of 10 and letting us know what they liked/disliked about them.
What phones doAndroid Authorityteam members use? Let’s find out!
The results
We’ve charted the results by phone model as well as by phone brand. We’ll go into the details further down this article, but you can check out the raw numbers below:
It’s a Samsung party up in here
Last year’s poll sawSamsungleading the pack by a very narrow margin over Google’s phones, but the South Korean manufacturer has extended this gap in 2021. Back in 2020, almost a quarter of all Team AA members were using a Samsung device as their daily driver, followed by 21% of members with a Google device. Now, a third of all members are using a Samsung phone.
Breaking it down by model, theGalaxy S20(two) andGalaxy S10 Plus(two) were the only phones that had more than one Team AA member using them. Otherwise, no other phone model appeared twice in our poll.
Samsung owners generally praised the cameras, performance, battery life, and size (both big and small models). One standout complaint regarding Samsung phones came from social and SEO expert Luka Mlinar and his Exynos Samsung Galaxy S20:
Almost a quarter of polledAndroid Authoritymembers (five) use aGoogle Pixelphone as their daily driver, and praise generally went towards the camera, phone size, and the software experience. Complaints were leveled against thePixel 5‘s aging main camera sensor though, while Sam Moore — editor at our sister siteSoundGuys— lamented the lack of an IP rating and wireless charging on thePixel 4a.
Rounding out the top three brands wasOnePlus, with four AA members reporting that they use a OnePlus device as their daily driver. Interestingly enough, it also earned the highest average rating among the top three manufacturers (8.75/10 versus 8.1/10 for Samsung and 8/10 for Google).
Deals Editor Matt Horne also gave hisOnePlus 8full marks — the only perfect score this time out. Matt said he liked everything about the phone, noting it was his first device with an in-display fingerprint sensor and that he also liked the design. But he acknowledged that the praise could also be due to his previous phones not being up to scratch.
Apple Authority strikes again
Believe it or not, but two members of our team useiPhonesas daily drivers. Resident reviewer Eric Zeman and Audio Editor Lily Katz chose the iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Mini, respectively.
Eric cited the camera, battery life, performance, and app selection for picking the iPhone. Meanwhile, Lily preferred the Mini model as she says she has small hands, carries a charger around, and doesn’t actively use her phone very often anyway.
The iPhone owners do have a few criticisms though, with Eric decrying the iPhone 12 Pro Max’s size, the notch, and the lack of a high refresh rate. Lily also criticized the iPhone 12 Mini for the lack of a 3.5mm port and camera lens flare.
Three outlier picks
What else did our AA members use as their daily drivers? Well,Huawei,LG, andXiaomiall made one appearance apiece.
Starting with HUAWEI, I’m still using theMate 20 Proas my daily driver. It’s still fast enough for my needs, the cameras are pretty versatile, I can get over a day out of the battery, and the fast charging is still pretty handy. However, it definitely feels like battery degradation has set in, and the lack of a high refresh rate screen and 4K at 60fps recording is a little disappointing when compared to more recent devices.
Meanwhile, Executive Editor Kris Carlon is going with a rather unusual pick in theLG Wing. He reckons the T-shaped phone is LG “at its quirky best”:
It’s not all good though, as Kris dislikes the Wing’s software. Nevertheless, he admits it was better than he first expected.
There was only oneXiaomiphone being used as a daily driver in this poll, and that’s Gary Sims’Mi 9T Pro. He praised the performance, amount of storage (128GB), in-display fingerprint sensor, and MIUI updates. But he also had special praise for the battery, noting that he seldom went to bed with less than 50% juice. However, Gary did lament the front-facing camera as being too wide, saying it distorts selfies as a result.
Other takeaways
Our next phones
We also asked the team if there were any announced or rumored phones they had their eyes on next, and by far the biggest option was “nothing.” Seven team members were happy enough with their current phones that they had no intention of upgrading anytime soon — up from five a year ago.
In terms of the most popular brand, five team members said they wanted to upgrade to a Samsung phone. TwoAndroid Authoritymembers said they wanted a 2021 Samsung foldable while three others wanted the Galaxy S21, Galaxy Note 21, and Galaxy S22. The second-most popular manufacturer was Google, as two team members were eyeing thePixel 6and one was considering thePixel 5a.
What’s your daily driver right now? Do you have any likes or dislikes to share? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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