2025 was a weird year for Android phone makers. We got genuinely useful upgrades like increased use of silicon-carbon batteries and more phones flirting with Qi2-style magnets, but it also felt like a lot of brands spent the year moving sideways rather than forward. We have some insight on the subject, but we also wanted to know what our well-informed readership thought, so we decided to poll you on which Android OEM had the best year overall.
To get the ball rolling, our own Hadlee Simons gave his breakdown when we ran the poll, ranking major Android brands from worst to best based on how their 2025 played out. He obviously considered the hardware side, but also things like software support, strategy, and whether the brand actually seemed to be moving in the right direction. He ultimately concluded that no OEM deserved the top spot, but second and third positions went to Samsung and OnePlus, respectively. More on the latter of those a bit later, but first, let’s see how closely (or not) you agreed with Hadlee’s analysis by looking at the outcome of that poll.
The results show a fairly clear top tier. Google came out on top with just over 32% of the vote, followed by Samsung at around 27%. OnePlus was a distance behind, pulling in close to 14% and comfortably securing third place. After that, things drop off quickly. Xiaomi, Motorola, and OPPO each picked up a mid-single-digit share, while the rest of the field was left fighting over relatively small slices of the pie.
Overall, the results aren’t wildly out of step with Hadlee’s rankings, but they do show where you were a bit more generous. Google taking the top spot suggests many of you felt the Pixel 10 lineup and Google’s long-term software support mattered more than the battery issues that dragged it down in our rankings. Samsung’s second-place finish also feels familiar, with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and TriFold doing much of the heavy lifting after a year of fairly iterative releases. OnePlus in third is the most telling result, though — it shows that a strong start to 2025 clearly stuck with readers, even if the company’s late-year stumbles kept it from first place.
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The comments section on Hadlee’s article explained some of the voting and challenged his assessment in places. A few readers took issue with Google’s high placement, arguing that Pixel battery and thermal problems should have counted for more in the overall assessment. Vivo’s position also drew some pushback, with a small number of commenters feeling it deserved to rank much higher. There were also isolated gripes about missing headphone jacks, slow or uneven Android updates, and how limited the US market still is for many Android brands. OnePlus came up as well, mainly in the context of how strong the OnePlus 13 has been for some owners.
OnePlus shows how mixed a year as an Android OEM can be
Tushar Mehta / Android Authority
OnePlus was an interesting study, as it had anything but a stable year. If there were separate Android OEM polls covering the first and last six months of 2025, OnePlus would have probably dominated the first and fallen down the rankings in the second. That swing was the focus of another article by Joe Maring, who argued that OnePlus’s early momentum with the OnePlus 13 series gave way to a string of disappointing decisions later in the year. The fact that OnePlus won our Editor’s Choice Best Phone of 2025 award with its previous-generation device really tells that story.
As you can tell, we always want as much input as possible from you, so Joe polled you on how you would actually grade OnePlus’s 2025 in his article. Let’s see how that poll came out.
The grading was largely positive overall. Nearly half of the respondents gave OnePlus an A, while another 24% settled on a B. That puts roughly seven in ten readers in the top two grades, even after a rocky second half of the year. A C was the next most common response, and only a smaller share of voters handed out a D or an outright fail.
Those results help explain why OnePlus still placed relatively high in the earlier Android OEM ranking poll. A strong start to 2025 clearly carried a lot of weight with readers, even if the company’s later decisions with the OnePlus 15 line dulled some of that early shine in our eyes. It’s also worth keeping in mind that people interested in a deep dive into OnePlus are probably more likely to be fans, which would naturally skew sentiment in a more forgiving direction.
The OnePlus discussion in the comments section of Joe’s article was far more polarized than the grades alone might suggest, and also offered another clue that OnePlus fans were particularly drawn to the piece. A number of OnePlus 15 owners said they’d had no real issues with overheating, performance, or software, and several pointed to battery life and charging speeds as the phone’s biggest strengths. Some also felt that things like the lower screen resolution or camera changes were being overstated, arguing that they didn’t make much difference in everyday use.
At the same time, plenty of readers backed Joe’s criticisms. Camera downgrades, the loss of the alert slider, and OxygenOS moving closer to an iOS-style look came up repeatedly, as did frustration that long-standing software issues still haven’t been addressed.
Whichever side of the fence you’re on, it was certainly an interesting year for Android OEMs, and 2026 could prove to be just as eventful. Hadlee knows what he wants to see this year, but if you’re reading this as a OnePlus fan, the unconfirmed reports that the brand might be shuttered for good will be a worry.
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