The Google Pixel 7 Pro is our readers’ pick for the best phone of 2022

For all the years we’ve been a Readers’ Choice Award winner Android AuthorityWe’ve never had a race this exciting. There were many twists and turns that we didn’t expect and the eventual winner won by one of the slimmest margins we’ve ever seen. In the end, though, the champ is the Google Pixel 7 Pro, which I named as our Reader’s Choice phone of 2022.

Congratulations to Google for winning this prestigious award. The last time a Google-branded device won the Reader’s Choice award was in 2015, when the Nexus 6P came out with the crown. But since the launch of the first Pixel phone in 2016, we’ve never seen the Pixel prevail. So this is a very important year for Google.

But how did all this happen? We’ve summarized the twists and turns of the race below!

In the first round of voting – which started on December 5, 2022 – we pitted 32 smartphones against each other. The match was very bloody. Roughly 28% of the phones didn’t get enough votes to get past the 1% margin, leaving just 23 to fight back. Of them all, only four managed to escape unscathed and head to the semi-finals. We saw over 3,300 votes during this round.

Aside from the four winners, we’ve seen remarkable support from some of the underdogs. Although it won’t become the best smartphone of 2022, the Asus Zenfone 9, Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus, Google Pixel 6a, and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 fell by 3% of the vote each. The success of the Zenfone 9, in particular, is notable when you consider Asus’ comparative position in the mobile phone market.

The Nothing Phone 1 also got 2% of the vote, which is an impressive feat for a debut phone. The vanilla Galaxy S22 with 2% of the vote is also notable, considering how much better the performance of the Galaxy S22 Ultra is.

You can see the tally for all percentages below. Please note that not all percentages add up to 100% due to rounding.

With the elimination round complete, we kicked off the semi-finals on December 6, 2022. This saw four heavyweights compete for the chance to be crowned the best smartphone of 2022. These phones were the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, Google Pixel 7 Pro, and Apple iPhone 14 Pro and Google Pixel 7.

No doubt many of our readers were surprised that the Apple iPhone 14 Pro made it to the semi-finals. Not only that, but he exited the semi-finals in third place with 15% of the vote. This puts it well ahead of the fourth-place competitor, the Pixel 7, which received 12% of the vote. It’s clear that a lot of our readers love iPhones!

Of course, only two phones can walk away from the winners in this round, and these two phones were the Galaxy S22 Ultra in first place and the Pixel 7 Pro in second place. At this point, we thought the Galaxy S22 Ultra was pretty cool, considering it came out on top in both the elimination round and the semi-final round. Samsung has also won six out of seven Reader’s Choice Awards dating back to 2015 — sure enough that was another win, right?

However, there were still many surprises!

By December 7, 2022, we’ve narrowed the competition down to just two devices: the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Pixel 7 Pro. So far, the Galaxy S22 Ultra has had two wins to two with the Pixel 7 Pro dropping to second place each time. Naturally, we expected this trend to continue and the Samsung device to emerge victorious.

Incredibly, the Pixel 7 Pro surpassed the Galaxy S22 Ultra to become the new reigning champ. Although the Galaxy S22 Ultra won the vote on Instagram and Facebook, it lost on Facebook Android Authority By a large margin – 11%, in fact. When we combined all the votes, this lead helped it stay in first place by a small margin, with 52% of the total vote. That left the Galaxy S22 Ultra at just 48%, and gave the crown to Google.

Honestly, this is one of the closest races we’ve seen for any Readers’ Choice award. Obviously, both phones are great and our readers are very excited about them. Only one person can get away from the champion, so congratulations once again to the Google Pixel 7 Pro, the best smartphone of 2022 according to Android Authority Readers!

You’ve had your say, now we’ll get our opinion! Come back tomorrow to find out which phone won our Editor’s Choice Award for Best Phone of 2022!