Best android phones you can buy in 2014

 Discover what are the best Android phones to buy in 2014 and read our in-depth smartphone reviews, as rated by our team of expert reviewers. Android devices now dominate the market for smartphones, having overtaken the iPhone in sales. Google's Android operating system is remarkably flexible, and there are loads of Android phones available to buy.


Google's Play Store now has a huge range of apps, with support from every major service you can name - Dropbox, iPlayer, Netflix, Kindle, eBay, Uber, PlayStation, OUtlook, UK newspapers and much more. Plus you get excellent integration with the Google services that so many of us now use - such as Maps, Gmail and Drive. Check out our Best Android Apps if you want to see more.


And all of that needn't cost you the earth. Here are our top picks, from budget pay-as-you-go devices to flagship handsets with all the latest features. There's an Android phone here for every need and budget, with a decent phone costing as little as £90 contract-free.

For a while now flagship smartphones have largely used the same Full HD resolution with 1,920x1,080 pixels. The LG G3 is the first big-brand handset to go beyond that packing an incredible 2,560x1,440 pixels into its relatively massive 5.5in display. It's the biggest smartphone to date that we haven't branded a 'phablet' and those extra pixels certainly help on such a big screen, with a pixels-per-inch figure of 534, compared to 400 PPI if it had used a Full HD resolution instead. The result is a crisper and cleaner looking screen than on any other phone. Add teh ability to run two apps side-by-side and you can genuinely get more done, quicker, than on smaller handsets with less pixels.
Aside from the screen you get a screamingly quick SnapDragon 801 chipset running at 2.5GHz and brillinat battery life, with the LG G3 lasting for 13 hours and 12 minutes in our video playback battery test. The camera is good, with fast 'laser' autofocus and decent results from its 13-megapixel sensor. In most respects it's hard to seperate this from its immediate competitor, the S5 below, but if you want the best screen then the LG G3 is the phone to buy.
Price when reviewed: £490 SIM free. For the latest prices, see our full LG G3 review

Key specs
Processor	Quad-core 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
Screen size	5.5in
Screen resolution	2,560x1,440
Rear camera	13-megapixel
Storage	16GB
Wireless data	3G, 4G
Size	146x74x8.9mm
Weight	149g
Operating system	Android 4.4.2