The perfect phone, as designed by you – phone enthusiasts!

Precisely a week ago we asked you – phone enthusiasts – to vote on a series of polls, so we can essentially design the perfect smartphone together.

What’s the perfect phone size, the best phone color, back material? Without further ado, let’s find out what over 1200 phone enthusiasts just like you answered!

The perfect phone should have a screen around 6 inches, with flat edges, and an invisible selfie camera

The majority is definitely not looking for small phones, with 4 inches getting almost no votes, and 5 inches – about 15%. Around a 6-inch screen is where it’s at! Not much more, and definitely not less.This means all of the upcoming Galaxy S22 models are the right size – starting at 6.06 inches for the base variant and going up to 6.81 inches for the S22 Ultra. Same goes for the already-out iPhone 13 and 13 Pro – which are both 6.1 inches. Clearly the biggest phone companies have long caught wind of what the majority’s perfect screen size is these days.

And that screen better not have curved edges! Those still got a considerable amount of votes (26%), but the majority of phone fans (73%) want flat edges instead, like on the iPhone.

And while we’re on the subject of screens, what about the selfie camera that’s often in a punch hole or a notch at the top of the screen? Well, as it turns out, the majority is ready for “invisible” (under-screen) cameras like the one on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.

Although the technology isn’t perfect still, and under some conditions you can still see the “invisible” camera that phone has, it’s way less visible than on the world’s first under-display phone camera from back in 2020 (it was the ZTE Axon 20).

Under-screen cameras do seem like the future, with many brands likely to adopt it eventually, some as soon as this year. For example, Motorola’s first Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phone is likely to sport such a camera.

Want to learn more about invisible cameras? Check out: Galaxy Z Fold 3 under-display camera explained.

The perfect phone has a metal back, matte black

Try saying that three times quickly. Indeed, the majority is fond of the color black, which is no surprise – it is arguably the most low-key, universal color to give a phone. Of course, most phone enthusiasts also want their phone to have a matte back – no reflections, no fingerprints, no fancy rainbow colors.And yes, somewhat surprisingly, glass wasn’t the material winner, but second place. The majority wants a phone with a metal back instead. Nothing like that smooth, solid, cold-to-the-touch metal, right? Of course, having a phone with a metal back naturally raises the question of whether wireless charging can work.

Qualcomm, the semiconductor company, maker of the Snapdragon chip, became first back in 2015 to enable wireless charging on a metal phone through a technology it called WiPower.

It’s safe to assume that today if there’s demand, phone makers will figure out a way too – be it by using similar technology or some material trickery, such as giving the phone’s back a small glass or plastic area specifically to let wireless charging through.

And demand for metal-back phones there is, as it appears.

“Cameras – we want all of them!”

The phone camera has become the majority of consumers and brands’ focus, seemingly way more important than things like, oh, I don’t know – microphone quality, for phone calls? And boy is that the case with phone enthusiasts, clearly they want all the cameras, which normally means three when it comes to modern flagships.

The majority wants their phones to have an ultra-wide camera and a telephoto (or periscope), in addition to the main camera. Much less people voted for two cameras, and even less for just one.

That dream of one camera doing everything and being a jack of all trades? It’s clearly not everyone’s dream, and who knows – it might be a pipe dream anyways. Back in late 2018 Google released the Pixel 3, which only had a single camera, yet it did perform great, but we’re clearly long past that single-camera concept, and we won’t be going back. Just look at the current Pixel 6.

No crazy, flashy camera bumps – understated is the way to go

Speaking of the main camera set-up, according to our poll, phone fans aren’t keen on crazy camera modules that serve as a centerpiece of the entire phone’s design. The majority of voters (42%) said that they want an understated camera module instead.

And that we can expect from the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, which has been rumored to have no camera module at all, no camera bumps – just holes for the cameras, as shown in the image below:

The upcoming rival flagship – Apple iPhone 14 – has also been speculated to re-introduce the nice, minimalist and flush camera some of the early iPhones had, as shown in the image below, courtesy of reputable leaker Jon Prosser. Still, take all of this with a grain of salt, but we can hope, for now.

“We’re not ready for foldables” – the majority

We also asked you whether “the perfect phone” is a square or widescreen foldable, a clamshell foldable, or perhaps a dual-screen device, but the majority of phone enthusiasts are either not into foldables, or consider the technology not ready yet. “Standard rectangle” is the phone design of choice that got the most votes (73%).

A distant second place went to “Foldable (widescreen)”, with the foldable options altogether amassing about 16% of all votes. Rollables were also an option, but it got only just under 7%, likely because we haven’t really seen any rollable phones make it to market yet, as promising as the concept is. 2022 has to be the year this changes!

“Don’t skimp on the speakers!”

I was personally happy to see that the majority wants dual front-firing speakers on their perfect phone, even if that inevitably means it has to have small bezels around the display. It’s a tiny compromise I, and clearly plenty of other phone enthusiasts (50%), consider worthwhile.

Second place when it comes to the phone speakers you want goes to what we already usually get nowadays, which is a bottom-firing main speaker and the earpiece doubling as a second one. Companies seem to consider that enough and call it “stereo” and a “dual speaker set-up”.

And sure, it’s technically right to call it that, but the earpiece never matches a dedicated speaker when it comes to mids and bass, general fullness and volume, even on flagships. So yeah, the majority has spoken – we want front-firing speakers and we want two of them, equally powerful.

It shall be an Android phone, powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1

So we also asked what the majority’s preferred phone operating system is, and even threw in the option of a phone that’s able to “switch between Android and Windows” for fun, to see if there’s a market for phones that can truly double as computers, when needed. One device for everything! And yes, 21% chose that option.

But rather unsurprisingly, the majority (62%) wants Android on their perfect phone. Android’s versatility, customizability and the fact that it’s nearly fully open to the user to do with their phone whatever they desire, are likely what made it most people’s choice over iOS, which got just under 15% of the votes.

iOS does have some amazing, perfectly optimized apps for drawing, video editing, music production and more, that are exclusive to it, but apparently that’s not enough.

And of course, if we’re going to have Android, we might as well put the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chip in our perfect phone too.

The powerful Apple A15 Bionic chip was available to vote for too, and while it would’ve been hilarious to end up with an Android phone running Apple silicon for our “perfect phone” experiment, the A15 Bionic chip got 37.78% of the votes, closely behind 43.63% for the Snapdragon.

Samsung’s latest Exynos 2200 got the least amount of votes when it came to what processor you want on your perfect phone, with Google’s Tensor surpassing it by about 3%.

“We don’t care about thinness, give us a large battery!”

Who knows if there’s balance in the universe, but there sure is a balance between a phone’s thinness and battery size, with companies having to choose between the two. If a company chooses to make a thin and light phone, that phone will have to pack a smaller battery.However, if a company wants their phone to last a long time between charges, then that phone will pack a big battery, which will inevitably make it thicker and heavier. Decisions, decisions.

In any case, what the majority of phone enthusiasts (83%) want is the latter – a bigger battery, even if that means a bulkier phone. Clearly battery life matters a lot.

The perfect phone has an under-screen fingerprint sensor, a stylus, expandable storage

The selfie camera shan’t be the only thing hidden behind the screen. The majority (52%) chose an under-screen fingerprint sensor too, to unlock their phones with. Second place (32%) goes to the good old fingerprint embedded into the power button, and a distant third goes to Apple’s Face ID for unlocking.

Now onto the stylus. That’s a tricky one, since yes, the majority (35%) want it – an included stylus that slots into the phone. However, the second best choice is pretty close too (33%). The people who chose that one still want the phone to have stylus support, but they prefer the stylus to be optional, and not included and stored inside the phone, taking up valuable space inside of it that could’ve gone towards a bigger battery, for example.

So it’s almost a 50/50 situation, but what we can conclude with is – the majority of phone enthusiasts prefer to have stylus support and not need it, rather than not having it at all.

Speaking of extra things people want on their perfect phone – expandable storage. 74% voted that they want an SD card slot, regardless of how much storage their perfect phone already has built-in. Once again, it’s better to have it and not need it, than to not have it at all, right?

“We’re not ready to go fully wireless. Also, we want an extra hardware button.”

One of the questions was – what port will your perfect phone have on the bottom – USB Type-C, Lightning, or no port at all – just wireless charging?

It’s not really a surprise almost nobody voted for Apple’s proprietary Lightning port, but what did surprise me is that very few people voted for no ports. To me, wireless charging seems like an inevitable future, one born out of convenience, and I expected a lot of people to be ready for it. I know I only charge my phone wirelessly these days, but perhaps I’m still a minority in that.

Or perhaps phone enthusiasts need that port for more than charging, like for transfering files, sideloading apps? In any case – USB Type-C wins by a whole lot (92%).

Also, even more surprisingly, for me at least – people want an extra hardware button – and it should be customizable. So you can choose to make it a camera shutter key, while somebody else can choose to make it trigger Google Assistant, for example.

Nearly 38% voted to have a customizable hardware key, while the other options were no extra hardware buttons, and ones with a single dedicated function only.

So is there a phone out there that matches what you want?

What’s the closest phone that exists on the market today that matches the majority of phone enthusiasts’ needs? First, let’s summarize things so we can get a clearer idea of what we’re looking for.

The perfect phone, according to the phone enthusiast majority:

• Screen: ~6 inches, flat edges
• Phone color: Matte black
• Back material: Metal
• Back cameras: Main, ultra-wide and telephoto / periscope, understated camera module
• Front camera: Hidden, under-screen
• Speakers: Dual, front-firing
• OS: Android
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
• Thinner phone or a larger battery: Larger battery
• Unlock method: Under-screen fingerprint sensor
• Extras: Built-in stylus, customizable hardware button, expandable storage

So, obviously there are no phones that fit the entire bill, and metal-back flagships in general are a rarity these days… But there is a smartphone that immediately came to mind once I saw the final results of “the perfect phone” poll…

The Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is a reasonably close match. It has flagship specs, a 6.8-inch screen, dual front-firing speakers and a super beefy 6000 mAh battery. It also has Air Triggers – which are extra hardware buttons, or more precisely touch-sensitive areas that you can customize to perform different functions.

So yeah, essentially – they match the “customizable hardware button” criteria. In addition, the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate has an under-screen fingerprint sensor, as the majority wants.

While reviewing it, I also found it to be the smartphone with the best speakers, by far, on any phone. And still is to this day! So that’s definitely worth pointing out about it.

However, the ROG Phone 5 doesn’t have a metal back, no expandable storage, no stylus… But hey…

Feel free to pitch in! Let us know if you have any suggestions for phones that match what the majority of phone enthusiasts want! Do you think the upcoming Galaxy S22 Ultra, with its stylus support and rumored understated camera will be the one? Or do you know of a phone that’s already out and matches what we’re looking for?