Pixel 9 Pro wins ‘Smartphone of the Year’ award, Google’s second in a row 🏆🏆

MWC Barcelona explains more about the category and the criteria:

The Best Smartphone award combines outstanding performance, innovation and leadership as determined through assessment of smartphones on the market during the period January 2024 to December 2024, by world leading independent analysts, journalists and influencers.

There’s no surprise here, but it’s important to know that the Pixel 9 Pro was up against the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max which are the best offerings on both of the mobile operating systems.

The judges nominate and select the shortlist for the category, based on the following criteria:

  • Physical design and innovation
  • Device performance and form factors
  • Genuine new innovation deployed e.g. in form factor, technology, features
  • Product usefulness in terms of functionality and features
  • Price point and perceived value for money
  • Commercial success in global territories
  • User experience, quality & reliability
  • Environmental and sustainability credentials
  • On-going commitment on support e.g. software upgrades

All judges come from market research companies with larges amounts of global data that could present proper judgement on these criteria:

Judges

  • Amber Liu, Canalys
  • Kiranjeet Kaur, IDC
  • Carolina Milanesi, Creative Strategies
  • Nabila Popal, IDC
  • Richard Lai, Independent
  • Ben Wood, CCS Insight
  • Zaker Li, Omdia
  • Prabhu Ram, CyberMedia Research
  • Leo Gebbie, CCS Insight
  • Abhilash Kumar, TechInsights
  • Varun Gupta, Counterpoint
  • Francisco Jeronimo, IDC