(Credit: Alisa Stern; Rido, Kaspars Grinvalds / Shutterstock.com)
In this month’s PCMag Readers’ Choice Award survey, we asked you to rate the smartphones and mobile service providers you use. As we did last year, we fielded two versions of the survey: one for people in the United States and one for Canada. While many of the phones are the same in both countries, they run on different networks which can result in starkly different experiences.
Many of our respondents get their cell phone service from one of the major providers: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon in the United States; Bell Mobility, Rogers, and Telus in Canada. However, a large and typically more satisfied contingent chooses to use a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that runs on one of the major carriers' networks but often offers better pricing, better customer service, or both. (Several MVNOs are now owned by the major carriers but continue to operate independently.)
We also asked you to rate your satisfaction with your mobile platform or operating system (that is, Android or iOS). Choosing a phone often starts with choosing a platform, and much of the satisfaction we get from a phone is driven by satisfaction with the OS. While most people aren’t looking to change (we asked why you last upgraded your phone and only 6% of you said it was because you wanted a new operating system) it’s worth seeing what people perceive as each system’s strengths and weaknesses.
Whether you’re looking to change phones or carriers or just want to see how your choices measure up, read on for this year's PCMag Readers' Choice winners.
Looking for the best phones for work? Be sure to check out our Readers' Choice awards for IT-managed smartphones and carriers.
The Top US Mobile Carriers for 2024
Across the three major US carriers, T-Mobile earns the top scores for overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend ratings, placing far ahead of AT&T and Verizon. On many of the network-related satisfaction questions in our survey, T-Mobile and Verizon’s scores are close, but T-Mobile excels in value and customer service compared to its major competitors and exceeds their ratings in satisfaction with fees, customer support, and family plan options. PCMag Readers continue to give AT&T and Verizon abysmal satisfaction ratings when it comes to fees.
As we've said before, if you’re looking to switch carriers, we strongly recommend you consider an MVNO rather than automatically selecting one of the "big three" major carriers. Choose carefully, though. Four MVNOs in our poll deliver satisfaction levels well above those of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon; while the remaining four are no better than the big boys.
Consumer Cellular stands at the top of the list, where it once again earns our Readers’ Choice Award—making for its tenth win in the last 11 years.
The company, which uses AT&T’s network, has the highest overall satisfaction rating: 9.2 out of 10. It also receives the highest marks for satisfaction with customer support, coverage within and beyond the respondents' home areas, minimizing dropped calls, and the reliability of the data network. Interestingly, the network-related satisfaction ratings run higher than its host, AT&T, despite operating on the same network. It appears that good customer service can sway peoples' perceptions of other aspects of the products and services they use.
Three other providers also have overall satisfaction ratings of 9.0 or better: Google Fi (which won a Readers’ Choice Award last year), Mint Mobile (which won in 2022), and Visible. Google Fi and Mint run on T-Mobile’s network, while Visible runs on Verizon’s network. So no matter what your network of choice may be, there’s a highly rated MVNO to consider.
The Top US Phone Manufacturer for 2024
This year, five phone brands received enough responses to include in our survey analysis. The top four (Apple, Google, OnePlus, and Samsung) earn the same overall satisfaction rating—something we've never seen before in a PCMag Readers' Choice poll.
Google won our Readers’ Choice Award last year, while Apple came out on top in 2022 and OnePlus snagged the award from 2018 to 2021. After a decade without a win, this year's Readers' Choice pick goes to Samsung, which finishes with the highest rating for likelihood to recommend.
It's also worth noting that Samsung earns top ratings for reliability this year, where it ties Apple and Google. It doesn't earn the top rating for any other measure, but its scores are close to those of the other top brands.
Last year’s winner, Google, has the best satisfaction ratings in most categories—12 in all. In three other categories, it has the second-best result. However, despite enjoying high marks across so many categories, respondents are still more likely to recommend Samsung and Apple.
In addition to tying for the top rating in satisfaction for reliability, Apple matches Google’s satisfaction with ease-of-use and beats the others in satisfaction with tech support and messaging, but it has the lowest rating for satisfaction with cost/value.
OnePlus is the value choice brand. Readers favor it for satisfaction with email. However, it scores well below the competition in likelihood to recommend, just narrowly edging out Motorola for second-to-last place. OnePlus and Motorola have the lowest ratings for satisfaction with reliability, though their numbers aren't far behind those of the top brands.
The Top US Mobile Operating System for 2024
The two major mobile operating systems left in the world are Android, controlled (somewhat) by Google, and iOS, controlled (with an iron fist) by Apple. Both are generally well-liked by our survey respondents, but Android has slightly higher overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend ratings, earning it our Readers’ Choice Award for mobile operating systems for the 12th year in a row.
Android and iOS have identical ratings for reliability, ease of use, and satisfaction with the platform's personal assistant.
In each of our categories, there is less than half a point separating each platform’s satisfaction ratings. Android’s greatest differential is in satisfaction with free app selection. It also comes out on top in satisfaction with app selection, email, contact management, calendar management, and Wi-Fi hotspot.
iOS, a more closed system that only runs on Apple’s iPhones, has better ratings in seven categories: satisfaction with security, app quality, in-vehicle infotainment (CarPlay), messaging, taking photos, shooting videos, and digital wallet functionality. If one of these categories is especially important to you, you'd be wise to opt for iOS.
Full US Results
The Top Canadian Mobile Carriers for 2024
Last year was the first time PCMag expanded its Readers' Choice survey of smartphones and mobile carriers beyond the confines of the United States. This year we did that again and reached out to our neighbors to the north to find Canada's mobile preferences. Here's what we found:
Last year, our three top carriers in terms of overall satisfaction were all MVNOs, even though none of these companies were yet offering 5G service. If you wanted a faster network, you had to go with one of the major carriers like Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, or Telus Mobility. This year, things are a bit different, as all but two MVNOs on our list (Chatr and Fido) offer 5G.
The largest nationwide Canadian carriers don’t tend to score as well as many of the MVNOs and smaller carriers, but some consumers still prefer the comfort of these familiar names. As such, Telus Mobility comes out on top when we narrow it down to the big three. This win is largely thanks to Telus' high overall satisfaction rating. The company doesn't beat the rest in any of our drill-down categories but does tie some (with Bell on phone choice and coverage outside the home area; with Rogers on data network reliability and voicemail).
Customers don’t choose Telus for its cost, though. It has the second-lowest satisfaction rating for fees, tied with Bell and just narrowly beating out Rogers.
Many of Telus’ ratings slipped this year relative to 2023, pushing it closer to Bell Mobility, which changed very little. Bell ties or beats Telus on most ratings, but despite these largely positive results, our survey respondents are still less likely to recommend the carrier.
The true standout mobile providers above are the MVNOs, particularly Koodo Mobile, our second Readers' Choice award winner. It’s not best in satisfaction with fees (that honor goes to Public Mobile) or satisfaction with customer support (SaskTel), but nearly all of Koodo’s satisfaction ratings are in the top half of all providers. Koodo is also the high scorer for likelihood to recommend, our second most important number when picking a winner.
Last year's winner, Public Mobile, saw its overall satisfaction plummet by almost 1.5 points this year. The reason may be tied to the company’s customer support, which earns the lowest rank of any carrier in our survey—evidence that low prices aren’t the only thing that makes for a happy customer.
Both Koodo and Public are operated by Telus. Most of the MVNOs in Canada are owned or run by the major carriers, so some say they are MVNOs in name only. Most are "flankers," new brands started or acquired by the big carriers to target a certain type of audience. Koodo, for example, was hatched in 2008 to woo young people to the Telus network after a failed partnership with America's Amp'd Mobile.
Several other MVNOs/flankers like Chatr, Fido, Lucky Mobile, and Virgin Plus, all score better than the big three in many cases despite being operated by Bell and Rogers.
The Top Canadian Phone Brand for 2024
Apple and Samsung were by far the most popular brands among our survey respondents, accounting for more than 80% of the phones PCMag readers rated. They swap places from last year, putting Samsung in the top spot as Canada's preferred brand of phone for 2024.
On most measures, the two companies’ ratings are extremely close, though Samsung tends to come out on top more often than not. Samsung's increase in overall satisfaction is also accompanied by high scores in several categories including calendars, email, reliability, repairs, setup, tech support, and the likelihood of earning a recommendation.
This many close category scores keep Apple, Google, and Samsung in a tight race.
Apple is no slouch, despite its drop to second place. It earns top marks for ease of use and digital wallet functionality, ties Samsung for messaging, and ties with Google for satisfaction with its personal voice assistant. Not surprisingly, Apple’s biggest weakness is satisfaction with cost/value, where it finishes far behind all other phone brands.
Google's Pixel line has some high scores all to itself this year, such as its ability to take excellent photos and videos, satisfaction with cost, and it's ability to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot. It earns the lowest rating for satisfaction with repairs, but to be frank, none of the companies have a stellar rating on this measure.
The bottom of the list goes to Motorola and LG. No surprise on the latter—LG is out of the phone business, but phones are still in use for people to rate.
For the first time, we also asked people about the foldability of their phones, and somewhat unsurprisingly, Samsung is the top scorer in this new category. It has come a long way with its Z Fold and Z Flip phones, after all. But Samsung's score is only 6.0. That's one of the lowest numbers in our chart…and Google and Motorola foldability scores are even worse. As such, it's probably a good idea to wait a couple more generations before you buy a phone that folds.
The Top Canadian Mobile Operating System for 2024
New operating system releases, like all new versions of things, are supposed to portend improvement, and thus one might expect satisfaction ratings to improve as time marches on. But oddly enough, this often isn’t the case. Perhaps it’s because customers also expect more with each new release, but it’s not unusual to see only slight changes year-to-year. That’s certainly what happened with our Readers’ Choice Award-winning platform for Canada.
Android earns the crown as the favored mobile OS in Canada for the second time. Survey respondents give Android the same average scores as last year for overall satisfaction and nine other categories. But it still clinches the victory quite easily. Across the 18 categories we polled, Android wins 10 (including reliability, ease of use, app selection, email, and in-vehicle infotainment) and ties with Apple in three (security, app quality, and Wi-Fi hotspot).
Apple only bests Android for messaging, taking photos and video, digital wallet, and voice assistant.
This is a big change from last year, when iOS managed to beat Android in most of the secondary categories even though Android still won with a higher satisfaction score. Somewhat concerning, though, is that all of the iOS ratings for 2024 are lower than in 2023.
Full Canada Results
The PCMag Readers' Choice survey for Phones and Mobile Carriers was in the field from February 16 to March 11, 2024. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read the survey methodology.
Like What You're Reading?
Sign up for Fully Mobilized newsletter to get our top mobile tech stories delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
Sign up for other newsletters
