Best phones for work 2020: the top business smartphones today
By Mike Moore, Desire Athow October 28, 2019
These are best phones for work on the market today
Having the best smartphone that isn’t just great to look at, but also great to work on is an absolute essential for many workers these days.
With phone makers offering ideal for employees of all levels, we’ve updated this guide to give you the very latest buying advice to help you choose the best smartphones for business use.
Although some of these selections may overlap with our best phones for casual use, we’ve identified how these picks will help your business too. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming very soon (at the end of November), now is an excellent time to start researching the best smartphones for work.
Best business smartphone at a glance
1. iPhone 11 Apple’s latest release may be the best business device it’s ever made. Along with the headline-grabbing top-end camera and snazzy colour schemes, there’s a lot to recommend it to everyday workers as well. This includes Apple’s best performing battery to date, which will last a full day’s working, as well as a slimmer and more portable build that means it slips into a pocket or bag easily.
2. Google Pixel 4 Google’s Pixel line has become a key focus for the company in recent years, and the new Pixel 4 is the latest iteration in its flagship device family. Featuring a top-class camera and all-new design, the Pixel 4 is great to look at and use, but also comes with a number of benefits for business users. Top of this is access to all the vital everyday Android tools on the go, as well as the latest updates and security protection directly from Google. Battery life isn’t quite as good as some of its bigger rivals, but for the cost, the Pixel 4 is one of the most appealing devices around today.
3. Samsung Galaxy Note 10 The Galaxy Note 10 Plus is the company’s largest and most powerful device to date, but does this make it a great business smartphone? It certainly features an expansive screen that will allow you to scan through all the documents, spreadsheets, social media feeds and more – and the additional S Pen gives a whole new dimension for working on the move. Pair that with a huge 4300mAh battery, Snapdragon 855 processor and 12GB of RAM, and you have an absolute powerhouse – albeit one that with its 6.8in display might need to be carried in a jacket, rather than a trouser pocket.
4. Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus You’ll be in good hands if you opt to give your employees the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, which is also our pick for the best smartphone in the world right now. It improves on almost every aspect of the phones that have come before it, with supremely powerful components, a dazzling 6.4-inch QHD Super AMOLED display and a top notch camera – but it’s not all fun. The battery has also been given a huge boost to 4,100mAh, which means you can comfortably use it all day without worrying about recharging it. While it doesn’t quite have the business focus of the Galaxy Note 9, which is our pick for the best business smartphone, it’s still one hell of a great handset from Samsung.
5. OnePlus 7 OnePlus has been quietly growing its market share and popularity over the years, and the OnePlus 7 is the company’s latest big-name release, and probably its best business device too. Available for far less than some of its other rivals, the OnePlus 7 matches a pocket-friendly price tag with a huge 3700mAh battery and either 6GB or 8GB of RAM, meaning it should be more than capable of handling whatever you throw at it.
6. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 If you want the very best business smartphone, no matter what the cost, then the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is the one to go for. It’s got a spec list to die for, including a huge screen, bags of RAM, a huge 4,000mAh battery and up to 1TB of storage. It’s also got a microSD slot and a headphone jack – something that many modern smartphones lack. It’s also got some great business-specific features, such as an improved Bluetooth stylus (known as the S Pen), and if you plug it into a USB-C dock or USB-C to HDMI, it can be used in DeX mode, replicating a desktop-environment that can replace your desktop PC. Seriously impressive.
7. Huawei Mate 20 Pro Huawei has been steadily releasing some excellent smartphones that offer specs and features that rival its more established (and expensive) Western rivals. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is one of the firm’s best releases yet, and it’s one of our picks for the best business smartphone you can buy. It comes with a huge 6.39-inch display with a QHD resolution and HDR10 support, plus a large battery that lasted a day and a half in our tests. And given that the latest Mate 30 Pro device still lacks Google apps, this is probably the best Huawei device around for workers today.
