The people around you probably see your phone more often than any item of clothing, your house, or your car. For better or worse, it’s part of your look. We tech geeks obsess over specs and performance, but appearances matter, too. It’s okay—even more than okay—to buy a phone based on looks alone.

We Look at Phones All the Time

You could say many of us look at our phones too much. If we’re going to buy something that spends that much time in front of our eyeballs, why shouldn’t it look nice?

I’ve watched quite a bit of HGTV. When someone walks into a kitchen, what do they say? “I really like the pattern of this backsplash!” “Just look at all the light from this window!” “This sink looks so modern!” Very rarely does the host stop to point out how many plates the dishwasher can clean or how many gallons per minute the faucet produces. It’s understood that what matters more is how the space makes us feel.

The same is true of cars. Yes, the infotainment center matters and many of us care quite a bit about how a car feels to drive, but those things only matter if we haven’t already dismissed a car based on how it looks. I personally dreamed of owning a New Beetle someday back when Volkswagen still made those (the excellent Beetle Adventure Racing game may have had something to do with this), but I knew plenty of guys who were never going to set foot in one of them. And it makes sense! If you can’t stomach the look of a car, why drive it?

I personally could not get over the look of the early Samsung Galaxy phones. While the Galaxy SIII was dominating sales, I couldn’t even stand to hold one. The home button looked tacky. The Samsung logo above the screen was distracting. The plastic build felt cheap. Was it arguably the best Android phone of its time? Perhaps, but the look was enough to nudge me toward the iconic HTC One M7 instead, even if its camera wasn’t anywhere near as good. That was a phone I was happy to see resting on the corner of my desk.

Phones Are a Fashion Statement

I’ve never been one to care about brands, but I do want my things to look nice. Back when the Galaxy S3 was new, I was fresh out of college and with disposable income for the first time. If I was going to pay $600 for an unlocked phone, I wanted it to look like something worth $600 (keep in mind, $600 was the flagship price back then). The HTC One M7’s all-metal body wasn’t just nice to look at; it was nice to be seen looking at.

The same could be said of early iPhones. It was the design of these phones, as much as the software, that drew people to Apple back in those days. I never owned an iPhone, but whenever I saw an iPhone 4, I wished my phone looked like one. There’s a reason it spawned so many copycat devices.

You might not place the same value on how things look, but there’s no escaping this aspect of life. If you think, “Who cares what a phone looks like,” your phone choice might just reflect this about you. “Practical” isn’t just a way of being; it’s also a look. It’s one Otterbox cases cater to.

One of the most eye-catching phones I’ve ever owned wasn’t the most expensive. It was the Light Phone 2 (I have a Light Phone 3 on pre-order, just by the way). That phone caught people’s attention whenever I pulled it out, being both tiny and having an e-Ink screen. What statement did it make? I wasn’t someone who obsessed over the latest smartphone released each year. To some, I was probably also a hipster.

A Phone’s Appearance Impacts How It Feels to Use

I recently upgraded my Galaxy Z Fold 5 to a Z Fold 6. Almost any review will tell you that too little has changed between these two devices and that Samsung has gotten complacent. But I want to see more companies do what Samsung has done with the Z Fold 6.

The Z Fold 6 is more symmetrical than its predecessor, with all four corners being roughly the same. The hinge and bezel on the left has been reduced, making the front of the device much more visually pleasing. The IMEI has been removed from the back, allowing for a rear that’s completely clear of any text. The weight has been reduced, so the phone feels much lighter.

These details that are often passed over as “refinements” reflect a development cycle where Samsung prioritized the aesthetics of the hardware, and I personally think this appearance outclasses any other foldable on the market. As Justin Duino states in his review, this is a foldable that is no longer just for early adopters.

By comparison, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (pictured above, on the right), with its giant left bezel and weird camera module, looks to me like a model still on its way to being a finished phone. If I owned Google’s foldable, even if I liked the software (which I personally find far too limiting), I would spend each day wishing the phone looked better than it does. I want a phone that sparks joy whenever I pull it out of my pocket.

Performance Isn’t Everything

I don’t want to give you the impression that Google doesn’t know how to pull off a good design. The growth of the Pixel is somewhat a lesson in the truth that performance isn’t everything. The most striking aspect of the non-folding Pixel 9 isn’t a faster CPU, a substantially better camera, or all of the hyped Gemini features—it’s how much better this phone looks and how great it feels to hold compared to previous Pixels.

The promise of the Pixel line before, aside from a great camera, was a top-notch software experience for less cost than competing phones. By choosing a Pixel over Samsung or Apple, you had to accept a phone that felt a bit cheaper. The screen wasn’t as nice, even if the resolution was just as high. The build didn’t feel quite as premium as what you got from an iPhone or a Galaxy S device.

That has all completely changed with the Pixel 9 series. The Pixel 9 still benchmarks lower than Apple and Samsung’s phones, but who cares? All three phones have more power than the vast majority of people need. What stands out now is that if I unboxed all three phones and handed them to people with the screens still off, I wouldn’t be surprised if many chose the Pixel. It’s a sexy piece of hardware.

Ultimately, appearances are subjective, and it’s hard for reviewers to recommend a device based on how it looks alone. Some devices manage to feel like a leap ahead (early iPhones, the HTC One M7), but most instead feel like a solid execution rather than a paradigm shift. As much as I like the Pixel 9, I’d put it solidly in the latter camp.

But that’s not a bad thing! We carry phones everywhere. We use them for calls. We’re pulling them out to pay for groceries. We stare at them while reading ebooks on the subway. We pull them out in front of friends and colleagues to take group photos. Do yourself a favor and get one with a nice vibe.