Google Tool Tells You Which Android Smartphone Best Matches Your Preferences

It can be difficult to choose an Android handset. You literally have hundreds of options and they all look like slates with screens. Google, the company that created Android, wants to point you in the right direction.

On Thursday, Google quietly unveiled a colorful new site called Which Phone. The page, which ties into Google's recent Android marketing campaign, takes you through a questionnaire. It quizzes you on what you like to do with your phone -- take photos, send messages, write emails -- and then offers you three choices, all of which run Android. The questionnaire takes less than five minutes. The first time I went through it, I told Google I used my phone constantly, and it suggested high-end devices like Motorola's Nexus 6. But the second time, I told Google I had more modest needs, and it once again suggested last year's high-end smartphones, like Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge or the LG G3.

In fact, the most important part of the questionnaire are the options on the last page, which let you choose which size device you want and how much you want to pay. Only when you say you want a low- or mid-priced device will Which Phone suggest a device that's not top of the line. And the page doesn't let you choose specific features that are must-have, like the ability to expand your phone's storage with an external memory card. Which Phone does give you a good look at which Android devices work on your carrier, though.

Ultimately, most Android smartphones can do the same things, like taking photos, browsing webpages and playing streaming videos. The only real difference is how well the device can handle it, which is directly correlated to price. So it's not surprising that Google's pushing its nicest (and most expensive) Android phones. It's just you don't necessarily need a slick marketing website to tell you that.