Team AA: Here are our favorite phone wallpapers
Whether it's our weekly Wallpaper Wednesday series or backgrounds from specific devices, we're all about sharing wallpapers with you folks. But what are our favorite wallpapers that we use on our own Android phones?
Well, I asked the Android Authority team for their favorite backgrounds. Some team members used wallpapers showing their loved ones and were thus unable to share their backgrounds. Fortunately, we still had more than a few cool submissions from other members, as you can see below!
Found a wallpaper you like? Then you can visit our Google Drive folder to grab full-resolution images.
Hadlee Simons
There are quite a few photos I like using as wallpapers on my Android phone, but here are three picks. The first photo was taken in Barcelona, looking down a road and into the city. Meanwhile, the second snap was taken in Maui, Hawaii, at sunset during the Snapdragon Summit 2023. You can never go wrong with sunsets.
Finally, the third photo was taken with the Pixel 4's astrophotography mode in Sutherland, South Africa, back in 2019. This is generally considered the darkest place in the country, and I had to stand still for a few minutes while a friend took the photo. It's not the sharpest or most detailed snap, but how cool is that? The starry sky also gets a parallax effect if you enable the cinematic wallpaper option on Pixel phones, although it's quite wonky on my Pixel 7 Pro.
Jonathan Feist
Say what you will about AI-generated imagery, but image generators are a quick and easy way to create a wallpaper of your choosing. That's what Jonathan Feist did with these two wallpapers showing a blue dragon. These aren't the exact wallpapers he's currently using, but ones generated with a similar prompt via Gemini.
Jonathan also kindly included the prompt if you like the look of these images:
Please generate a realistic looking 8K image of a dragon at night. It should be a blue dragon standing on a small island that is surrounded by other small islands scattered around a really foggy lake. The lake is surrounded by Japanese bonsai type trees. There is a mountain range in the background and a full moon in the sky. The dragon should be breathing blue fire in a menacing stance. Give the dragon very realistic looking scales and skin from a lizard.
Matt Horne
'These wallpapers are shots I've taken and a sample of things I like about living in Mexico,' said Deals Editor Matt Horne. 'I tend to keep each one and similar types as my wallpaper for a couple of months at a time or so.' The first photo is from a remote beach spot 'not too far from La Paz,' as Matt enjoys visiting the coast.
'Not unrelated to my beach obsession is a love of traveling to new places, and the shot of colorful houses at night was from a trip to Puebla earlier in the year,' he says of the second shot. 'I visited with my parents, and it's a nice memory.'
Meanwhile, the beautiful third shot was taken from the rooftop of his apartment building in Guadalajara. Matt says the city can look 'spectacular' at sunset and that his camera roll is full of shots like this.
Mishaal Rahman
Is it any surprise that Mishaal shared three bugdroid-themed wallpapers as his favorite backgrounds? Either way, these are some lovely backgrounds if you want to show off your love for the Android platform.
'Two of the wallpapers (the photos of the Bot statues on pedestals) were photos that I took, edited using Xiaomi's AI photo editing features,' he explains.
The third image was actually taken by Google at their MWC 2025 booth and shared with Mishaal. Very cosy!
Rita El-Khoury
Features Editor Rita says her three picks come from the Backdrops app, which she's been using for over a decade. In fact, she's also a paid member.
'I love the creator's sense of style, humor (as seen in the Weather Frog wallpaper), and all their unique designs. Most Backdrops wallpapers are simple but beautiful, which works really well for my default homescreen setup,' she says, adding that she usually avoids wallpapers with a busy design near the top or bottom.
'On average, I find a nice new wallpaper in Backdrops that works for me every week, and that's why I keep coming back to it. It helps that there's a lot of color (and dark if you like that), which works super well for phone photography, which I need to do a lot of.'
Zac Kew-Denniss
Android Authority contributor Zac Kew-Denniss comes in clutch with some real-world photos he's using as wallpapers. He says the tree photo is a favorite snap. It was taken in 2023 with a Sony Alpha 6300 camera and edited with a LUT in Pixelmator.
'The metalwork tower was taken on my S20 Ultra at the top of Blackpool Tower,' he says of the second image, while also proclaiming his love for geometric patterns in wallpapers. 'It was taken the first time I'd seen my fiance in months due to COVID restrictions.'
The third image shows a leaf in the sun with a faint spiderweb, and Zac explained his decision:
Took it on an iPhone 16 Pro last year on my first trip out with it, and I love the pop of colour and the way the sunlight filters through.
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