Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Top 10 smartphones
The beginning of the year always starts with a bang with smartphones being revealed at CES, Mobile World Congress and CTIA. I created a preliminary top 10 smartphones list in March and now that we have all the major anticipated announcements for the year I thought it was fitting to post my top 10 smartphones for the year 2011. Many of the phones I had on that list are present in this new list, but now that I have had hands-on time with some my perspective has changed. Some have yet to be released, but should be coming before the holidays so I included them as well.
All the great smartphones of 2011 have now been announced and I selected my top 10 for the year.
Make sure to check out my full ZDNet Smartphones & Cell Phones blog post to see why I picked these device and why I put them in this order. Also make sure to vote for your favorite.
iOS 5 with Siri is a major reason I think the iPhone 4S is the top smartphone of 2011.
The screenshot on the right shows you much of what you can say to Siri on the iPhone 4S.
The camera on the iPhone 4S is excellent and CAN replace your point and shoot in most cases.
Notifications was one of the biggest pain points for me on the iPhone and Apple fixed that with iOS 5.
The Galaxy Nexus sets the bar for the Android platform with Ice Cream Sandwich.
Samsung includes NFC in the Galaxy Nexus and I think we will see much more adoption in 2012.
The HTC Titan may be the king of large display devices with this 4.7 incher.
AT&T may be the only US carrier getting the HTC Titan.
The RAZR brand is not dead and as Motorola shows you can put the name on one of the best Android smartphone.
Thin is in on the Droid RAZR while LTE support is also provided.
The display on the Droid RAZR is also sharp.
The Nokia N9 comes in three colors and two memory storage sizes.
There are not a ton of apps in MeeGo, but the hacker community will work to provide you with most all you need.
Nokia leads in high end camera phones and the N9 comes with an excellent shooter.
The magenta N9 also looks great.
HTC is finally getting their cameras improved and the HTC Amaze 4G is one of their best devices ever.
You can choose black or white for the Amaze 4G and the hardware is top notch.
The LG Thrill is the best 3D display device and is lots of fun to use.
The Droid Bionic was announced a long time ago, but is still a solid LTE device.
The Droid Bionic is a powerhouse and FAST!
The Samsung Galaxy S II was also announced a while ago and released outside the U.S. with great success.
The Galaxy S II is on three major U.S. carriers.
The BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 may look like a traditional BlackBerry smartphone, but the keyboard is the BEST they ever made.
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