Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Top 10 smartphones

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    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.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    iOS 5 with Siri is a major reason I think the iPhone 4S is the top smartphone of 2011.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The screenshot on the right shows you much of what you can say to Siri on the iPhone 4S.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The camera on the iPhone 4S is excellent and CAN replace your point and shoot in most cases.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    Notifications was one of the biggest pain points for me on the iPhone and Apple fixed that with iOS 5.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The Galaxy Nexus sets the bar for the Android platform with Ice Cream Sandwich.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    Samsung includes NFC in the Galaxy Nexus and I think we will see much more adoption in 2012.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The HTC Titan may be the king of large display devices with this 4.7 incher.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    AT&T may be the only US carrier getting the HTC Titan.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The RAZR brand is not dead and as Motorola shows you can put the name on one of the best Android smartphone.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    Thin is in on the Droid RAZR while LTE support is also provided.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The display on the Droid RAZR is also sharp.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The Nokia N9 comes in three colors and two memory storage sizes.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    There are not a ton of apps in MeeGo, but the hacker community will work to provide you with most all you need.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    Nokia leads in high end camera phones and the N9 comes with an excellent shooter.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The magenta N9 also looks great.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    HTC is finally getting their cameras improved and the HTC Amaze 4G is one of their best devices ever.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    You can choose black or white for the Amaze 4G and the hardware is top notch.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The LG Thrill is the best 3D display device and is lots of fun to use.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The Droid Bionic was announced a long time ago, but is still a solid LTE device.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The Droid Bionic is a powerhouse and FAST!

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The Samsung Galaxy S II was also announced a while ago and released outside the U.S. with great success.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The Galaxy S II is on three major U.S. carriers.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    The BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 may look like a traditional BlackBerry smartphone, but the keyboard is the BEST they ever made.

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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    Top 10 smartphone gallery thumbnail 1

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    Top 10 smartphone gallery thumbnail 2

     

    Caption by: Matthew Miller

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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.

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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.

Caption by: Matthew Miller

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Related Topics:

Smartphones Apple iPhone iOS Mobility Hardware

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