The world of smart phones expanded its horizons in 2010 and a slew of shiny new devices, the kind that makes guy sitting next to you go green with envy, arrived to fit snugly in our pockets. We've separated the top smart phones from the not-so-smart ones. The top 10.
HTC Desire HD
It's desire in a 4.3-inch avatar. The HTC Desire HD lives up to the expectations from a top-end smartphone and more. With a 480x800 pixel screen, 1 GHz processor, 768 MB RAM and an 8 megapixel camera this Android phone packs in a powerful package.
Apple iPhone 4G
The new iPhone finding a place in a year-ender best phones list is almost taken for granted. With the new iPhone 4 bringing in many much desired features multitasking, dual cameras, flash (not to be confused with Adobe Flash) and more, Apple had further strengthened its position in the smartphone market. Though the antennagate glitch was the reason for some worry, most consumers didn't seem to bother much.
LG Optimus One
While LG's earlier endeavours in the Android market weren't exactly successful. But things seems to be changing for LG with the Optimus One. The phone doesn't come with an obscene price tag and has what a budget smartphone buyer looks for (and more). It could well be give Samsung's hot-selling Galaxy 3 a run for its money.
Palm Pre 2
First Palm came back from the dead and then HP took over Palm. Though almost every reviewer goes gaga over Palm's phones, they somehow fail to set the cash registers ringing. But then sales do not define a good product. The Palm Pre 2 is powered by webOS 2.0 (rather the HP webOS 2.0), that many call the best mobile operating system around. Though the Pre 2's hardware needed some boost to match the wonderful OS, the sleek OS was enough to make the device rank in our top 10.
Motorola Droid X
The once-ailing Motorola got a much needed boost thanks to its Android devices and posted a profit after a long time. Motorola's Android bet seems to be paying off well and with devices such as the Droid X fighting it out for the mobile phone pioneer the future does look bright for them.
Samsung Beam
If it hadn't been for one feature the Samsung Beam i8520 wouldn't have found a place on this list. Since we like our phones to do that something special that 99 per cent of the other phones don't, we pushed up the Samsung Beam to give company to the likes of the iPhones and the Desire HDs. The Samsung Beam is a phone that comes with a projector and we love it for this single feature.
Samsung Epic 4G
When it comes to Android, Samsung is indeed taking some big strides with an impressive lineup of Android phones. The Epic 4G is one of Samsung's Android gems. While it is big on size, the Epic 4G is also big on performance and includes an impressive physical QWERTY keyboard.
BlackBerry Torch
The joke is that the one feature that the BlackBerry Torch should have but doesn't is a torch. But this is indeed the "best BlackBerry ever."
Samsung Galaxy S
While Samsung may be tinkering with its own mobile operating system, bada, it seems to be more focused in the Android arena and phones such as the Galaxy S exemplify Samsung's penchant for the Google backed open-source platform. There are many reasons behind the Galaxy S being one of Samsung's fastest selling phones ever and that is why the phone sits firmly on our top 10 phones of 2010 list (The Epic 4G, a variant of the Galaxy S also features on this list).
Samsung Omnia 7
While the first battles of the smartphone wars were being fought, Microsoft was waiting and watching stocking up its armoury and when it finally yelled its real war cry, the software giant came all guns blazing with as many as 10 devices. Even within the comparitively smaller Windows Mobile 7 world there's stiff competition and for us the Samsung Omnia 7 just about manages to top the list and thereby finds a place here.
