The top ten highend smartphones
If you are looking to get a new smartphone, I have a few for you to consider, courtesy of www.pocket-lint.com . Some of these phones have been reviewed independently in this column in Daily Trust, but not quite in a ranking mode. In this article, I am looking only at the highend phones, so those cheap sets from India or the Xiaomi-grade “luxury” phones don’t quite make it into this ranking.
True, it’s hard to impress smartphone customers these days, with all the wonderful devices that have been rolled out in the past several years. However, with the relative slump in the demand for smartphones in the past few years, it’s my guess that things will pick up again, to reflect your need to replace aging devices. That’s my main rational for presenting this ranking, so you could be guided on what to get.
As of two weeks ago, the leading smartphones, ranked from the very best to the 10th best, are Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, Google Pixel and Pixel XL, Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, OnePlus 5, HTC U11,LG G6, BlackBerry KeyOne, Motorola Moto G5 Plus, Honor 8 Pro, and Apple iPhone SE. For the detailed features of these phones, please refer to the pocket-lint website cited above in this article, or the various articles that have appeared in this column on many of these phones.
From this ranking, it seems as if Samsung might have gotten over the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco of last year. Not only has the company apparently recovered from the event, its smartphone business seems to be back on track in full swing, in a turn of events that has put Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ right on top of the ranking of world’s leading smartphones. I actually think this development is quite amazing. Another recent icing on the cake for Samsung Electronic is its being rated last week as Asia’s most popular brand in 2017. The South Korean original equipment manufacturer (OEM) was cited in the survey conducted by Nielsen. With last week’s award, Samsung has received this honor of being rated the most popular brand in all of Asia for the sixth year in a row. Not bad.
Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ were of course launched in the week of March 27, 2017; that week’s article in this column in Daily Trust was devoted to the event. Regarding the features of S8, the phone has been considered “the most eyecatching phone design you can buy today, great-looking 18.5:1 aspect ratio AMOLED screen is ideal for entertainment (even more so when HDR comes into play), best Samsung software experience to date, decent battery life and optimizations, rear camera is excellent.” On the negative side of S8: “Fingerprint scanner is poorly placed, iris and face recognition logins have limited success, Bixby button initially useless, connectivity can cause issues with perfect playback/graphical functions, some features hidden in menus, expensive.” Nevertheless the phone pulls it off as the top ranked.
The Number Two phone in the ranking, Google Pixel, was presented in this column on 10 October 2016. This phone was launched at the peak of Samsung’s problem with Galaxy Note 7, as if to say you’ve got a better alternative if you would rather not deal with the combusting Note 7. Reports have suggested that Pixel sounds like a hardcore Android fan’s dream phone. Check out the details that puts Pixel in the Number Two position. The Number Three smartphone in the ranking, iPhone 7/7 Plus, is a stable that was presented in this column on 12 and 19 September 2016.
nePlus 5, the fourth device in the ranking is a Chinese phone manufactured by OnePlus Technology, whose parent is Oppo Electronic, which in turn, is the smartphone subsidiary of BBK Electronics. Check out the full review in the pocket-lint website. HTC U11, the Number Five phone in the ranking, is considered to be a remarkable device because “it does pretty much everything right: it has a unique rear design with those deep glass backs, a high quality of build and waterproofing. It offers a great high res display and the best sound quality you’ll likely find on a phone.”
The seventh smartphone is BlackBerry KeyOne. If you have been following the events leading to the demise of Research in Motion (RIM), later renamed BlackBerry, as chronicled in this column in Daily Trust, you’ll recollect that starting from February 2017 phones bearing the name BlackBerry are now owned by the Indonesian company Merah Putih, although with the new name BlackBerry Merah Putih. Thus, KeyOne is a product of the new alliance. Honor 8 Pro is a Huawei phone. The product iPhone SE basically has the same killer features of iPhone 6S, but in a small display.
It’s my hope that this ranking will make you a better educated consumer.