Gadgetory

hey what is up guys MTV HD here and a lot of smartphones come out every single year right in 2014 was clearly no exception to that rule so with the holidays coming up and beyond there are a lot of different options to choose from a lot of different choices to make your daily driver so this video is your one-stop shop for picking one this will hopefully give you the best option to choose for your phone for the next two years to sign a contract with so of all the smartphones that were released into the world in 2014 these are the best options from each category and I'm not just going to give it best I'm going to give a first-place so generally the best option a second-place so sort of a runner-up still really good and an honorable mention or two so also some really good options even though they're not first place worthy of consideration so all the stuff we've seen come out in the last 300 something days these are the smartphone awards 2014 so the first category is big phones and we've seen a lot of huge phones released over the course of the year they keep getting bigger every single year I hesitate to use the word phablet because even the definition of that word changes from year to year but these are the best big phones and your first best option is a samsung galaxy note 4 the note 4 is an awesome phone it has a 5.7 inch quad HD AMOLED display that I'd say is arguably the best in any smartphone right now it has a massive battery really good battery life an excellent camera beastly specs and performance and it's the one that's actually best at taking advantage of being so big with the software so what you want about TouchWiz but it's multitasking capabilities on top of Android 4.4 and hopefully lollipop soon are second to none it has a ton of features that use the entire display and it has a stylus that s-pen for even more multitasking fun so overall the best large phone experience is with the note 4 and if you're going to go huge you might as well go all the way the second best option I'll give for a really big phone to consider this year is the iPhone 6 plus it's the first huge iPhone that Apple has put out it has a 5.5 inch display which is like barely making the cut for huge phones but it counts so big they've ever made and it's really good my honorable mention for a huge phone is going to go to the Nexus 6 which has a 5.9 inch quad HD display and also worth mention is a Samsung Galaxy s5 it's not quite as huge as the other ones we've talked about but the Nexus 6 is running stock Android it's a pure Google experience phone it's going to be first in line for updates all the typical pros of being a Nexus device again all the reviews all have of all the devices I talked about in this video will be linked right below that like button if you want to check them out and the Samsung Galaxy s5 it's a standard Samsung flagship even though the note I think is a clearly better phone in a lot of ways there are a lot of things to like about the galaxy s5 and a not quite as massive package also I want to mention one more the LG g3 I put it in the big phones category as it has a 5.5 inch display but it's the one that actually doesn't have a huge feel in the hand it does a great job of not feeling really big with these thinner bezels and nice design so worth considering as a big phone now speaking of and not quite as massive package then this is the next category which is compact phones the best compact phones released in 2014 and by far and away the best option here is the Sony Xperia z3 compact it fits in a tiny footprint and this is the little brother to the larger Sony Xperia z3 but it makes almost no trade-offs or compromises when moving down to the smaller size which is what compact phone lovers really want so it has excellent specs and performance with the snapdragon 801 and 2 gigs of ram has a 20 megapixel Sony camera which is of course excellent in typical Sony fashion and has a four point six inch 720p display on the front which is great and yes by today's standards that does make it compact you're packing a 2600 milliamp hour battery with clicked our jink technology front-facing speakers and it's IP 68 certified so there's a lot going on in this little package and it is on top of its game right now for the second best compact phone of the year I'm going to give that to the Samsung Galaxy alpha which is essentially a miniature version of the Galaxy Note 4 which is the best large phone of the year so there's not a lot to dislike about the Galaxy alpha its compact it's well built it has metal everywhere of course is what it's known for plus it has a great display and again high-end internals and nice specs in a small phone it's really what small phone lovers want in a nutshell so my honorable mention for compact phones is the iPhone 6 and although I like the iPhone 6 plus better in basically every way it has more space inside for a larger battery and optical image and various other things but the iPhone 6 is still a great phone for people who don't want to move up to a huge phone the three that I've listed here are excellent options if you still like to one-handed text if you still like to use your phone all the time with one hand if you still put it in your front pocket and you don't like the huge phone sticking out the front these options you can't really go wrong so this next category is for you photographers who like to take pictures or photos on your smart phone all the time these are the best smartphone cameras out there or really the best cameras that also happen to be a part of a smart phone and I'm going to give the first best option to the iPhone six-plus and the second best option to the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and I mentioned these at the same time because they're so very similar in a lot of ways if you focus a lot on photos I'll give the edge to the iPhone 6 plus but if you focus a lot on videos I'll give the edge to the Galaxy Note 4 so the iPhone 6 plus gets the edge in the photo Department for its superior image processing and optical image stabilization and it also has a relatively large sensor and pixel size so while it's just an 8 megapixel camera that does mean it has really good low-light performance it also happens to be ridiculously fast even taking HDR shots and overall it produces some of the most pleasing and most accurate colors from any smartphone camera I've ever seen unfortunately 8 megapixels does limit it in the video department to 1080p and that's where the Galaxy Note 4 steps in so if you take a lot of video on your smartphone and if you absolutely must have the best of the best the note 4 is the clear choice shooting 4k video from a 16 megapixel sensor which is super sharp and crispy and colorful and beautiful it also has optical image stabilization and takes great photos to just a very different character altogether the note 4 photos tend to be much more saturated and sharpen than normal while you may or may not like that is definitely the clear winner here for video now after the top five or so smartphone cameras do tend to deteriorate very quickly but I'll give an honorable mention to the Sony Xperia z3 Sony we already know does excellent smartphone camera optics and this z3 is no exception it's a 20 megapixel camera like the Xperia z3 compact I talked about and it takes excellent photos as well and does happen to be capable of 4k video again so if you're in the market for a smart phone camera or a camera that takes really good pictures and also to be attached to a smartphone those are the three best options now let's be honest a lot of the phones we're talking about here are basically super phones they have all the high end specs they're essentially the best of what these manufacturers have to offer and that's why they're winning awards as they have all these high-end parts but they often cost a lot of money on or off contract but sometimes you want a new smartphone and you don't want it to cost an arm or leg especially during the holiday season you might want to get a nice inexpensive phone that's still really good so I'll consider under 400 bucks off contract the best budget smartphones of the year for 2014 and my easy-easy hands-down first-place choice is the oneplus one now the thing about the oneplus one I mean it's an excellent phone in basically every way the build quality is great the cameras really good the display is really good it's a fast performer the software is excellent the battery life is incredible it's going to be first in line for updates when CyanogenMod gets to this thing so it's a really really good phone in a lot of ways and for 16 gigs 3 to 50 bucks it's a no-brainer but the thing is you can't really buy it yet I review this thing months ago and it's still really difficult to place an order and just get this phone without going through some convoluted invite system or something like that so if you don't want to have to wait to try to get this thing you don't have to jump through hoops the second best option is your Moto G 2014 sort of like the little brother to the new Moto X with a stock Android experience and a front-facing speaker again and it not awful camera and super inexpensive game-changing at 180 bucks I also have to give an honorable mention to the Nexus 5 it wasn't released this year it technically it's a 2013 release but it's basically a steal right now it's also under 400 bucks and it's a really good phone again you're going to get essentially first in line for software updates for at least the next year or two and I think this would not be a bad phone at all to sign a contract with for two years but you probably don't have to because it's a nice easy budget phone so Nexus 5 is worth considering just for that now I want to give out a couple specialty awards because there are some noteworthy phones that would not have otherwise been mentioned in these top categories the first one I want to mention is a most improved award and this one might come as a bit of surprise for people who have seen my videos or watched me for more than a couple but I'm giving the most improved award for 2014 to a blackberry and it's not just because it's red and black but this is the blackberry Passport now I still wouldn't use a blackberry daily it's not that good yet and that's actually a big reason I haven't reviewed it in details because every phone I review I use as a daily driver but despite its weird looks turns out the passport has gotten a lot better in the software department I'm not saying a 4.5 inch square display is just what this company needs but with three gigs of ram and a snapdragon 801 and a 3400 milliamp hour battery and a new refreshed OS in blackberry 10 it was actually very smooth and pretty fun to use now the next specialty award I want to give is four best Windows Phone now I haven't reviewed a lot of Windows Phone devices this year but people should know that there are a lot of good windows mobile devices out there if you happen to love a Microsoft Surface or you're really invested in the microsoft windows ecosystem Windows 8 or Windows 10 then you're going to like a Windows Phone probably and I'm going to give that first-place award or the only award for best Windows Phone to the HTC One m8 for Windows Phone I also want to give an honorable mention in that category to the Nokia Lumia 735 it also is sort of a really good budget smartphone so sort of straddling those categories but it's a really good pick either way I also want to give an award for craziest phone design that I saw personally this year and I'm going to give that to this little guy the sharp aquos crystal I did a video on all about why I think smart phone manufacturers in general should take more design risks and try to mix it up like this and sharp with this budget offering kind of took it to the next level with this basically zero bezel display or one bezel on the bottom in the form of a massive chin and it really feels like a super compact phone but believe it or not it actually has a 5-inch display packed in here so it's this tiny footprint I thought it was really interesting to see and you should definitely watch the full review of this guy it'll be linked below now I also have to give out a bust of the year I have to give out an award for the worst phone but I saw really it wasn't a very good phone in any way there was no real reason for people to buy it there wasn't really anything good that separated it for its price from the pack it just didn't really have anything going for it that's not even in front of me it's the Amazon fire phone I don't even want to say any more than that if you want to check out the video I did on it when it was first announced and I go over the features of it and what it is and it costs $650 but I think Amazon's gonna learn its lesson from this one and probably stick to the Kindles if it comes out with another fire phone I'll be very curious to see what they change but yeah I'll leave a link to that video in an annotation or below it's a it's the bust of the year it wasn't really going to hit anything good for Amazon so the best of the best this is the last category phone of the year for 2014 best phone to come out during the year 2014 and there are a lot of really good options I could name probably three random phones on this table and they'd all be good but my first place four best phone and this isn't again it's an opinion it's one person saying what my favorite phone is but my best favorite phone of the year for 2014 is going to go to the HTC One m8 this is an all-around winner from HTC this year and improvement in almost every way from the m7 of last year as it should be and it really got the build quality discussion going for almost every phone that came out after it Samsung started putting metal in their phones after the one and mate Apple came out with two all-metal iPhones after the one m8 but this phone single-handedly got people talking about build quality just as much as any other smart phone feature the only thing is it's a little bit slippery since it has these rounded metal sides so I opted to put this carbon fiber skin on the back of mine to help with grip and I'm also rocking the Google Play edition version of this phone that's available that's another huge reason why I like this phone so much and if you look at the long list of phones that I had my main SIM card in during 2014 the Google Play edition One m8 was my daily for the longest duration for most of the year I could come back to this phone after using anything else just to come back to the ridiculously fast solidly built boomsound wielding sharp bright long-lasting smart phone that this is I'm highly satisfied highly recommended if you get this phone you're probably not going to regret it not my second place and it's a very close second place for my favorite phone to come out this year during 2014 is the Moto X the Moto X 2014 continues from the legacy of one of my favorites of last year which was the 2013 Moto X and it's still really good in a lot of ways it's one of the best built phones of the year thanks to the added it will band around the whole thing and it continues Motorola's strategy of delivering an ear stock Android experience with a few tweaks and additions here and there in order to keep up with the fast OS updates in fact this phone is one of the few with Android 5.0 lollipop already and it's a great performer just so easy to recommend for first-time Android users just like its predecessor was the learning curve for a lot of its features are super minimal unlike maybe some Samsung or LG features that take a while to learn that are less useful and this moto X also gave birth to the Nexus 6 a few months later so we can give it props for that and just got a little that dimple I like this one a lot I'm gonna give my third-place honourable mentions I have two of them actually in this category for best phone of the year and those are going to go to the iPhone 6 and the LG g3 the iPhone 6 I hesitate to put because I liked the iPhone 6 plus that much more but the iPhone 6 is an excellent all-around phone and it still tends to be one of those that I recommend to people a lot if you're just getting into smart phones or if it's someone's first smartphone if it's mom buying a smart phone and she has a budget to work with I tend to recommend the iPhone 6 and it's one of the best iPhones yet despite the fact that it's so thin and the battery is so small still really good and the LG g3 because it was one of the earliest to have that quad HD display I loved the design of it as well with the very thin bezels on the top left and right again an excellent design and a pretty solid phone again in a lot of ways so you can't really go wrong with any of the phones on this list again the Moto X awesome the HTC One m8 really good the iPhone 6 and the LG g3 can't really go wrong there and those are my phones of the year best of 2014 so moral of the story there are a lot of great phones to choose from this year whether you're into a large phone or a particularly small one or you're working with a budget or you love taking pictures or cameras whatever it is you can't really go wrong with any of the ones here so best of luck weigh the pros and cons you'll probably be happy with what you pick also share this video with people who you think are in the midst of buying a smart phone right now it'll probably save you a lot of time and explaining thank you for watching this video and I'll talk to you guys in the next one bass you