I thought the point of this thread was to name Androids, yet I am seeing loads of non-Androids being mentioned, lol.
In terms of Androids:
-Galaxy S2: The Display was miles ahead of all competition in terms of vividness, and the phone was so thin yet feature packed. It also came with at the time the most powerful SoC and efficient Dual core SoC.
- Galaxy Note: It put Phablets on the map, even though we had phones like the Dell Streak before it that broke that 5imch ceiling, the Galaxy Note was the first truly successful Android Phablet.
- Google Nexus 4 (LG): High end specs in a well priced device, this phone really helped pushed the envelope and I think sparked the idea of OnePlus and other high end devices that are decently priced.
- HTC One M7: This phone took the idea of being built like a tank to a new level, it felt so solid in its metal uni body, and proved that Android OEMs can build some truly solid feeling devices.
- Sony Xperia Z: If I am not mistaken this was the first truly Water and Dust Resistant Android Flagship? It took quite a few years for other OEMs to catch up and make this a standard, but Sony truly had this on lock from 2013. It was not perfect but it was better than nothing.
- LG G2: I believe this was the Phone that pretty much started the whole Screen-To-Body Ratio race, LG did a fabulous job of putting top specs at the time with a large screen in a very well sized body due to thining the bezels as much they could at the time.
In terms of non-Androids
Nokia N95: The birth of the Convergence Smartphone - How anyone can leave this phone out their list is beyond me, Nokia absolutely pushed the hardest they ever have with this device. This phone carried a powerful SoC (TI OMAP 2420) with a separate GPU (PowerVR MBX), which was something that was very new in mobile devices, this allowed for truly high quality gaming as well as VGA @ 30FPS video recording, along with TV-Out, Dual Speakers, an incredible 5MP Camera that took excellent images for the time. On top of all this it brought GPS, MicroSD support that we still use to this day etc etc etc... This phone was not just a smartphone, it did everything pretty well.
Nokia E90: the peak of keyboard drive high end smartphones - This phone was crazy expensive and for good reason, it was made of metal and high quality plastics, it felt like a weapon in hand and it had a glorious 4inch high PPI display hidden inside, once unfolded it resembled a mini laptop. Web browsing, Emails and gaming were an absolute dream on this beast, it had the same chipset as the N95 topped with double the RAM, multitasking was effortless, I've seen a few people still using it now in 2018.
Sony Ericsson P910i: Not at all the first touch screen phone, but this was a good move towards an ever friendlier Touch UI, sadly Symbian UIQ was killed off later, butsksme great devices ran on it.
Sony Ericsson W900i: Probably the first phone to have a GPU, Sony Ericsson went out on a limb with this high end Walkman feature phone and gave it a rather powerful (at the time) GPU, that allowed it to record and playback QVGA @ 30FPS. The GPU came from Nvidia and was known as the NVidia GoForce4800, the phone was more of an experiment and lasted on the market for about 6-7months but it showed just how good phones could be in terms of gaming and video.
Sony Ericsson W800i & K750: these two phones proved you didn't have to break the bank to have a top phone that handled Phoning, Text, as well as Music and Photography very well, both featured great 2MP Auto Focusing cameras in their time, they took better images than some of the early and more expensive Nokia Nseries (N70 and N91), and the W800 came with a mammoth (for its time) 512MB Memory Card in the box, up until then you were lucky to get 128MB.
Nokia N93: This was a beast of a phone, it was huge but featured an incredible 3MP Camera that supported 3x optical zoom and a camcorder mode with its flip and twist display, this was one of Nokia's first forays into convergence smartphone just before they got it right with the N95.
Palm Pre: The master of Gesture UI, this phone with its WebOS UI came long before its time, was held back by a manufacturer who had new ideas but old school strategy of dealing with networks and logistics, what a shame. This phone was a giant leap forward. I remember wanting this device to come to South Africa so badly, but alas Palm barely got it out of the USA, a few luck countries got it, but it was poorly marketed and simply drowned in the sea of Android and iPhones. I genuinely hoped the Palm Pre would crush Android, at the time I was still on Symbian, I hated iOS due its limitations and hated Android due to just how messy it was. The Pre looked like a true Future Touch UI phone.
will make for some good weekend reading.
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