Top 5 Smartphones For The Holiday Season

Heading towards the holiday season, we have seen alot of great smartphones released this year alone. Here are my top 5 picks you can end the year 2012 with you really can't go wrong with any of them

 Number 1: iPhone 5

Apple updated the internals and length of its iPhone product with the iPhone 5 and the design is fantastic. It is one of the highest quality smartphones ever produced and even with the $820 price tag, its owners are quite satisfied with it. It has a great camera, amazing selection of apps, and is extremely portable.

iOS 6 offers many improvements and while it may not have some of the latest technologies, such as NFC or wireless charging, it does so many things right that it has to be considered one of the top smartphones today. For most family and friends that ask me about the best phone today for them, I recommend the iPhone 5. I keep using it due to the high quality and extensive selection of available apps that I don't find on  other platforms. Prices range from $199 (16GB) to $399 (64GB) on contract with a premium of $450 additional cost if you buy it without a contract.

Number 2: Samsung Galaxy Note II

I thought the Samsung Galaxy S III was the best phone on samsung and rivaled the iPhone 5 as the top device to choose from. However, from the perspective of a data-centric smartphone user, the Galaxy Note II bumped the Galaxy S III from my hands and is my favorite device . The Note II models the form factor of the Galaxy S III.

I thought about giving the Note II my top spot here, but it is really too large for many people and is quite an expensive device. It is made more for the data-centric person who wants a device that bridges the gap between a full tablet and a smartphone.

The Galaxy Note II pushes the limits for smartphone technology, with the most advanced specs you will find on any smartphone today, including Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, 1.6 GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor, a whopping 2GB of RAM, 5.5-inch Super AMOLED HD display, 8 megapixel rear camera, 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera, 16GB internal memory with microSD storage for up to 64GB more storage, Bluetooth 4.0, LTE, and more.

Nothing beats the specifications of the Note II today and even better than that Samsung brings some unique user experiences to the consumer.

The S Pen is truly a usable and valuable addition to the Galaxy Note II this year, with some software enhancements such as Air View that let you view content without even touching the pen to the display and S Note pen-enabled note capturing program. Smart Gestures, Quick Glance, and Smart Stay use sensors on the phone to improve your experiences. The camera takes great shots and when you look at all of the available options they can get even better. You can find the Galaxy Note II on all four major US wireless carriers.

Number 3: Samsung Galaxy S III

The Samsung Galaxy S III is the best Android smartphone available on all major US wireless carriers today. In addition to high end specifications, the Galaxy S III has some of the same software enhancements seen on the Note II. The camera takes great photos, the device works well as both a phone and a data device, the form factor is sleek and attractive, and it is priced competitively on all carriers.

Even with a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display, the Galaxy S III feels good in your hand and doesn't feel that big. The Android and Samsung ecosystem is greatly improving and you can now easily find movies to rent or purchase on Google or Samsung, books to purchase, music to purchase and stream, and much more. You can find the Galaxy S III in various colors and priced in the typical $200 price range.

Number 4: Nokia Lumia 920

The Nokia Lumia 920 looks a lot like the Lumia 900 and unfortunately it is launching exclusively on AT&T. Thus, you can only pick it up on one carrier, unlike all the rest of the phones in my top five list. It may eventually come in 2013 to other carriers, but no announcements have been made yet. That said, the Lumia 920 offers more than the HTC 8X when you compare the device and software. The Lumia 920 also comes in a variety of bold colors that are attractive and unique.

Nokia has always excelled at imaging and provides the best low light experience with PureView on the 920. They also offer helpful camera lenses (utilities), wireless charging, Nokia Drive turn-by-turn voice navigation, Nokia Music (free streaming and offline music service), and other Nokia exclusive apps. If you stack up the Lumia 920 with other new WP8 devices, it is the clear winner; but the exclusive launch is not helpful in the US.

The Lumia 920 is a bit heavy when compared to the 8X, but it is even better constructed than the Lumia 900 and brings back the feel of the Lumia 800. The display looks great and the PureMotion+ technology -- which lets you control it with your fingernail and gloved finger -- is amazing.

Number 5: BlackBerry Bold 9900

A brand new OS, more speed, a facelift and a high-res touchscreen, the latest of the Bold messengers is listening for the roar of the crowd. There's no going back to the old rational and composed self - give it danger, thrills and excitement. The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 is stronger, faster, better. No ordinary messenger, it's the bearer of good news.

Although on a second thought, a snappy 1.2GHz processor, the new BlackBerry OS 7.0 with Liquid graphics and a super crisp VGA touchscreen are no good news for the competition. Nor is HD video, dual-band Wi-Fi and NFC support. And all that comes on top of the standard BlackBerry package. The solid build quality and corporate grade email and data security go without saying. The sharp precision of the trackpad and a responsive capacitive touchscreen balance each other in a device that's convincingly comfortable to handle. Add a standard-setting QWERTY keyboard, and you have a phone which puts you in charge.

What is your favorite smartphone for the holidays?

Blackberry 10 Revealed!!

Blackberry 10 Unveiled

Last month, RIM unveiled the BlackBerry 10 beta 3 running on the company's new test device, the Dev Alpha B. The UI look and feel of this latest BlackBerry 10 build is what RIM will be putting on its final BB10 devices in early 2013. The most fundamental difference of BB10 from previous builds is not just the presence of touch navigation, but a complete focus on it. RIM is clearly aiming to take Android’s crown for best multitasking and the entire interface is based around the premise of being able to get to any app-based information you want at any point.

Active Frames

To wake the device, you simply swipe from the bottom of the screen. Then, you are welcomed with the traditional batch of home screen panels.
However, it is not really a home screen in the sense that it holds widgets and app shortcuts. Rather, it houses what RIM calls "Active Frames". These are functionally similar to Windows Phone's Live Tiles or Android home screen widgets, but rather than being separate entities they are actually minimized versions of currently running applications. The frames can show either a thumbnail view of the entire app, or a special view of the application designed for the home screen. Because these apps are all currently loaded into memory, switching back to them is quick and seamless. Swiping right of the Acitve Frames, reveals the classic list of App icons. They can be manually moved around and sorted to your liking

As RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins put it: ‘Nobody should have to worry about opening apps’.
Heins made plenty of emphasis about the fact that, on other platforms there’s typically a lot of what he described as ‘in and out’ of various applications. RIM wants to avoid that with BB10 and this is achieved through two key components.

Hub

First is the BlackBerry Hub, a notifications and communication centre where feeds from Email accounts, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and others all appear aggregated in one place.
In a sense it’s rather a lot like Windows Phone’s People Hub, a feature we enjoyed immensely.

From here you can search, filter and compose messages from all the apps you have feeding the hub with message notifications. It’s also worth noting that you have complete control over exactly which apps and accounts contribute to the feed. It's accessible by a new gesture - swipe up and to the right. Once you access it, you can see your notifications alongside the aforementioned emails and messages.
The second component is BlackBerry Flow, which is essentially the touch-based control mechanics you use to access various parts of the interface, including the ever-present BlackBerry Hub.
RIM has implemented a control gesture which, from any part of the phone, allows you to swipe up to minimize your currently active app, home screen, or whatever, and see a list of how many notifications you have along the left-hand side of the screen.
The navigation in BlackBerry 10 is heavily gesture-based, beginning with the lock screen: unlocking the phone is done by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, but you don't have to press a button to bring up the lock screen first. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen also switches from the app you're currently using back to the home screen. Swiping up and then dragging your finger to the right exposes the so-called BlackBerry Hub, a messaging app that corrals all of your mail, texts, tweets, calls, and other messages into one place.
In-app navigation is also gesture-heavy: if, for example, you're in an e-mail app and you open an attachment, you can swipe to the right to hide the attachment and see the original e-mail, then swipe again to see your inbox. Swiping up slightly, holding your finger where it is, and then swiping back down will allow you to take a peek at notifications and then go back to using your app. RIM calls this the ‘BlackBerry Peek’.
RIM has integrated an interesting feature allowing you to switch the device into personal or work mode when you swipe down from top of the screen when viewing the App icons screens. Choosing Work mode allows you to launch an app in a secure mode. You can seamlessly switch between the two modes, but you’ll have access to completely separate apps, App Worlds storefronts, email accounts, connectivity settings and so on.
Another intriguing feature is in the camera app, meant to compensate for people who aren't good at timing photos. If users time a photo incorrectly, they are able to page backward in time on the camera to an earlier version of the photo, as if the camera was taking shots continuously before the shutter button was actually pressed.

Judging from the what we’ve seen, the latest build of BlackBerry 10 looks very promising. It's very fast and fluid, and packs a lot of interesting UI features that its competitors currently lack.
As for the new device, it features a 4.2-inch display with RIM's standardized resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels.

 What do you think about what you’ve seen so far?



Listing image by The Verge