Jay’s Top 3 Mobile Phones of 2009

Over the course of a year, I use a lot of phones. It comes with the territory really; after all, it helps if you have used a wide variety of phones if you are going to write about them! I couldn’t put a number on the phones I’ve owned personally this year, I simply can’t remember exactly, but certainly more than 20, possibly closer to 30. Some have lasted me a few months, others have been and gone in the same day, they were that poor.

As we are coming to the end of an eventful 12 months, I thought I would cast a wistful glance back over the preceding months and choose my three favourite phones of 2009. And in time honoured tradition for such lists, we will look at them in reverse order:

In third place is the HTC Hero, an impressively designed handset that looks as good as anything on the market, with a strong feature list to back it all up. This is no fancy phone, with all looks and no action; the usability and functionality of the Hero is up there with the best devices of 2009. The large 3.2 inch touchscreen is very responsive to the touch, and shows off the amazing Sense UI to its best. Colour presentation on the display looks good, and swiping your way through the numerous standby homescreens is swish and smooth. Sense really does do a lot to help the overall feel of the phone in use, and of course this is well supported by apps that can be downloaded from the Android market. Hardware wise there is little the Hero doesn’t offer; an adequate 5.0 Megapixel camera, with touch focus, is probably an area where the Hero can be improved upon. Otherwise the connection options are all included, with HSDPA, HSUPA and WiFi all available, which aids the online capabilities of the handset.

Second place in my top three for 2009 is the Apple iPhone 3GS. A lot has been written about the iPhone since its first release and the 3G S is as significant an improvement on the iPhone 3G as the 3G was on the original product. It’s taken a lot for me to warm to the iPhone, in the past I’ve always made my personal phone purchases based on phone spec – I always wanted the best camera on the best looking phone with the best connection options with the best features. The iPhone, based on those criteria, doesn’t cut it. It isn’t the best camera, nor the best looking phone, and certainly doesn’t have the best feature set of any phone. In truth the specification of the iPhone is pretty poor, and can be beaten feature for feature by a fair few mid range devices.

But what attracts people to the device, aside from the clever marketing, is the very simple user interface, the uniform layout, and the seamless integration with iTunes. The real power behind the iPhone, however, is in the applications available for the phone. Whatever you want to do, it seems, there is an app available for you. The categories are numerous, and in total it is suggested there are over 100,000 apps available for the iPhone, and with such a number there truly has to be something available for your phone. Of all the phones I’ve owned this year, the iPhone is the device I have kept for the longest period of time, a total of four months, which considering the frequency I change phones is some going.

And so we come to my favourite handset of 2009. The iPhone is the device I have kept for the longest period of time, BUT my favourite handset I have owned more times than any other, a total of three times and every time I am impressed with the simple way this phone just ‘does’. This is the HTC Magic, and for me this phone has been the highlight of the year.

I prefer the standard Android OS much more than Sense found on the Hero; I like the simple three screen standby option, the simple way the phone can be customised, the ever impressive and ever growing number of apps available for the phone, the excellent way the device tightly integrates with the online Google applications, and so on. I use Gmail for my personal email account and the email experience on the HTC Magic leaves the iPhone standing, the speed and simplicity of email access is a real pleasure, and with the greater range of customisation options the Magic always feels fresh and new.

And those are my three favourite phones of 2009. You may have your own choices, and it would be good to hear if you agree/disagree with my selection. The fact that my three favourite phones are all touch screen is testament to the vast improvement of touchscreen technology on mobile devices, because until recently I couldn’t stand touch, I was always a fan of a proper keypad. Whilst there is a lot to like about each of these handsets, the main driver behind them for me is the applications available, and it is purely based on applications available that I currently use the iPhone and not the Magic.

As a footnote, I wanted to give an honourable mention to the following handsets:

Samsung Jet – A great phone, packed with features, worth noting for its excellent video capture options.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 – The phone that really brought BlackBerry into the mainstream and youth markets, and gives them a strong base to push on with in 2010.

Nokia N86 - A tough year for the Finnish manufacturer, and although the S60 UI is starting to look very stale, the N86 shows that Nokia can still produce the goods.