This Is The Phone Of The Year: Gizmodo Awards 2014

The votes are in. This is your phone of the year for 2014.

Editor’s Pick

LG G3

When we held the LG G3 in our hands for the first time, we knew it was going to be something special. It’s third time lucky for LG with the G series, which in the two models before it always seemed to be missing that special something. Not with the G3, though: the G3 has that X factor in spades.

It’s well specced with its quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, and LG’s emphasis on quality when it came to both the hardware and the software was second to none. Most impressive of all was its new screen. It’s a 5.5-inch QHD panel, which means that it’s a packing a resolution of 2560×1440, and an insane 538 pixels per inch. That’s almost unheard of in a phone these days. I didn’t want to look away from the panel once I started playing high-res video.

Not only was it practically perfect in every way, it was also quite affordable, and remains to be great value for money in the second-half of 2014 against the Galaxy Notes and iPhone 6s of the phone world. LG is also clearly committed to its future, with a Lollipop upgrade just rolled out to Australian phones. Congratulations to everyone at LG who worked on the G3 — what a machine.

Honourable Mentions:

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 — It’s the first Category 6 smartphone in the Australian market, which is going to be a big thing in 2015. It’s also incredibly beautiful, but narrowly missed out on the title this time around to the LG G3.

iPhone 6 Plus — The first Apple phablet has been a long time coming, and it was well worth the wait. Between that screen, that camera and the beautifully practical iOS 8, it deserves a round of applause for being excellent.

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact — Remember, manufacturers: just because you have a phone with big specs, doesn’t mean you always need a big screen to go with it, as the brilliant Z3 Compact proves.


Reader’s Choice

Sony Xperia Z3

You cast over 10,000 votes for your phone of the year, and while it was a close race, the award has to go to the Sony Xperia Z3! (And, by power of deduction, the Xperia Z3 Compact as well — basically the same phone in a smaller chassis.)

Honourable mentions go to the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the iPhone 6, Nokia’s Lumia 930 and, surprisingly, the BlackBerry Passport.

Thanks for voting, readers! Don’t forget to vote in our other Gizmodo Awards categories to make sure your favourite gadget doesn’t miss out!


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