The Best Upcoming Cell Phones
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| Samsung Galaxy S5 |
The CES and MWC trade shows are now behind us, leaving a long list of desirable new phones queuing up in carrier labs. That's only the beginning for 2014, though: we've only seen the appetizers, the scene-setters.
While the Samsung Galaxy S5 has now revealed itself, Apple, LG, Microsoft, and Amazon have yet to make their critical plays in the U.S. market this year.
You may notice there is no iPhone 6 on this list. We know the iPhone 6 is coming, because Apple is not going out of business. But we don't actually know anything reliable about the iPhone 6, other than that it's coming. I'm just going to leave it there until we have more reliable information. Otherwise, check out our picks for the top upcoming cell phones below.
The Amazon Phone
We know Amazon is working on a phone. As with a lot of rumored devices, there's so much noise around the Amazon phone that it's tough to separate the fact from really silly fiction.
Rumors so far include one phone, or two phones. One of them might have a simulated 3D UI created by tracking the user's head position. They might be sold at cost (although Amazon says they won't be free). At the very least, they'll have a phone version of Amazon's new Fire OS, with its simple interface and "Mayday" customer service feature, shown on the Kindle Fire tablet on the left.
Amazon likes to go it alone with product releases, so it won't show these new phones at a trade show. If I were to guess an announcement date, I'd reach for June.
BlackBerry Q20
At Mobile World Congress this year, BlackBerry CEO John Chen announced the Q20, the "retro" BlackBerry for all the old-school BlackBerry users who want a full hardware keyboard with a trackpad, Send, and End buttons. As a BlackBerry 10 phone, it'll have a 3.5-inch touch screen and run both BlackBerry's new OS and whatever Android apps you feel like downloading from any store other than Google's.
The Q20 will appear in the latter half of this year, probably in tandem with BlackBerry's new server software, BES 12. Don't look for it to be sold to consumers in a big way; the Q20 will be the linchpin of BlackBerry's push back into "regulated industries" such as law, medicine, and the military.
Blackphone
At $629, the Blackphone won't sell a lot of units, but there's nothing else like it: a specialized Android phone designed to protect individuals against all the companies and governments out there trying to harvest their personal information. (Boeing's Black phone is also security oriented, but it won't be available to individuals.)
The Blackphone is an Android phone with a lot of privacy-oriented software preloaded, such as the Silent Circle encrypted calling client, Spideroak online storage, and a Security Center built into the OS which lets you manage app permissions much more sensitively than you can on standard Android. It's available for pre-order now, and it's coming to market in June; it won't be available through U.S. carriers, so you'll have to buy it direct and unlocked.
LG G3 / Google Nexus 6
Google's I/O conference is coming on June 25, and with it, we're likely to see Google's next Nexus phone. Hopefully it won't be called the Nexus 6 because that was the model number of the sad androids in Blade Runner, but we'll see.
The Nexus 6 is heavily rumored to be based on the same hardware platform as LG's 2014 flagship, the G3, which will likely be announced around the same time. What will be in it? We've seen rumors of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, a 2,560-by-1,440 5.5-inch screen, and all the new technologies from the G Pro 2: a 4K video camera with optical image stabilization, and for the G3, Knock Code to unlock, the "selfie flash," and the richer camera app. The software in the Nexus 6 will be dependent on the next version of Android, which we really haven't heard much about yet.
New HTC One (M8)
I hate code names. I like real product names. So I'm calling the "HTC M8" (that's now popping up all over the Web) by the sale name most people are using, the New HTC One. Arriving on March 25, the New HTC One is an upgraded, but not radically reinvented version of the existing HTC One phone, with a continued focus on audio, video, and the camera.
What's in the upgrade? Recent rumors have suggested a 5.2-inch screen, dual rear cameras, on-screen rather than silkscreened buttons, a simplified camera app, a microSD card slot, and a body that looks very much like last year's award-winning but not sales-shattering model. Inside, it's rumored to have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a large 2,900mAh battery. How about the fingerprint reader from the HTC One Max? That might appear as well. The software is now HTC's Sense 6.0 overlay, running over Android 4.4 KitKat.
Samsung Galaxy S5
Mobile World Congress finally gave us the Samsung Galaxy S5, coming to every major U.S. carrier plus Virgin and Boost. It looks a lot like the S4, frankly, although its plastic back is now textured, but it's chock full of new features: a faster 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, a fingerprint reader, a heart-rate monitor, a super-fast 16-megapixel camera, and a screen that adapts more sensitively to ambient light.
The Galaxy S5 will appear everywhere between April and June. Really, you won't be able to miss it.
Samsung W750 "Huron"
With Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.1 announcement coming up in early April, what phones will carry the banner for the new OS? We've heard precious little about what might be coming from Nokia to U.S. carriers. The best option we've heard about is the upcoming Samsung W750 "Huron," which sounds like a Windows Phone based on the Samsung Galaxy S4 hardware platform. That will make it an interesting alternative to our Editors' Choice Nokia Lumia Icon on Verizon, and another high-end option for a Windows Phone community that often seems starved of them.
Yotaphone
This year's Yotaphone isn't coming to the U.S., but next year's model is, and it looks like a whopper. The new smartphone now packs a 5-inch 1080p AMOLED display and 4.7-inch 960-by-540 E-Ink display around back. Instead of a small capacitive strip on the rear, the new YotaPhone's second screen is fully capacitive touch enabled. That means you can interact with the E-Ink display for tasks like Web browsing or replying to text messages. It's a big evolution in the dual-screen concept.
The phone itself is no slouch, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and Android 4.4 KitKat. Supported apps can throw images and information onto the E-Ink display, letting you access your important information without having to use the power-hungry backlit display. This is coming in early 2015, and I really hope it isn't vaporware.
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