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Bah humbug. It's Andrew's Phones of the Year

'Tis not the season to be Jolla

Flagship of the Year: No Award

Samsung made much better high end phones in 2015 than it did in 2014, with three (not counting the Note) worthy flagship contenders.

The Galaxy S6 I reviewed in April had a much cleaner interface, and a knock out camera. But it came with a price increase over last year's Galaxy S5. And the stunning, but useless curved glass display models (the Edge and Edge+) commanded an even pricier premium. Samsung here misread the market. By the end of the year Samsung Electronics replaced its mobile supremo in yet another reshuffle.

Sony had flooded the market in 2014, but licked its wounds, and ended the year strongly. It introduced (no review yet) new Z5 models that offer solid imaging, the now traditional waterproofing, super tasteful design.

"We will never sell or exit from the current mobile business," vowed company president Hiroki Totoki in July - the kind of ringing vote of confidence a football manager gets from Roman Abramovitch.

Hardest hit by choosing Qualcomm's mitten-warming silicon was HTC, which with the HTC One M8 had made many reviewers' favourite phone of the year in 2014. It successor, the M9, barely lasted into the afternoon. It was the third iteration of the same design, and the camera was dire. The fickle kids who'd sang HTC's praises in 2014 cued up to jeer in 2015.

LG had a strong contender last year in the G3, but I found the G4's battery performance underwhelming, despite LG's choice of the less power hungry 808 chip, and the lack of a fingerprint sensor inexcusable in a £560 device.

I'd advise anyone thinking about spunking £600 on a smartphone to think again. So no flagship gets an award. If you really, really want a top brand, the Sony looks like the best deal.

Or if you want something just as good as a top-brand flagship, but nicer, I'd love to recommend the Huawei Mate S. It's definitely the nicest non-Tier One phone I used all year, by anyone. You need to line it up alongside an iPhone 6 Plus to appreciate what's going on here. The Huawei has the same sized screen, but the phone is much more comfortable to hold, and has narrower bezels. If you asked a visiting Martian which one was the newer, more technologically advanced device, they'd say the Huawei, not the Apple. The fruit company hasn't figured out how to make thin bezels, they'd bleep. Stunning screen, excellent performance, superb camera, in a much handier package. However the price (at £469) is a tad high, given the bargains on offer in the mid-range.

Hands on here - but note that the Mate S is not the phone the lady is holding in the teaser picture.

Best Value Phone of the Year: Honor 7

Nothing exemplified the shifting market better than the Honor 7, made by Huawei. (Review ) You can get cheaper "Shenzhen Generics", but nothing beats the value of this particular Android, which is well made and actually packed with useful stuff. A superb fingerprint sensor, long lasting battery, reasonably useful privacy and maintenance options, and solid radio performance mean this chunky midranger hits all the right spots.

Getting one in the UK - as opposed to China, where Honor/Huawei sells millions - isn't easy, and beware of grey channel Amazon imports. And Honor (a pseudo-startup under the vast Huawei umbrella) is learning as it goes along.

Most Useful Hardware Innovation: Motorola's Shattershield

Motorola X Force shatterproof display

It might not look like much, but that's part of the attraction. Lenovo-owned Motorola deserves a Prize just for one thing: making a phone with a screen that's very hard to smash. The X Force (or "Droid Turbo" in the USA) isn't a "ruggedised" phone, Moto stresses, because it doesn't want people going scuba diving with one. But it's almost as good as, thanks to the shatterproof display. The aluminium rim might take a few dents, but the screen shouldn't shatter, unless you've put a bullet through it at close range. Unlike other outdoors models, a) you can actually buy one b) it's got top end specs and c) you won't resent the design - which is solid but not at all obtrusively chunky.

Most Useful Software Innovation: Priv by BlackBerry

The "Priv by BlackBerry" (as the manufacturer wants you to call it) isn't a perfect first-device, we found. It's a bit quiet, the radio is a bit iffy, and the grill over the chin attracts dust like no other phone. But it works well, and the warm reception the Priv has received is appreciation for a few of things being attempted, things that nobody else seems to care about.

One is a rich software stack - again beta-ish and the cause of overheating while the bugs are ironed out. It's got a decent email client that captures other notifications, so you can find and act on them, rather them seeing them roll off the concertina notifications pull-down. Another is the secure kernel.

But the biggest deal is the commitment to patch the system regularly. Design aficionados might savour the curved glass slider. Tech bloggers the high res screen. But all this is pales into insignificance next to BlackBerry's simple promise to try to keep the system reasonably up to date. Google does it with Nexus devices, but BlackBerry is trying to do it too. And in the world of Android that's quite a big deal. Hopefully it will shame the rivals into making similar security pledges: it's astonishing they've been allowed to get away with it. ®

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