With the sheer number of smartphones in the market spoiling consumers for choice and making it difficult to choose one, the best (and the least popular) picks among these for the summer have been narrowed down by us for leading mobile carriers AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. On each carrier, we have chosen one phone as the ‘top choice’, followed by a ‘budget pick’ and one which is to be ‘best avoided’.
For AT&T, the top phone picked is the iPhone 4S that comes as no surprise owing to its impressive camera, Retina display and booming app store that has led to its magificent sales. The iPhone is followed closely by the HTC One X, which is LTE-equipped unlike the former and boasts of a dual core processor, an impressive 4.7 inch display and runs on the latest Android 4.0 ICS OS. The budget phone is the one that comes for a reasonable price while having decent features, for which the Nokia Lumia 900, a Windows Phone device has been picked, while the one best avoided is the Samsung Focus S.
Verizon differs considerably from these, having the Samsung Galaxy S3 as its top pick, an upcoming Android phone that is impressively equipped with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 dual-processor, an 8MP camera, a 4.8 inch Super AMOLED HD display and running on the Android 4.0 ICS platform. Following close at it’s heels is the Galaxy Nexus that also offers ICS and a 1.2 GHz dual core processor with a smaller 4.65 inch display. The 8GB version of the iPhone 4 has been picked as the budget phone while the one best avoided is the Sony Xperia Play which proved to be a big disappointment. Verizon can also be said to have another category, one that is to be ‘waited for’ – the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE.
T-Mobile’s also has the Samsung Galaxy S III as the best pic, with HTC One S trailing close behind. Though HTC One S does not match up to the HTC One X in specifications, its performance is still impressive. T-Mobile’s Nokia Lumia 710 is its best budget phone, along with another phone, the HTC Amaze 4G. The one recommend as the ‘best avoided’ pick is the LG Doubleplay.
Finally, Sprint offers the HTC EVO 4G LTE as the best pick, which comes with HD voice support and LTE connectivity. The budget phone chosen is again the iPhone 4 8 GB model and the phone to stay away from is the BlackBerry Tour 9630.
