User Guide

1. Samsung Galaxy S4
2. HTC One 


The most beautiful new phone Ive seen this year, the HTC One is a solid piece of aluminum with a next-generation processor and the densest, most colorful screen Ive ever seen. It has incredible low-light camera performance. It turns your photos into videos. It boots into something that looks like Flipboard. It runs hundreds of thousands of apps, and itll be available on several major U.S. carriers. This phone is HTCs best chance to wrest mindshare away from Samsung and Apple, and I think itll outshine the much-awaited Galaxy S4 in some ways.


3. BlackBerry Q10 



Ive left the BlackBerry Z10 off this list, because the Q10 is the BlackBerry that BlackBerry fans will really want. Almost nobodys serving the QWERTY-keyboard market any more, but the Q10 will deliver a beautiful hardware keyboard along with a 3.1-inch, 720-by-720 screen and the fast new BlackBerry 10 OS. If your killer app is tapping out messages all day, the BlackBerry Q10 will be your best friend in 2013. Itll probably come out in April or May on multiple carriers.


4. LG Optimus G Pro 


Ive been cold on phablets and 8-inch tablets because I dont like wide devices. But the 5.5-inch, 1080p-screen Optimus G Pro is 3 inches wide compared with the Samsung Galaxy Note IIs 3.2 inches, and for me that little change makes all the difference; this phone is significantly more comfortable to hold in one hand. The specs are epic, of course: a super-bright 1080p Super IPS LCD screen, a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, a 13-megapixel camera, and a removable 3140mAh battery. This phablet can also multitask three apps at once on the same screen. Im hoping itll come to Verizon Wireless.


5. LG Optimus F7 




This mid-to-high-end LG phone could be a real workhorse in any carriers lineup. The specs are quite respectable, with a smooth but well-crafted plastic body, a sharp 4.7-inch 720p IPS LCD screen, and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor—nothing out of place in todays midrange phones. But it has two things that set it apart: an unusually capacious 2540mAh battery and the QSlide multitasking ability. That battery is about the same size as the Motorola Droid RAZR HDs, and larger than most competitors. Long battery life plus multitasking could equal a great Android experience.


6. Sony Xperia ZL



We may not be getting the flagship Sony Xperia Z here in the U.S., but were getting the Xperia ZL. Its unusually small and slim for a phone with a 5-inch 1080p display, and it includes an IR blaster to control your home entertainment devices. Itll make a good alternative to the juggernaut Samsung Galaxy S4 for folks who like a more restrained aesthetic.


7. Yotaphone 




One of our favorite phones from CES is coming to the US by the end of the year. The Yotaphone is a well-designed Android phone with a 4.3-inch e-ink screen on the back. You can throw images onto the back screen to turn it into a custom case; you can also use it to show the time and date, weather, RSS feeds, or other useful information. This is genuinely useful rather than a gimmick, and its genuinely new, too.