Tech Haven Smartphone Awards 2018

After a year of really interesting smartphones lets see which ones make the top of the list in certain categories.

Photo Credit : t3.com

There were tons of good smartphones this year. It was quite a tough challenge in picking our winner for the various categories, but after careful research and testing we came out with nine smartphone categories that the awards will be based on

1. Budget

2. Design

3. Performance

4. Camera

5. Innovation

6. Battery

7. Luxury

8. Gaming capabilities and advantages

9. Overall Best for 2018

Now I must clearly state that I tried to be as objective as possible but if anyone feels that something could be better, do make it known in the comments section.

FULL AWARDS VIDEO BELOW

BUDGET

The budget phone for the year was based the on the qualities that a phone posses or gives the best performance in the various pillars of a good smartphone while being at a very low price point.

The nominees were

Nokia 7

Now all phones stated are well below the $500 price tag making very fit for this category. The Nokia 7 runs at a starting price of $400. It rocks a Snapdragon 630 processor which should be okay for not-so-heavy users with the Android one software, a quite okay camera, and an impressive battery life. The next in line was the Pocophone F1. This phone rocks a flagship level snapdragon 845 processor(which guarantees great performance), a well above average camera which was proven by MKBHD in his blind test camera comparison and beat almost all the greatest flagships of 2018 and 2017 and met its master, the Huawei Mate 20 pro at the final round and totally lost out on it. Battery life is also great with its 4000mAH battery. Finally, we have the Honor 10. It rocks the Kirin 970 octa-core CPU with a gorgeous design and an equally impressive battery life.

The winner is definitely the Pocofone F1 from Xiaomi. This might not be a surprise to many people, but the Pocophone’s price to performance ratio scares the hell out of me. The Snapdragon 845 is a chipset used in most of 2018’s big-name flagships like the Note 9 the OnePlus 6t and the Galaxy s9, but it comes at a very low price point as compared to the others, $300. Also, the camera also surprised many during the MKBHD’s Blind Smartphone Camera test for 2018, coming out in second place. This price point came with some compromises like the lack of modern design language and NFC support. This might be a deal breaker for some, but at this price point, it definitely takes the winner's trophy.

Winner: Pocophone F1

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PERFORMANCE

The performance of the phone is a very key aspect of the phone entire upkeep. This year, the processors released have been very snappy and almost lag free. The nominees for this category are

• Huawei Mate 20 Pro

• OnePlus 6T

• Galaxy Note 9

• iPhone 10s Max

The A12 bionic chip that runs on the iPhone 10s, 10s Max and the XR have proven to be if not the best, one of the best in the world today. The fully optimized software and hardware integrated also makes the phone perform at its peak.

The OnePlus 6T rocks the Snapdragon 845 chipset that is used in most of the 2018 android flagships. It has proven to be one of the fastest Android devices even beating Google pixel’s stock android flagship. The Oneplus has indeed been built for speed

The Galaxy Note 9 is also Samsung's powerhouse for 2018. It also the packs the Snapdragon 845/Exynos 9810 chipset and comes with a 6/8 GB ram. This year the Snapdragon variant seems to come out better than the Exynos chip. (links to some tests 1, 2, 3).

The Huawei Mate 20 pro comes with the Kirin 980 chipset ( the worlds first 7nm chipset for smartphones). It is also one of the powerhouses of 2018.

The Winner is the Huawei Mate 20 pro. The Kirin 980 chipset has proven to be the beast among the smartphones of 2018. Links to the various test are below

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-JJ9GjjJXA

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIZXk2uTHNw

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhDhH6dE2yQ

In one other test by Phonebuff the iPhone Xs max beat the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, but in the majority of the tests I watched, the Huawei beat the iPhone. So it is safe to say the Huawei is the king of speed this year.

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DESIGN

An award like the best smartphone design would be very subjective to everyone. Aesthetics appeal to everyone differently and so to make things fair we made a voting poll, so the public can choose stating clearly that they should choose the phone that appeals most whether they like the brand or not. We had interesting results. The nominees are

• Oppo Find X

• iPhone 10s Max

• Huawei Mate 20 Pro

The iPhone 10s max had the Apple design language embedded in itself with its minimal bezels, notch and built with premium materials. It not much different from the iPhone X from 2018 but the gold variant adds a deluxe touch to it.

The Oppo find X has a unique design language and mechanisms that work throughout the phone. It had an almost 100% bezel-less screen with no notch, and its selfie cam is hidden and comes out via a small motor hidden behind the screen.

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro also has a different design language that seems to appeal to a lot. One of the design models has a gradient color back that looks impressively cool. The triple camera setup a has been arranged in a square together with the flash which makes it as symmetrical as possible. The front, however, has the usual 2018 notch-like design with an OLED panel.

The Oppo find X came out as the winner from our poll. Out of 100%, the Oppo Find x got a whopping 64 with the iPhone Xs Max coming out with 21 and the Huawei coming out last with 15 percent. The conclusion from the result shows that the bezel-less display seems to catch a lot of people’s eyes.

Winner : Oppo Find X

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Luxury

Now this award was to balance the budget award category. Come to think of it, some people buy certain smartphones because of its low pricing, while some others buy certain phones because of the luxury name it has on it. Now all the categories were based on phones are being sold to the general public, not special ones you can get only by order. Addressing that, if we were to add the special, limited edition categories the winner would be the Caviar Edition iPhone 10s. Link to the unboxing and looks in linked here.

But the nominees for the Luxury Phone for the year are

1. OnePlus 6t McLaren Edition

2. iPhone 10s Max

3. Samsung Galaxy Note 9

The Oneplus 6t McLaren edition was the Oneplus’s luxury version of the original flagship. It came with just a few differences in Ram with the McLaren Edition coming with a 10 GB RAM which will not make any real difference in real life use with its regular 6t coming in with 6/8gb of ram. Also it comes a wrap charging feature which enables the phone to charge from 0 to 50% in 20 minutes. The design is also another difference that you will see f yourself in the picture below. The last thing is the Price. And the Luxury model comes with just a 70 dollar increment at a price compared to its original flagship.

The iPhone 10s Max is just here by being the “Apple brand.”

The galaxy note 9 is also a powerhouse that I think has some luxury to it. It comes with all the decent specs and a pen which makes it in the business class kind of luxury

The winner is the iPhone Xs Max; Apple has been able to build their brand so well that, in a lot of places having an apple device/smartphone is a must especially if you’re a star. Talking about stars, through social media you’ll realize that a lot of celebrities use apple phone giving it that luxury edge. It is quite unarguable that Apple wins this category.

GAMING

The gaming category was one of the most difficult to settle on a winner since all the phones came with similar specs with just differences in how they use them. The few differences were the in the cooling systems of the devices, the design, and the accessories they come with or support. The nominees for this category are

1. The Razor Phone 2

2. Xiaomi Black Shark Helo

3. The Asus ROG phone

The Razor Phone has a 5.72-inch display with screen refresh rate up to a whopping 120hz which gives very smooth animations. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and Adreno 630 GPU with 8gb of system memory. Its camera is a dual setup at the back with a 12 MP wide-angle shooter and another 12 MP telephoto lens together with an 8mp front-facing camera. It comes with a 4000mAh battery and front facing stereo speakers that are one if the best of 2018. It ships with Android 8.1 and is rated with IP67 water resistance. Its cooling system is a Vapor chamber cooling system to help with the performance/throttling. Its design is simple but quite sleek especially at on the back

The Xiaomi Black Shark Helo is also another cool gaming phone with a 6.01-inch display with a 1020p by 2160p resolution panel. It also uses a Snapdragon 845 processor with 10GB RAM which means it runs on an Adreno 630 GPU. It has 12MP and a 20MP back camera and a 20MP selfie camera. It packs a 400mAh battery and a stunning design.

The Asus ROG h has 6 inch AMOLED display with corning gorilla glass for protection. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with Adreno 630 and 8gb of RAM. It has a dual lens setup on the front with a 12MP and an 8MP wide-angle lens to support. It also has an 8mp front-facing camera. It packs a 4000mAh battery with front-facing speakers for the boost in sound. It also has a vapor cooling system.

The real difference between these three phones apart from design is their gaming accessories and gaming adaptations. The Razor phone comes with a 120-hertz display to make the animation transitions smooth. It also has a great battery life to help with some hours of gaming.

The Xiaomi black shark comes with a “gaming rig,” i.e. a gaming pad for extra manipulation during gaming to help with the gaming experience. It also comes with a dedicated button called the shark button that is supposed to boost performance during gaming.

The Asus ROG comes with a lot of accessories to help with the gaming experience. It also has an “X mode to boost the speed during gaming sessions by clocking the CPU and GPU speeds for extra performance. It also has pressure sensitive sides that mimic the L1 and L2 buttons during gaming. The ROG also comes with an external cooling system that helps with cooling the CPU during gaming to maintain its high performance.

With all this said, the Asus ROG phones gets the slight edge over the others purely because of the accessories it comes with and its better cooling system.

Winner: Asus ROG

Asus Rog - Credit : androidcentral

Innovation

As the years go by, smartphone manufacturers are finding very clever ways to pack fan-loved features into a phone without compromising. Even though we are years from a perfect smartphone, some features of these innovative phones might be used to make the “perfect one.”

The nominees were chosen based on their uniqueness to other phones. They are

1. The Nubia X

2. Oppo Find X

3. The Red Hydrogen One

The Nubia is one unique phone. It has a dual screen, one on the front as the usual and one on the back. Now the is no usual selfie camera on the front so the back’s OLED panel will serve as a screen for the selfie while using the back camera. These are all as a result of the “ideal bezeless smartphone” craze. Even though it is not perfected yet, it is very functional and innovative.

The Oppo find X is also another phone that has introduced the bezel-less design language with some “extreme” engineering. Full frontal bezel-less display with a with the selfie camera hidden in the phone. When the camera app is needed, it uses a motorized mechanism to push the camera from the top. The back also has a unique design language to it.

The Red Hydrogen is Red’s first look into the smartphone industry. Even though it has received a lot of criticisms, it is worth mentioning that it is a unique phone in many ways. It has a very robust design with rough edges throughout the phone: a large camera extrusion and a supposedly 3d screen display.

The winner is the Nubia X. The Nubia X comes with dual screens( OLED and LCD) with one on the back and another on the front. This innovation is all due to the craze for bezel-less smartphones. The bezel-less front does not make space for the front-facing camera since the since the notch, and the motorized option is also trying to be avoided. So to take a selfie, you need to activate the rear screen to use the rear camera to take the selfie. The front screen panel is a 6.26 inch while the back panel is a 1520p by 720p OLED screen that can be activated by squeezing pressure sensitive sides of the phone. This is the first phone in 2018 to come up with this technology. The motorized camera has been modified by many other companies. This makes the Nubia unique among its competitors in this category. And for the Red Hydrogen, it failed in a lot of aspects of a good smartphone so it cannot be awarded.

BATTERY

Who doesn’t want a full day of battery life with some reserve power to end the day? Even though smartphones are better the battery longevity, some seem to improve at the rate at which the other aspects like camera and displays are increasing. However, some manufacturers make it a priority to make their battery as long-lasting as possible. Here are the nominees for the best smartphone battery award.

1. iPhone 10s Max

2. Samsung Galaxy Note 9

3. Huawei Mate 20 Pro

The iPhone 10s Max comes with a non-removable 3174 mAh Li-Ion battery,

The Huawei comes in with a 4200mAH battery

And the Samsung comes with a 4000mAH battery

Looking at the specs sheet alone the Huawei Mate 20 pro comes out as the best smartphone battery, and it is. Don’t get me wrong, the specs sheet doesn’t always show the actual performance of the phone, but sometimes it does. This might not come as a shock to may, but Huawei has on several occasion showed that they could pack a great battery into a very powerful phone. The Huawei Mate 20 pro always ends up with a 20% or more at the end of a full day’s usage which is out of the competition when comparing it to the other popular flagships of 2018.

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro takes the crown here.