This will be a very busy year for the Android phones market, with lots of interesting smartphones already launched, but with still more to come. In the beginning of 2013 the biggest players of the Android smartphone market introduced their flagship devices in the January – March time frame. Anyway, there are still a lot of new smartphones to come and some of the ones launched last year are still one of the best on the market.
Last year, the Android segment was dominated by two Samsung releases, the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2, the first one becoming the best selling Android phone ever. LG’s Optimus G was also one of the best of 2012, but it’s delayed launch for the European market didn’t make it a successful device. In fact, the Optimus G was so interesting that Google chose it to underpin its Nexus 4 smartphone. The Mountain View-based giant teamed up with South Korean company and developed the first Nexus device manufactured by LG, which took up the slack from Samsung.
The month of January brought us the first Sony smartphone based on a quad-core processor. The Xperia Z debuted at CES 2013 and, according to analysts it’s already a successful device, with 4.6 million units sold since release.
The Mobile World Congress debuted on February 25, 2013 and we expected both HTC and LG to debut their flagships for 2013 during the Barcelona-based event. The Taiwan-based company surprised us with a special launching event a week ahead of WMC opening, where the HTC One saw the light of day. On the other hand, the LG Optimus G Pro was the star of the Mobile World Congress conference, with tens of journalists waiting in line at LG’s booth just to get their hands on the new phablet.
Samsung didn’t bring their high-end smartphone at neither of the two tech fairs. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was introduced mid March during an Unpacked event in New York.
Anyway, it’s not over yet for the Android phones, because at least for other powerful terminals are expected to debut this year: the Optimus G follow-up, unofficially dubbed LG Optimus G2, the next-gen Galaxy Note phablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Google’s Nexus 5, and the mysterious Motorola X Phone.
Let’s have a look at the best Android phones of 2013.
