The Year's Best Smartphone: A Review of 2017's Top Devices

As we approach the end of the year, it's time to reflect on the best smartphones that came out in 2017. The past 365 days have seen an explosion of innovative devices, each with its unique features and design elements. In this article, we'll take a closer look at some of the standout phones from 2017 and crown the ultimate winner.

For HTC, 2017 was a bit of a mixed bag. Their year kind of started off on the wrong foot, but then they managed to pull out all the stops with their latest flagship device. The see-through back design that they introduced in previous years finally made it onto their latest model, and it's looking really cool. However, it seems that HTC was still struggling to find its footing in terms of sales and market share.

One thing that did seem to be working for HTC was the reception of their mid-range device, the One. This phone had a lot going for it, including a sleek design, great performance, and impressive camera capabilities. However, it seems that it didn't quite have the same level of recognition as some of the other phones on the market.

Moving on to other manufacturers, 2017 was shaping up to be a big year for smartphone innovation. The Pixel 2 XL, in particular, seemed to be generating a lot of buzz with its stunning camera capabilities and sleek design. However, the phone's lack of a headphone jack was a major drawback for some users.

Another notable device from 2017 was the LG V30. This phone had a lot going for it, including a beautiful OLED display, impressive camera capabilities, and a unique modular design. Unfortunately, it seems that the LG V30 flew under the radar and didn't receive as much attention as some of the other phones on the market.

The OnePlus 5T was another device that managed to make waves in the smartphone market. With its sleek design, great performance, and impressive camera capabilities, this phone was a real contender for top honors. However, it seems that it may have been priced too high for some users, which might have limited its appeal.

One of the biggest surprises from 2017 was the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. This phone had a lot going for it, including a stunning display, impressive camera capabilities, and long battery life. Unfortunately, it seems that the Mate 10 Pro flew under the radar and didn't receive as much attention as some of the other phones on the market.

Then there was the iPhone 10, which marked a major turning point in Apple's design philosophy. Gone were the days of chunky bezels and outdated designs; instead, the iPhone 10 boasted a sleek and modern look that set a new standard for smartphones. The phone's lack of affordable pricing options might have been a drawback for some users, but overall, it seemed like a major step forward for Apple.

But what about the Samsung Galaxy Note 8? This phone was, without a doubt, the most complete smartphone of the year. With its stunning display, impressive camera capabilities, and long battery life, this phone had everything that you could want from a smartphone. However, it seems that Samsung's decision to move the fingerprint reader down the bottom of the phone might have been a bit of a design misstep.

Despite this minor quibble, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was the clear winner for our "Best Smartphone of 2017" award. This phone had everything that you could want from a smartphone, and it seemed like a major step forward in terms of design, performance, and features. Whether or not its $1000 price tag is justified will be up to individual users to decide.

Of course, there were plenty of other great smartphones on the market in 2017, so we also have some runner-ups to discuss. Our first runner-up was the Pixel 2 XL, which had a lot going for it despite being a bit pricey. With its stunning display, impressive camera capabilities, and fast software updates, this phone seemed like a major contender for top honors.

Finally, our honorable mention goes to the iPhone 10, which marked a major turning point in Apple's design philosophy. While it might have been a bit pricey, this phone seemed like a major step forward for Apple, and its sleek design set a new standard for smartphones.

As we close out the year, it's clear that 2017 was a major year for smartphone innovation. With so many great devices on the market, it's hard to say which one came out on top. But in our opinion, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is the clear winner – it had everything that you could want from a smartphone, and its design seemed like a major step forward.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what is up guys mkbhd here and welcome to the smartphone awards 2017. so the way we do it here i mean there were a lot of phones released over the course of this year from different manufacturers in different styles in different price ranges with different features all kinds of stuff like that so this show is the best way to figure out the best of the best of what's come out in the last 12 months so the way we do it here is i'm going to declare in each category a winner and then also if there are some other good ones i can declare a second place sort of a runner-up which is also really good in that category and then maybe some honorable mentions every single phone on this desk was released during 2017 that's actually that hasn't always been true about this show but that's true this year you can check me on that so there's a lot to choose from so uh let's get started so category number one is best big phone so phones keep getting bigger every year there's almost no way around that even with the shrinking bezels and i'm a big phone person not gonna lie there's a regular version and a plus version of a phone i'm taking the plus i'm taking the xl or the bigger one and so these are gonna be the best phones that take the most advantage of having a large amount of space so big display big battery big features etc and the winner for that category for 2017 is going to be the samsung galaxy note 8. the note 8 does it all and it's been a kind of a staple big phone for a while in their lineup the biggest reason i usually want a big phone is for a big screen note 8 has that it's the best display on any phone it has a pretty big battery it has big optically stabilized dual cameras it has a big stylus for those who are into that big specs and of course big software features to take advantage of being such a large phone i still remember when the first galaxy note came out like the first two were such a staple in like the tech on youtube community because that was like the phone that had everything you would take that phone to ces because it had the longest battery life and a replaceable battery this is still that slight step above galaxy s8 in their lineup it kind of always will be that way and holds a special place in my heart for that reason but there is a runner-up and that came from actually a pretty new player in the space i mean it's as new as you can get they exist in the space for the first time this year and they happen to do a really good job of taking advantage of so much space in a phone and that's the razer phone the razer phone is an awesome use of being big in a world of these super thin bezels this phone is bigger than normal and shamelessly so it keeps the huge bezels and inside them it fits these huge speakers which are pretty much best in class and it also happens to have a huge 4000 milliamp hour battery it doesn't have quite as many you know big screen features as say a samsung phone it doesn't have as much split screen multitasking fun it doesn't have a stylus and all that stuff but it's just a good use of space in the hardware department for being such a big phone i really like it so the next category is best compact phone and this is a rare breed not gonna lie like the compact flagship smartphone is much less popular just because phones are still getting that much bigger so the definition of a compact phone has changed in size especially but for me the definition is still going to be one that keeps as many flagship features as possible in a small package and so for that reason the winner of this category is iphone 8 iphone 8 is a legit flagship to a lot of people it has all the highest end specs and almost every single feature of the iphone 8 plus except for the dual cameras and it's in the smallest package so it's easily the most compact if you're a small hands person you want the lightest smallest device possible iphone 8 is going to do that for you it kind of got overshadowed by the slightly bigger iphone 10 and even bigger iphone 8 plus but if you're looking for obviously a great camera a pretty solid ips display if you're still into the fingerprint reader on the front touch id is still extremely fast i mean this thing is complete so that's getting the best compact smartphone but if you're looking for a runner up in that category i think it's a no-brainer to give that to a slightly bigger phone but still one that keeps all the flagship features of its big brother and that would be the pixel 2. if your biggest complaint is that you don't get the better camera of the iphone 8 plus on the iphone 8 pixel 2 has the exact same camera as pixel 2 xl it's a little bit boxier and has a little bit bigger bezels but you still get front-facing speakers you still get a great display and you still get all the same specs and features as you do on the bigger phone so this is another smaller version of a phone that does all the same things as its bigger brother it might even have a better screen than the xl also another honorable mention shout out to the galaxy s8 for being by far the best designed compact phone the s8 plus is its bigger brother but you still get the infinity display and of course all the same specs as the s8 plus in this smaller phone so again if you're into smaller phones all the features of the bigger brother will come from those so the next category is best camera this was a good one this year obviously everyone here on this desk has a camera on the back and most people take most of the photos in their life with their smartphone camera and the winner for this year this category actually took such good photos and videos that it spoiled me to the point where i didn't want to use some other phones this year because the cameras just didn't stack up it was that good they've always been good but this year was particularly great the winner for best camera in a smartphone is google pixel 2. this was a pretty easy one for me the photos and videos from this guy but particularly the photos are ridiculous from pixel 2 and pixel 2 xl awesome detail dynamic range sharpness fast focus image stabilization low light performance it's pretty much great at everything and it's just super easy to use and on top of all that the portrait mode is incredible with one camera so again it does the same thing in the pixel 2 and 2 xl i'm going to link all the reviews of all the phones i talk about in the description below that like button so if you want to see all the sample photos and hear me rave in detail about each one then you can check that out but for now just know that pixel 2 takes the best photos you can get on a smartphone my runner-up is one that i think actually does better video just because 240 frames per second slow motion high quality 1080p video is severely underrated and that comes from the dual optically image stabilized camera wielding iphone x not a lot of cameras are capable of what this thing is in the video department and it fits in your pocket which is awesome but i think most importantly despite its exposure problems iphone 10 photos have the best colors like if i could combine the pixel 2's image processing and dynamic range and portrait mode and sharpness and detail and all that with the iphone's colors i totally would so the next one is best budget phone so this is going to be the one that gives you the most smartphone for the least amount of money that's what it's all about you can ask people everyone has a different definition of budget if you say what's the best cheap phone cheap means something different to everyone but either way you look at it this winner has the best smartphone bang for the buck the most phone for the least money and that one is the oneplus 5t that's because for the price this thing really is a flagship from the design the all-metal build the thin bezels the dual cameras the high-end specs eight gigs of ram uh it's not skimping anywhere it even keeps the headphone jack but in a year where we've seen phones costing seven eight nine hundred even a thousand bucks the oneplus 5t does almost everything they all do and it starts at 499 bucks that is serious bang for the buck and that's why it wins the award this year now a lot of people might be thinking wait a second 500 bucks isn't quite what i would consider budget and i agree again cheap is different for everyone so i'll give my runner-up to moto g5 plus which is still the best phone you could get under 300 bucks in fact it's probably closer to 200 bucks now we reviewed it so long ago earlier this year but it's still the best bang for the buck under that price range and also give an honorable mention to huawei honor 7x all these phones are doing great things for the money and i'll repeat what i have said before good phones are getting cheap well not so much we still get thousand dollar flagships but cheap phones are getting really good so the next category is best battery life this one's pretty simple right we just look for the ones that have the longest lasting battery that will last an entire day us heavy users look for long screen on time and we look for being able to take it off the charger early in the morning and not touch it again until late that night with no issues and the winner for that category has been the razer phone so another award for the newcomer in 2017 razer phone made a great use of that space that big chassis and that huge inside they put a 4 000 milliamp hour battery in here and it showed it lasts a really long time they built this phone around gaming so a lot of their decisions were around gaming eight gigs of ram because it'll make gaming better big speakers because it'll make gaming better huge battery because gaming is really battery intensive but a lot of those things just make a better phone so if you're not gaming all the time razer phones still has a huge battery which means it lasts almost forever so that's why i won the award this year i'll leave the full review link below if you want to check that out but i'll also give some runner-ups or sort of an honorable mention to two phones that lasted a really long time one is pixel 2 xl the oled display stock android and huge battery did great for it lasted all day for me pretty much every time and also my iphone 8 plus is still the king of standby time it's a huge battery and a smaller display because of those big old bezels but that just means it lasts you all day and if you use an iphone you kind of know already this thing is really good so this next category is my design award and this is one that's actually kind of evolved over the years because it used to just be the one that had the craziest design it used to be the best built phone this year in 2017 it's going to be the one that i think has the best combo of design and build and that's going to go to another newcomer for this year and it's the essential phone this was one of my favorite and most polarizing phones of the year i really couldn't recommend it because when it first came out it fell short and a couple other categories like the camera and battery life for the price they were trying to charge but now that they've dropped the price so much i really think this is one of the best looking phones to come out and it's worth the price again it's a ceramic back titanium sides and there's all different ways to handle super thin bezels but this notch really drew on me and when you actually look back at using the phone i got used to it really quick i liked it a lot and i think overall this one's the design award so now that i've ruffled your feathers with the notch i do have some runner ups also and i'm gonna give that to the iphone 10 again for getting rid of the home button the iphone had huge forehead and chin bezels for so long that even if there is a notch i again got used to it really quickly and i think getting rid of the home button was a major step for it so that gets the runner-up award and i'll also give it to galaxy s8 and s8 plus the super clean design from the review you've already seen but the overhanging glass on each side it's not everybody's favorite because of the curved edges and some potential accidental screen touches but i think it's super clean and it's hard to argue with just how good it looks being this this glass sandwich and this super sleek design so that's my design award so this next award is for the biggest bust of the year there's a bust every year i hate giving out this award because you want to be positive and you want to focus on the best of the best because there's so much good but some just stick out like a sore thumb and and just are not a good use of space for some particular reason so the bust of the year for 2017 as you probably saw coming is the htc u ultra yeah no this this one takes the cake worst phone of the year for 2017 just not a lot good to say about this one i don't want to spend a ton of time on it if you watch the review on it or if you've seen the title you know exactly how i feel so i don't want to spend a ton of time on that but if we move on quickly to the next award to chill out the htc elevate comments section uh this is the biggest comeback of the year it's the most improved player it's just sometimes you have to fall down hard to take your next biggest step up and i think that's exactly what htc did this year because then htc u11 came out and it turned out to be great yeah this thing had a lot more going for it it has obviously the sweet color changing back which i'm a big fan of but just generally was a really good phone had a much better camera it didn't add a headphone jack but it had speakers had a really nice display and a nice software experience from htc and these phones would also introduce us to that squeeze feature with the pressure sensitive sides to launch something that we would later see in the pixel 2 and 2xl so that was really cool to see and then even later in this year htc came out with the htc u11 plus which i don't have because it never came to the us but that was an even more complete more impressive phone that thing had an even better camera it had an even better design with the see-through back that i think looked really cool so yeah htc's year kind of went something like that but then had a thing like that they kind of had come back player of the year written on their forehead from the beginning and so that brings us to the mvp the finale the best phone of the year to come out in 2017. and there i mean there can only be one but there were so many great phones that came out over the past 365 days you know pixel 2 had its highlights lg v30 probably the most underrated we had oneplus 5t doing big things for low prices even huawei mate 10 pro flying under the radar iphone 10 making waves so many big new phone names coming out razer phone essential phones stuff we didn't expect to see but there's only one mvp there's only one most complete phone of the year and my winner for that is the samsung galaxy note 8. this is actually the most complete smartphone that came out this year honestly the biggest problem i have with this design i know there's a lot of glass phones out right now is the placement of the fingerprint reader and that is a nitpick for a lot of people everything else about this it's waterproof it keeps the headphone jack it has a stylus it has a huge battery it has great software experience it has the best screen on any phone it has dual cameras both optically image stabilized it has big specs lots of ram fast processor loud cameras expandable storage did i mention this water resistant already i mean this thing is super complete it is expensive and i think a lot of people have trouble spending a thousand dollars on a phone but if you were to you would want it to be as complete as the note 8 so i actually don't have a problem with its price this probably could have also technically won comeback player of the year considering what happened to the galaxy note 7 which was bust of the year for exploding in everyone's pockets with the bezels this thin and the overall design it's kind of what a lot of people are looking up to again if samsung could move that fingerprint reader down a little bit i'd be really happy but galaxy note 8 is the mvp and have some runner ups too my first runner-up for mvp is gonna be the pixel 2 xl this phone again also has a lot going for it it has the best camera in any phone in my experience it has the best software and the fastest updates of course already to android 8.1 the fingerprint reader is in the right place it doesn't have the headphone jack but it has great front-facing speakers the display on the xl is probably the only one that really kept it holding back but this is the phone that i have used for the longest time this year that my sim card has been in as my daily driver for a couple of months i keep coming back to it so that's why i give the first runner up to the pixel 2. and then my honorable mention is going to go to iphone 10 just for finally shifting what it means to be an iphone because honestly being an iphone in my mind before this thing came out meant not having modern design and not having thin bezels on the top of the bottom and this changes that this has a modern design and thin bezels now it's also paved the way for a bunch of other thousand dollar phones to come out now that this is so damn expensive uh but i like that it's paved the way for future iphones to also be modern and clean and admirable in the design department the way they haven't been so that's a good start so that's it that's the best of what's come out this year in 2017 not a bad year if you ask me as far as what came out uh and whether you're a person that has you know a preference for low budget phones or if you like big phones or compact phones or if you need an all-day battery whatever you're into whatever you need from a smartphone you can probably get it and you'd be hard-pressed going wrong with something on this table right now smartphone cameras got so good that i just i'm more encouraged than ever to take photos with my pixel 2 the display has got so amazing galaxy note 8 looks like a freaking movie theater if you're looking at it in the dark like there's so many good things to focus on uh that it's just fun to look back at the stuff that came out over the year and that's part of why this series is so fun but yeah that's pretty much it if you got someone you know that's looking to buy a phone around this holiday season should probably send in this video but until then until the next one thank you for watching talk to you guys in the next one peace you\n"