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You want to know which is the best smartphone this season? Tbh, it's tricky to tell 'em apart

Calls? Check. Texts? Check. Internet? Check. Notch? Mostly. Camera? Check

Wrapping up

In summary, all the flagships have their good points.

Huawei grabbed the attention for its 5x lossless zoom and the "long exposure" night-time shots which captured an immense amount of detail. But I, for one, hope the industry doesn't chase them down this road. Most of those long-exposure shots were overexposed. In fact, most low-light shots with this year's phones are simply flooded with light, and way too much noise to be used as anything other than a social media thumbnail. All that light destroys the atmosphere you're trying to capture.

The Huawei P20 Pro consistently took outstanding outdoor landscape shots, all in a decent package: the best call quality on the market, in a strongly built chassis that, thanks to large battery, keeps on chugging.

OnePlus 6 in midnight black

We caught the Oneplus 6 'trying to carve out a new niche' without having much by way of uniqueness

I thought OnePlus produced its best phone ever with the 6, in a most understated package, offering much of the value of a high-quality "Shenzen generic", but without the sticky heavy-handed skin of a Huawei. Long-term champions of the BKK brand have started to get bored with it, but I think that's missing the point.

Despite few changes this year other than the new variable aperture imaging unit, the Galaxy S9 (and its taller sibling the S9+) remains the strongest alternative to Apple, with its own stubbornly useful apps and a strong aftermarket of support and accessories backing it up.

Yes, even the seeingly doomed HTC U12+, which I rate as consistently the best camera after the Google Pixel 2, has its merits. Not only does the imaging consistency match and sometimes surpass the more expensive Google alternative, it offers expandable memory, a squeeze you can actually customise, and feels snappier than the stately Pixel, which is suffering under an AI-bloated UI. What a shame about the U12+ "buttons" – they'll deter all but the most loyal.

Last year HTC's U11 was the cheeky contender to Samsung, the un-fancied outsider making a great return to form. Does anything fit that bill this year?

LG G7 ThinkQ full range

LG's G7 ThinkQ is a great phone, but watch out for more petulant AI

If anyone does, it's LG with its horribly named G7 ThinkQ. And that isn't just because it got to sing last at Eurovision, although it did. With such a generic and unassuming looking design, I didn't expect to like it, but it packs in all you need into a svelte package that even after a week surprised me with how nifty it was. And for catering to the audiophile – and retaining the audio jack – I have to give the cheeky third place to Samsung's biggest rival.

I fear next year there will be no bendable phones – who wants to bend the thing? – and the marketing departments will double down on "AI" before giving up altogether. ®

Bootnote

For the £400 price point, the gaudy Honor 10 emerged as the best-value package – despite a lack of removable storage – and for the £150 to £200 bracket, Motorola has cemented its position as a stylish, good value champ with a minimal skin that Google needs to copy.

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