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Top 5 Free Camera/Picture Apps

1. Pixlr Express (Android-Download)
This app is primarily made for editing pictures and it does it very well. Unlike most camera apps I downloaded, this one has a very simple layout that makes editing super simple and convenient. When I picked through the categories they branched off into more and more sub-options letting me use any feature and do almost anything I wanted. If I had to recommend my top number one favorite app for editing pictures this would definitely be my first choice.
2. Can Scanner (Android-Download)
 Not every app on this list is just for editing, Can Scanner for example works very well for creating PDF files. Its very easy to use and with just a few clicks I can create a very nice pdf file, I start by first taking a picture of any file, cropping it, and then the app uses software to quickly enchant it and help make it easier to read. It can also be used for pictures that have already been taken in the album.
3. FotoRus(Android-Download)
 Another camera app is FotoRus. It can do almost anything which can make it a bit confusing at times but two things I really liked when using it is how well it could make unique collages and how good it is for adding really creative special effects. It has a feature called InstaMag that can be used to make a cool recap of a trip or vacation or to edit a pictures lighting, add borders, or do anything else that a photo editer app should do.
4. Cymera (Android-Download)
 So from all the apps in this list so far I guess what is most unique here is that the camera can actually be used with the app, so you don't need to always be using pictures from your Album. This can be very nice because it adds many extra features to the camera while taking the pictures that you would otherwise not have. One example is the super 4 feature that lets you take 4 pictures, 1 second apart and then puts all together into one nice photo.
5. Funny Camera  (Android-Download)
 As the name suggests you can use this app to create some funny pictures that may really (probably not) confuse someone (did I confuse you?). Just open the app, click start, and there will be a list of about 70 pictures of random places all over the world. After picking one, you can find a white transparent area and insert your own picture of anything you want. As you can see here I took my cat thats from the app above and inserted a picture of it in an Art Museum.

What to Look for When Buying Smartphones

(published: 5/12/14)
When buying new smartphones people often just have no idea what to look for, there can just be SO many different things to consider and I want to make a article to outline just what I would suggest to look for.
Phone Size / Screen Size
Let's just jump right into this and began talking about the screen and phone size. I will split this into three main categories:
1. 3.6 in. to 4.5 in. A bit smaller sized phones, an example would be the Apple iPhone 5s with 4 in.
2. 4.6 in. to 5.5 in. Slightly larger and more averaged size, like the Samsung Galaxy S4 with 5 in.
3. 5.6 in. to 6.5 in. Reaching into phablet territory, example: Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with 5.7 in.
(Btw when saying inches I'm talking about screen size being measured diagonally from one corner of the screen to the other.)
The size of phone of course does not in fact depend entirely on just screen size and the rest of the phone real-estate on the front is usually referred to as the bezel, so that also needs to be considered. One example that I like to use is the iPhone 5 with a 4 in. display, next to a Motorola X with a 4.5 in. display. You can see here how the smaller bezel can keep the Moto X almost the same size as the iPhone 5 despite the screen size being an entire .5 inches larger on the Moto X.
For the purpose of simplicity I will stick to just talking about screen size and occasionally mention the bezels when they are needed. If you have chosen your category and are ready to get past you screen size when looking through smartphones you can move on to begin looking to other things.

The Operating System (or OS)
The next logical step would be to decide what OS you would want to use and I'll split the 4 most popular mobile operating systems in order of most to least popular.
1. Android: By far the most popular OS in the world, Android is owned and run by Google. If you love Google products and enjoy having an abundance of features like; widgets, Google now, and custom skins or want the most customizable OS then this might be a really great choice. Android also comes with a huge variety of phones by dozens of manufactures. You will also enjoy an insane amount of apps, in fact currently over 1 million!

2. Apple iOS: For many people who are heavily integrated into Apple's products and services, especially iTunes, this might be the best choice. Apple is much more simplistic and tries to show what a clean, smooth, and highly developed OS should look like. They currently focus only on smaller phones so if you want anything larger then 4 in. you might want to look else where, however a larger iPhone has been rumored. iOS also has a very mature App Store that likes to filter any apps that aren't of good quality.

3. Windows: Windows OS is still fairly new compared to the two above, but has gone a long way with some cool added features of their own. Just imagine having part of Windows 8 on a smartphone, another words; Xbox live, Microsoft office, Hotmail, Live Tiles, but a very limited amount of apps (although definitely growing) and not a great deal of customization. Although there are multiple manufactures that carry this OS, it has been mainly led by Nokia (Microsoft recently purchase the mobile division of Nokia).

4. Blackberry: A company that once ruled the mobile industry, today has been left with less than 2% of the global market share. Stuck with its old ways and QWERTY keyboards, Blackberry has been trailing behind for the last few years and has arrived late to the fight with Google and Apple. It still has a lot to offer and with a new CEO it seems to have a chance for a comeback. It boasts about having the best security and a great texting experience having an interesting keyboard interface for its new fully touch screen devices. 

Now after picking the perfect screen size and the perfect Operating system for yourself you can move on to the next big point of what to look for when buying you smartphone.

The Battery Life & General Specs
Specs. Now if you ever go and compare the specs of the Apple iPhone to a high-end Android smartphone you might just be shocked at the huge differences and you might think that something is seriously wrong for Apple to charge so much for such lower specs. In fact, it might give you a laugh to compare the Samsung Galaxy S2 released in 2011 to the iPhone 5s from late 2013. Seriously, click here to see. And it's not that I'm trying to bash on Apple, because if you've ever used the iPhone 5s you would still think it's a much better device then the Samsung Galaxy S2.
The reason Apple can use such specs and not have problems is because of how amazing Apple is with creating the perfect software for their devices. So obviously specs don't mean everything and I would suggest comparing specs of devices running the same operating system (so compare androids to android, and windows to windows). It's hard to give a list of specs to look for as is depends on the OS and they change very quickly every year. Also bigger phones tend to have better specs then smaller phones because they obviously have more space to fit all those high-end specs and a larger battery into.
But, if trying to buy a high-end phone I'd suggest looking for at least 2gb of ram, usually a quad-core 2 GHZ or higher, and probably a micro USB slot (depends on you).

Battery Life. So battery life varies from phone to phone and depends not just on the size of the battery but on how well the software is optimized to run on the smartphone as well as the hardware, such as the type of screen and how powerful the specs are. I'll spread this into the three screen sizes of what battery sizes I'd suggest to look for. So I'll be referring back to my chart up top of the three categories from Phone Size/Screen Size where I explained my three size:
1. (small phones) I'd suggest to look for at least a 1900+ mAh battery.
2. (medium phones) It's best to have at least a 2600+ mAh battery.
3. (large phones) And for phablets I'd look for a 3300+ mAh battery.
Usually Android drains batteries faster than iOS or windows phone and as I showed larger screens play a difference in how much energy the phone uses and the battery size.

Don't forget the Camera
So first thing is first, pixels AREN'T everything. Now this might be one of the greatest misconceptions but it doesn't mean more pixels aren't entirely pointless. So recently smartphone cameras seem to have hit a bit of a plateau with sensor size because it's hard to put a larger sensor without making the phone thicker, this is actually one of the biggest reasons a smartphone cameras can't ever be as good as a DSLR camera. However manufactures have continued to add more, and more, and even MORE pixels into cameras without almost increasing the sensor size at all.  Now I can wright and entire article about the camera. but here is what you need to know.
(If you don't want to get too technical skip this paragraph and skip to where I summarize this) I'll take the examples above on the picture and break it down explaining each piece briefly. So the aperture is what controls how much light gets into the camera and it's almost the same on all new smartphones (btw smaller aperture number is better). The pixel size is a combination of the sensor size and aperture basically divided by the amount of pixels and is referred to as the microns (bigger pixel size or a bigger micron is better). And then there is sensor size, and that's kind of how big the camera size is (larger is better). Finally a Megapixel is just 1 million pixels and you can think of it as 1000 X 1000. So an average screen size is 1080 X 1920 so theoretically a 2 megapixel picture (example: 2000 X 2000 = 2 million) can easily fill up a full HD 1080 p display. This is why the HTC One has "only" a four mega pixel camera instead of 13 or 16 megapixels in hopes of having bigger microns and better quality images. Since a 2 megapixel camera can fill up the entire screen, pixels come in handy mostly when zooming in or making a REALLY large poster of picture.
(the numbers in the picture above stand for the megapixels of the camera and show how big the pictures are) Just in case you didn't understand any of this I'll summarize it into the most the simplest way I can.
Sensor Size: Because phone cameras are small they are broken up into fractions, a bigger sensor is better. Example: 1/1.5" (Nokia Lumia 1020) is better than 1/3" (iPhone 5s).
Aperture: Aperture is how much light is blocked (and let in) so a larger aperture is worse. Example: f/2.2 (Nokia Lumia 1020) is better than f/2.4 (on the Moto X).
Pixel Size: Pixel size depends on how much pixels are shoved into a sensor and are referred to as microns so bigger is better. Example: 1.5 microns (iPhone 5s) is better than 1.12 microns (LG G2).
Stabilization: I didn't mention this earlier but always try to pick Optical over Digital image stabilization.
So when buying smartphones make sure at how much you use the camera, back or front, or what you use it for (like social media or selfies on Snapchat) because most websites and apps reduce the amount of pixels since more pixels mean more used storage.

Understanding When to Buy & Conclusion
Most companies like Apple and Samsung release a new flagship model every single year, but there are some companies like Sony that have started to release a flagship every 6 months. Take that into consideration, so if your looking to buy and iPhone and the previous one came out close to a year ago, then expect a new model to come out very soon and it would usually be best to wait.
In Conclusion if you don't know what to look for when buying a smartphone, look for your desired screen size, operating system, basic spec & battery, and the perfect camera to fit your needs and always feel free to look back to this article when you need help understanding and deciding any of the things mentioned. If you want to see some of my smartphone recommendations click here for some of my favorite normal sized smartphones and here for some of my favorite phablets of 2014!




Should I Be Streaming the Radio on my Android?

(published: 5/6/14)
So if you Googled this title just to find Apps to use for streaming the radio on your android, then I'll suggest iHeartRadio (Android-download IOS-download) or TuneIn Radio (Android-download IOS-download), however, you should stick around and read this article to learn better ways listen to your music or the radio.
So I'm going to wright about the different ways people can use a radio on their smartphone and the effect it has on your data and the battery of your phone.

The amount Americans spend on the radio.
In 2012, 90% of Americans listened to the radio at least once a week. And on average Americans spend about 14 hours listening to the radio every week. All I'm trying to say is how heavily we rely on it and that as the years pass people are starting to go to their smartphones and downloading apps like iHeartRadio, or maybe TuneIn Radio.
Effects on the data and battery of your phone.
Unless you are one of those lucky people with unlimited data (like me), then you probably have around 2 or 3 GB of mobile data you can use from your carrier every month. So if you listen to about an hour and a half of radio with the phones data a day, then that will burn 2.5 GB of data in a month.  Also I might note that streaming just 2 minutes of HD video every day will also burn through 2 GB in a month. As far as battery goes, this will depend on a few factors such as signal strength, what type of tower your connected to, and your phone battery size. Usually streaming for an 1 1/2 hours will get your battery down by about 10 to 25%
Saving your data and battery.
 There are 2 great alternatives to streaming on the radio.

 1. So, to significantly reduce the usage of data and draining of your battery, your first choice is to download the music. This might seem obvious but it comes with a great deal of benefits for your data and battery. If you are using an android phone I would recommend the app MusicManiac (Android-download), it's probably the easiest app to use and has practically every song that you could want. You can also download this app for iOS but only if your iPhone is jail broken.

2. If you listen with your headphones and absolutely want it to be the radio, then you can download the app called Radio FM (Android-download), this uses your headphone jack as an antenna to pick up the radio frequency around you without using any of your mobile data. There are a few limitations with this method like, Apple iPhone's can't do this, not all android devices can (although most), and the antenna is small and the sound quality might not always sound perfect. You can however, use this app with an axillary cord (it would be the same concept) if you connect it to a set of speakers.
So I hope these tips can help someone to save both their data and battery, as well as reduce the amount of times their phone overheats and turns into an oven.
Source, Source

The Evolution of Android and iOS

(published: 5/5/14)
Android and IOS have had hundreds if not thousands of changes over the last few years.
Now I know that there are many other mobile operating systems like Windows or Blackberry that have been around for many years and have had changes of their own, but I will be focusing purely on Android and iOS as they are the biggest players taking up the huge majority (currently about 90%) of the global market share.

The Beginning of the Apple iPhone.
Starting from the beginning, all the way back about 7 years ago, to the 79th Academy Awards February 25, 2007 when the very first Apple iPhone was announced to the public by Steve Jobs. This would be one of the most important presentations and what set the platform to one of the biggest advancement in smartphone technology. So it's not that Apple really created something completely new here, there were other smartphones at the time. In fact, the term smartphone appeared as early as 1997 when Ericsson released its GS 88 Penelope which should also be given some credit as well (This can be a article for another time).
What Apple did, was create the perfect recipe with the combination of hardware, as well as what was probably the best optimized software at the time.

At first, the iPhone operating system came with just a few apps like: notes, weather, mail, stocks, and maps. It was also called simply the iPhone OS, but eventually changed to iOS 2.0; 3.0, 4, 5, 6 and finally 7 (That's one every year with a new iPhone). One of the first things that was missing was the App Store coming out the very next year in 2008 along with the new iPhone and their first SDK (which is what developers use to create apps). The App Store was an amazing success and brought an early advantage for apple in years to come.
With every update new features were added; like the iTunes app and voice recorder, then the ability to change backgrounds of home and lock screens, copy and paste feature, top slider, and eventually in iOS 7 the entire look was changed to be more colorful and vibrant with the app icons looking a bit flattened out.

The Start of Android Smartphone.
The company Android was founded by Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Andy Ruben, in 2003. Not much was known about the company but in 2005 Google came to them with an offer to buy out the company Android Inc. for an estimated amount of around 50 million. Anyways, after years of development on October 22nd, 2008 Google unveiled its first commercially available smartphone running Android 1.0, the HTC Dream (also known as the T-Mobile G1 in the United States). It came with a physical QWERTY, No touchscreen, not even notifications. It was very heavily integrated with Google services and had a very limited Android Market (now called Google Play).
So, this was clearly an uphill battle to beat iOS, one that would last many years but as time went on, Google released more and more updates, 1.5 Cupcake was the first time android stared using desserts and went alphabetically to D- Donut, E- Eclair, F- Froyo, G- Gingerbread, H- Honeycomb, I- Icecream Sandwitch, J- Jelly Bean, and today which is K- Kitkat (this chart goes up to Jelly bean)
The entire mobile platform was a bit dull and ugly at the start, but as time passed it became especially noticeable with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwitch that the entire look was changed into a more modern theme and the software was optimized to be smoother. This was when I bought my first android smartphone (switching from apple) and for the first time it seemed that android was able to fully compete with Apple iOS as the glitches, lags, crashes, and other bugs were mostly rid of. Android went its own route opening the OS for any manufacturer and having much greater freedom of customization then iOS.
Conclusion..
There is really much more that could be added to this article, but I hope this was a good, quick overview of the two platforms. I have obviously had experience with both platforms and even owned a smartphone running Windows OS for some time. Feel free to check out my last article where I explained waterproofing on smartphones.

How Does Waterproofing Work on Smartphones?

(published: 5/4/14)
The concept of waterproofing on smartphones and what the IP ratings stand for.
So if any one reading this has seen or owned a Sony Xperia Z/Z1/Z2/Z ultra, or maybe a Samsung Galaxy S5 or S4 active, then you might have noticed that the mic. and speaker are completely exposed. Which is weird right? So all these phones are labeled as IP 57, IP 58, or maybe IP 67 certified. First it's important to understand that the I in IP stands for ingress which basically means an entrance. The P in IP stands for protections, so entrance protection or technically ingress protection. The goal here is to keep foreign particles like water or dust from getting inside the phone. It's really pretty simple, the first digit stands for how well the phone is resistant against solid objects like dust, and the second digit shows how resistant it is against fluids like water. There can also actually be a third digit which would show how resistant it is against mechanical impact, such as being thrown against the ground. Here you can see a chart of the first two ratings.
What makes them water-proof.
So now, to answer the question of how the phones are actually water-proof and why their mics. and speakers are open. The charging ports usually have a flap over them so the speaker and mic. (and sometimes headphone jacks) are really the only things that have to be open in order to use your phone. What companies do is put a special coating of a spray or substance that prevents water from getting through to your internal parts. If you've ever thrown a waterproof phone into a pool or washed it under the sink you would notice that the speaker gets kind of muffled and unclear. That's because some water gets stuck inside the speaker and it will usually take a few minutes up to a few hours to dry completely and return to normal.
 How to make any smartphone waterproof.
There are also ways to make a smartphones like an iPhone waterproof through varies companies. For example there is a company called Liquipel that will take your smartphone, put it in a vacuum, then pump a secret fluid into the chamber with your phone. The vapor will spread to all the components of your smartphone and then successfully make your smartphone waterproof for only $60. This technology is called nano-coating. So hopefully you learned something new about the process and rating of waterproof and dust-proof phones and other electronics. I have links to a few articles were you can learn much of what I wrote in more depth.
Understanding IP ratings: link
Cools ways to waterproof you device: link


Best Highend Phablets of 2014

This list will include some phones from late 2013. Also when I say Phablet I am talking about phones with 5.5 inch displays or larger.
(published: 5/1/14)
5. Sony Xperia Z ultra
I will start off with the Sony Xperia Z Ultra being the phone with the largest 6.4 inch display. To put that into perspective the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has only a 5.7 inch display and most tablets such as the Google Nexus 7 start at 7.0 inches. Another great feature is that the Ultra is one of the only water/dust resistant phablets which holds an IP 58 certification. It comes with a nice 1080p display, 2gb of ram, a quad core 2.2 GHz processor, and an 8 megapixel camera. Just like all the recent Xperia Z phones it comes in a both front and back glass feel, a squared off design, and a very light and thin feel contributing to the premium feel. If you've ever dealt with Sony's UI you might notice that Sony really likes to keep it close to stock android and I find it not as intrusive as some other skins like touch wiz. The absolutely only drawback I can see in this phone is lack of flash which is something I rarely use on my camera unless I'm looking to use it as a flashlight. Click here for full spec list.
4. HTC One Max
Like most of the phones on this list the HTC One Max comes from its smaller sibling the HTC One. It went for a large form factor with a 5.9 1080p display and front speakers which leads to a very large and somewhat heavy phone. HTC keeps the curved aluminum back that so many people loved, and even added a strange fingerprint scanner on the back. Instead of starting with 32 GB and no expandable storage like the original One they now went back to the standard 16 GB of storage and the very missed SD slot. Most Phablets tend to come with very large batteries but somehow HTC managed to pull of one of the most efficient and best batteries that pulls in front of most competitors. They also continued the Ultra Pixel idea that so many people came to dislike. The ultra-pixel did have its advantages like superior low lighting performance and having smaller 4mp images to save space in storage. There is also the wide lens front camera that can come in great use when trying to fit many people in a selfie, but it does stretch out what you are trying to capture on the sides, its most noticeable with people. I think an average person will usually overlook many of these small things about the camera and will probably still be completely satisfied. Click here for full spec list.
3. LG G Pro 2
For anyone who tried the LG G2 last year, this is a very similar high-end smartphone with a few minor spec upgrades and a screen bumped up from 5 to 5.9 inches. Like every other android on this list it comes running with Kit-Kat 4.4 but with the LG Optimus UI skin on top. I've always seen a lot of what Samsung does in LG's smartphones; everything from the rounded glossy plastic form factor to the heavy customizable UI with a plethora of gimmicky features sometimes almost making it difficult to distinguish the fact that it's even android. LG does however have its own ideas of how to innovate and improve their own smartphones, shown with the placement of the power and volume buttons, meaning all the sides of the phone don't have a single button. LG is also a company that learned how to make a great compact phone and added some nice features like 4k recording, and an IR blaster so you can use your phone like a remote for things such as a TV or DVD player. In addition it comes stock with 32 GB built in storage and storage expansion with a SD card going up 64 GB. In conclusion this a great phone capable to go head to head with Samsung and their Note series. Click here for full spec list.
2. Nokia Lumia 1520 
With the Nokia Lumia 1520 the first thing that's important to understand is that it runs Windows 8. Running such an OS has some nice advantages such as having the ability to use Microsoft Office for free and that's something that not all people use on normal phones, but of course this is a very large smartphone with a 6 inch display. There is also the fact that like Apple's iOS it's not to overloaded with a ton of features and the OS always runs very smoothly. Then there are the live tiles that are up to personal preference and something I think actually looks pretty neat. And just like anything else there comes some disadvantages like lack of customization and most noticeably the lack of some apps, though Microsoft has been getting better about this. One very strong aspect of the Nokia is their incredible build quality and durability, also the emphasis on a good camera (20 Megapixels). I'll also add that as far as specs go Nokia did a great job and added all the latest technology. In short, before picking this phone look at what you need from it most, like whether you need a lot of apps or just a great camera. Click here for full spec list.
1. Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Now of course it all leads down to Samsung and their note series. So Samsung was one of the first large manufactures to successfully create and sell many of these large phones which are now often referred to as phablets and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 continues to be a great success. The Note continues working on their S Pen and adding an almost overwhelming amount of features into Touchwiz, also upgraded to a 1080p 5.7 inch display while managing to keep the same footprint as the note 2. Although no doubt this is a large phone, it's actually one of the smallest of the phablets on this list especially because of the compact design and small bezel. Something that's not very new but often goes unmentioned about Samsung products is their Super AMOLED displays and why they use it. Without getting very technical what makes it special is the ability for only part of the screen to be turned of meaning whenever there is something black on the display it is truly black. This is kind of rare for phones to have and also comes with additional benefit of not wasting as much battery life. They also added a leather feeling back in hopes that it will feel more premium. The last feature I'd want to mention is just like the S5 it comes with a newer version of micro USB that speeds up the charging process but still makes it compatible with the standard micro USB. Click here for full spec list. ^^Above you can buy or check out any of these smartphones from Amazon.^^ (unless you're on mobile version)

Best Rated Smartphones of 2014

If you are someone looking to get the best smartphones on the market this list should give you 
some very good ideas. So these is how I would rate the smartphones organized in a top 5 format. (published: 4/22/14)
5. OnePlus One
This year this company was showing off their very first smartphone. With much speculation they unveiled a very high-end smartphone but with a price tag starting off at only $299! They released two different slightly different versions: $299 for 16 GB and $349 for 64 GB. The OnePlus One comes with many of the same high-end specs as the Samsung Galaxy S5 or the HTC One M8 meaning it has 3gb of ram, adreno 330 graphics, a snapdragon 801 2.5 GHz quad core processor, and a large 3,100 mAh battery. One obvious flaw I could find was the phone did not include a micro USB slot which may not be so important to everyone. It also comes with a 13 megapixel back camera and a 5 megapixel front facing camera and the ability to record 4k. They also did a few unique things such as having the ability and choice to use either onscreen or capacitive buttons, you can also switch out the back of the phone to other colors or materials such as wood, bamboo, and different cloth backs. This is a great phone for the price and is even cheaper than the already affordable Nexus 5 from last year. But it does have one problem that might make it undesirable to some people, and that is its large 5.5 inch display putting the phone somewhere in between a regular smartphone and a phablet. Click here for full specification.
4. Oppo Find 7
This is another Chinese OEM like OnePlus but Oppo has already built credibility for having high quality smartphones. Being one of the first manufacturers in the world to release a smartphone with a 1080p display, this year they took it a step further and released the first 1440 x 2560 pixel display, (that's even higher then 1080p) and it puts the phone at an incredible 538 ppi (pixels per square inch). Just like the OnePlus it comes with a 13 megapixel back camera and a 5 megapixel front facing camera, which is pretty common in china and it can of course record 4k. Before it was released there was some speculation about it having a 50 megapixel camera and though this didn't exactly happen Oppo has added software which can create large 50 megapixel shots claiming it will add extra detail. Not to waste any more time it has the same super high-end specs as the OnePlus with an edition of including a micro SD slot. As a company that loves to always try something new Oppo also created their own special charger that should be able to recharge the battery from 0 to 75% in only 30 minutes! Just like any other phone it has a few things that need to be taken into consideration; that is that it also has a quite large 5.5 inch display and that because of its unique fast charging it won't be compatible with the standard micro USB charger. Click here for full specification.
3. HTC One M8
This is another amazing new phone by HTC for 2014 and has made some nice improvements. If compared to last year's model which was just named the HTC One (M7) they have now added a 5 inch display, a micro USB slot, and put all the latest chips such as the snapdragon 801, a 2.3 GHz processor, Adreno 330 graphics card, micro SD slot, and a 2600 mAh battery. It comes in a metal uni-body design which is something HTC really prides itself in and some of the loudest, most crisp, best front facing speakers which are also 25% louder than its predecessor. Another way in which the One differs from its competitor is their unique approach to their camera. They decided to keep a back-facing 4 mega pixel (which they call the ultra-pixel) camera claiming that they don't need more pixels and instead want to improve low-light performance. This leads to a weird situation this year after they upgraded the front facing camera to be 5 megapixels (that's higher than the back-facing camera) so it may be a great option for taking selfies. With everything it has to offer it may be a great alternative to an iPhone and a good competitor to Samsung. Click here for full specification.
2. Sony Xperia Z2
Sony is a company that is popular in many parts of the world but has not yet had very much success in the U.S market. To start off it will only be available exclusively to T-Mobile but you can also buy the international unlocked version if you are on AT&T (if you live in the U.S). Anyway, Sony was one of the first large companies to start introducing waterproofing features to their flagship phones and to no surprise the Xperia Z2 includes IP 58 certification. Sony also went with a huge 20.7 megapixel camera on the back and a somewhat standard 2.2 megapixel camera on the front. It comes with a glass front and back making it feel solid and premium, it's not hard to tell that Sony tried to create a premium looking phone while still trying to maintain the ruggedness of it. They also included a large 3300 mAh battery and like the s5 added 4k recording, 3 GB of ram, a micro SD slot, and lots of new powerful chip-sets. If you're someone who wants a somewhat unique device that not much people have yet adopted, this can be a very great pick. Click here for full specification.
1. Samsung Galaxy S5
The S5 is Samsung's flagship phone for the year 2014 and it has a lot to offer. It once again increased its screen to a slightly larger 5.2 inch display and it comes with a 16 megapixel camera (doubling the Apple iPhone) a 2.5 GHz quad-core snapdragon 801 and basically all the best specs you would expect from such a new phone. Some other new things it has over the previous model is that it now has the ability to record 4k resolution as well as a slightly larger and longer lasting battery; plus, a fingerprint scanner, and a heartbeat monitor. This year they went all out and even made their phone IP 68 certified meaning its water and dust resistant. Now to some people all these features like heartbeat monitors, finger print scanners, and being water resistant might seem unnecessary and may come with just a few noticeable drawbacks such as having a larger bezel and a bigger phone. However, if you like all these cool new little features and want a phone you can depend on this may just be a perfect choice. Click here for full specification.

^^Above you can buy or check out any of these smartphones from Amazon.^^ (unless you're on mobile version)
I hope that after looking and reviewing all these smartphones you can find one that you will want more the rest. I also have another list for Top Phablets of 2014 if you are into larger phones with more 5.5+ inch displays.
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