2013 came to an end a few days back and so did our quest to see which two phones would emerge as the favourites in our #Smartfone13 championship for flagships as well as budget devices. Two major polls were run in parallel for about a week with several phones knocked out in the weeks before, to bring the tally to the final four. It was Sony Xperia Z1 vs the Nokia Lumia 1020 for the flagship battle and the Nokia Lumia 520 vs the Gionee Elife E6 for the budget devices battle, with the Lumias ending up as the winners. How? Go past the break to find out!
The Lumia 1020 first contested with the HTC One, which is arguably one of the best looking Android phones ever made, but when it came to the camera, there was no question of which was better. The Lumia 1020 won by a decent margin even thought the polls were close at the start. And then it contested with the LG G2, which upped the level of competition because the G2 is easily the best LG device ever made and had a lot going for it. It even had a great camera, so the polls were really really close. Eventually, after a really close fight, the Lumia 1020 emerged the winner with a decent lead of 300 votes. Now, it was up for the final with the Sony Xperia Z1 from the other end.
Both the Lumia 1020 as well as the Sony Xperia Z1 are great phones no doubt, so in the end, it was all about the popularity and the masses’ favourites playing the card on deciding which gets to win. The polls, which ran for just more than a week were extremely close during the start, in the middle and even until the penultimate day before the closure, but the spike at the end for the Lumia 1020 sealed the deal. The popularity of the best Nokia cameraphone yet shows, and in the end, it was not about which phone was objectively better, but as to which phone was more popular with the masses. The message is clear, both Nokia and Sony have a winner in their hands, at least from the perspective of the internet crowd that likes phones.
Now, onto the Lumia 520, we all know how popular it already is. Before the Moto G happened, the Lumia 520 was easily the best “value for money” device a human could get in this world. It quickly became the most popular Windows Phone and even though Nokia did not rake in millions, it helped grow the Windows Phone market share in several countries. When it was pitted against several Indian Android smartphones, it was a cake walk for the device to reach the final and eventually win it, without any effort. It is also one of the most popular budget devices in India, so that helps, but it is still an achievement worth noting. The Moto G will be finally giving it, or the refreshed model – Lumia 525, a fight in this segment and of course, players like Micromax, Karbonn and Xolo will be giving stiff competition from the Android contingent too. But for now, you, the reader has chosen it as your favourite budget smartphone of 2013. Lets see what 2014 holds for both the flagship and the budget segments, but one thing is sure, there won’t be (m)any Nokia devices contesting our polls next year as the company transitions into a part of Microsoft. This might be just us witnessing the company ending on a high.
Lets look forward to 2014 then!