Top 5 smartphones

Smartphones are incredibly popular, with new models released almost every week. It's an incredibly competitive market, with rival manufacturers and platforms trying to out do each other with new hardware designs and new software features.

We've rounded up five of the best smartphones we've reviewed so far this year. All have their distinct advantages and disadvantages, but you can't really go too far wrong with any of them. We've also provided links to our full reviews for each of our top 5 if you want more details before buying.

Apple iPhone 4

The granddaddy of modern smartphones has been improved in in this latest model with a stunning high-resolution screen, a faster processor and iOS4 which finally supports essential features such as multitasking and has improved Exchange support.

A huge number and variety of apps are available from the iTunes App Store, but Apple strictly vets what is and isn't allowed into the Store which won't sit well with many people. The iPhone 4 had some widely-reported antenna problems, but it hasn't proved that troublesome for us in practice. The iPhone 4 is undoubtedly expensive though, whether you buy it SIM-free or on a contract.

Full review here.

Samsung Galaxy S

The Android-equipped Galaxy S is a vast improvement not only over Samsung's previous smartphones, but also over many other Android phones from other manufacturers too. It's incredibly slim, yet it has a huge, incredibly vivid-looking screen, although its resolution isn't as high as the iPhone 4's.

The Galaxy S is great of multimedia, thanks to its extensive video file format support as well as its ability to stream video to DLNA-compatible network media players. It's well-suited for more serious tasks too thanks to several cleverly-designed keyboard options, including the innovative Swype keyboard.

Unfortunately, the five megapixel camera doesn't have a flash and we're not fans of Samsung's TouchWiz interface which doesn't add much to the standard Android interface. Nonetheless, the Galaxy S is a great phone.

Full review here.