If you want to know what a smartphone manufacturer has to offer, you have to take a look at the flagships they’ve made. Even though in general, flagships are expensive devices, they embed newest features, high-end specs and latest trends at their present. Every company who’s into mobile phones, will have a dedicated series to show what the best they can produce into the market.

So, in the second part of Tech In 2015 series, let’s take a look at flagship smart phones that came out this year from popular smartphone manufacturers. Even though there are many phones came out this year with amazing specs and features, I am presenting only the ones which got good reviews and packed with high end performance.

1. Samsung Galaxy Note 5

If you observe this year’s smartphone shipments all over the world, Samsung took the first place with 21.4% market share. Note 5 is the flagship phone that came out this year from the company. This device is one of the best smartphones that came out this year which amazing features like display, performance, design, and camera and got great reviews all over. Special features like S-Pen and Samsung’s own features like multi-window ability are attractions in this guy.

Quick Spec Sheet

• Premium metallic curved body with glassy back. 5.7 inch Quad HD super AMOLED display (1440 x 2560 , 518 ppi), 153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm dimensions, 171 grams weight.
• 2.1 GHz octa core 64 bit (1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 + 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57) SoC coupled with ARM Mali-T760 MP8 GPU.
• Runs Touchwiz UI on top of Android V5.1
• 4GB RAM and 32/64/128GB onboard variants.
• 16 MP primary sensor (f/1.9 aperture, 28mm focal length, 1.12 μm pixel size , LED flash) with OIS and 4K, 5MP front shooter(f/1.9, 22mm) with Auto HDR on the back.
• Non-removable 3000mAh Li-On battery
• 4G, BT 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS (A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS); Fingerprint, S-Pen.
• Colors – White Pearl, Silver Titan, Sapphire Black, Gold Platinum

The company also released Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge and Galaxy S6 Edge+ this year having similar features and building material. Especially S6 Edge and Edge+ got great reviews for nice looking design becoming favorite for many people. We can expect more devices in Edge series next year.

Overall, in flagship category, Samsung is a winner this year.

Find out how to get more battery back up on Note 5 or buy online.

2. Apple iPhone 6S Plus

This year the popular electronic gadget giant Apple released 6S and 6S plus in their flagship category. If you thing the “S” in the name stands for Speed, then you are right one hundred percent. This year both 6S and 6S+ featured Apple A9 chip (which is blazingly fast ), 3D touch, 12MP primary shooter with 4K video capability and live photos. Out of the two, with more battery life (which is a nightmare in Apple mobiles) received applause all over the world.

Quick Spec Sheet of Iphone 6S Plus

• Aluminum curved body; 5.5 inch IPS LCD display (1080 x 1920, 401 ppi), dimensions 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm and 192 grams weight
• Inside, 1.8GHz, 64-bit Dual-Core Apple A9 APL1022 SOC with Twister Architecture coupled with PowerVR GT7600 GPU.
• 2GB RAM, 16/64/128 GB Storage variants
• Runs iOS 9 Operating System.
• 12MP primary iSight camera (f2.2, 29mm, Dual LED flash) with OIS, BSI, 4K and slow motion video recording, 5MP (720p video, f/2.2, retina flash) front shooter
• 2750 mAH battery
• 4G, BT 4.2, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, NFC, GPS; Finger print sensor.
• Available in Silver, Gold, Space Gray, Rose Gold.

Apart from display size and battery capacity, remaining similar specs for 6S. Even though the company released two devices this year, it could make decent sales worldwide. Apple doesn’t have reach for Indian market, it had even cut off the prices of these two.

Check out our post on iPhones this year or buy this device online.

3. Huawei Nexus 6P

The Chinese based Huawei had witnessed great year this time. This company collaborated with Google and made this year nexus – Nexus 6P. Nexus series has great popularity among Android Community, as it packs features from Latest Android OS with high end powered hardware and will be the first one in the queue to get updated. This phone, came out with latest features from Android Mashmallow, got reviews as the best Android phone you could buy this year. Even though other flagships have higher specs than this guy in some departments, they still run Android 5.1 and stand away from Stock Android experience. If you are a software lover, then you would find this device hitting the nail in the head.

Quick Spec Sheet

• Aluminium metallic main body; 5.7 inch WQHD AMOLED display (1440 x 2560 @518ppi), dimensions- 159.3 x 77.8 x 7.3 mm; 178 grams weight.
• 2GHz 64-bit Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapgradon 810 SoC coupled with Adreno 430 GPU.
• Android M Operating System
• 3GB RAM , 32/64/128GB Storage
• 12.3 MP front shooter (f/2.0 aperture , 1.55 μm focal length) with 4K, Laser Auto focus, Touch to focus and Geo Tagging. 8MP front sensor.
• 3450 mAH non removable battery.
• 4G, GPS, A-GPS, USB Type-C, , Glonass, BT 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, NFC, OTA
• Colors – Aluminium, Forst, Graphite, and Gold

Check out our review on Nexus this year or buy 6P online.

4. LG V10

V10 from LG came out this year with Dual front screens – a main screen and a secondary screen (on top bezel ) utilizing the whole space providing a bunch quick shortcuts for like date and time, battery life, weather, new notifications etc saving you from turning on the device most of the time, just like how Samsung utilized display in Galaxy edge series smart phones. This feature is the USP of this phone (or could be?) and received positive feedback all over. Apart from that, this guy packs high end hardware specs and unique software features by LG as a flagship this year. LG V10 is a device turns out to be the first smart phone with manual video editing mode which gave technical video shooters a delight using along with the default manual mode still pretty good. Even though the big size of this phone could be a difficult to carry for some people, but we are used to big sized smartphones, so you won’t complain once you get used to the device and its unique features.

• Plastic textured back with metallic band; 5.7 inch QHD IPS Quantum main display (2560 x 1440 @513ppi), 2.1 inch IPS Quantum secondary display (160 x 1040 @513ppi). 159.6 x 79.3 x 8.6 mm, 195 grams weight.
• Hexa Core (2×1.82 GHz + 4×1.82 GHz) Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Soc coupled with Adreno 418 GPU.
• 4GB RAM, 64GB storage (expandable upto 2TB)
• Runs Android Lollipop V5.1
• 16MP, f/1.8, Laser Autofocus, OIS 2.0 with LED flash on the back with 4K and manual video recording mode, 5MP Duo (80 degree standard and 120 degree wide angle lens) with f/2.2 on the front.
• 3000 mAh removable battery (yay!)
• Connectivity – 4G, BT V4.1, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC, FM Radio, Finger Print Scanner,Infrared Port, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac.
• Colors – Opal Blue,Space Black, Modern Beige, Ocean Blue and Luxe White.

Check out our review on LGV10.

5. Motorola Moto X Style

Motorola always been a brand releasing smartphones balancing specs and features for reasonable price bracket. This year, the company released Moto X Style in their X series as their flagship with premium build quality, great specs and features. This device turned out to be favorite for so many people to upgrade to and got nice reviews. The good thing about Motorola is it stands after Google while giving near stock Android experience to the users and would receive OTA updates sooner. People who bought this device are saying that after OTA update the battery life in this guy got increased up to 4.5 hours SOA. If you are a fan of Motorola or comfortable for this price bracket, this device can definitely be your pick. That is why, this year, Moto X style got a place in our top list.

• Cured body with metallic band and premium plastic textured back. 5.7 inch QHD LCD (1440 x 2560 @ 520ppi), 153.9 x 76.2 x 11.06 mm, 179 grams weight.
• 1.8 GHz hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 SoC coupled with Adreno 418 GPU.
• 3GB RAM, 16/32/64 GB storage expandable up to 32 GB.
• Runs Android Lollipop v5.1
• 21MP PDAF primary (f/2.0, CCT Flash, 4K video ) on the back, 5MP (f/2.0, wide angle, flash, Night Mode) sensor on the front.
• 3000 mAh battery
• Connectivity- 4G, BT V4.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac , NFC, GPS; Water resistant.
• Available in Black and White

Check out our review or buy online.

What is your favorite Android flagship this year? Do let us know in comment section below.