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HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2012: Editor's Choice - Part 1

By Team HardwareZone - 29 Feb 2012

Best QWERTY Smartphone

Best Business Smartphone

For those who prefer a physical QWERTY keyboard over a virtual option that obstructs your screen, the QWERTY smartphone is definitely here to stay. In 2011, we’ve seen successors making its way into the nomination list, and new entries that take on the social media approach to differentiate itself from the crowd. Ultimately, the Best QWERTY Smartphone will be given to the device that has the best typing experience as the highest priority, without forgetting that you are looking at a smartphone that’s just as capable.

Nominees:

  • RIM BlackBerry Bold 9900 
  • HTC Chacha 
  • Motorola Milestone 2
  • Nokia E6
  • Samsung Galaxy Pro
  • Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro
     

And the Winner Is...

Research in Motion's BlackBerry Bold 9900 makes a grand comeback as the Best QWERTY Smartphone for 2011.

QWERTY smartphones are all about the user experience with its physical keyboard. Fast typing speeds with a high level of accuracy have traditionally been found on the BlackBerry Bold devices, and Research in Motion’s latest offering, the BlackBerry Bold 9900, managed to deliver.

Beyond its highly usable QWERTY keyboard, the Bold 9900 is also loaded with various features and hardware upgrades, including the new BlackBerry 7 OS and a speed bump with a 1.2GHz single-core processor. More importantly, the Bold 9900 is the slimmest BlackBerry device to date at 10.5mm, thus joining the latest crop of smartphones that are just as powerful as it is well designed.

Scoring Breakdown
Criteria/Model BlackBerry Bold 9900 HTC Chacha Motorola Milestone 2 Nokia E6 Samsung Galaxy Pro Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro
Design 9.0 8.0 8.5 8.0 8.0 8.0
Features 8.5 8.0 7.5 7.5 8.5 8.5
User-Friendliness 8.0 8.0 8.0 7.5 8.0 8.0
Performance 9.0 7.0 7.5 8.0 7.5 8.0
Value 8.0 7.5 8.0 8.0 8.5 8.0
Overall 8.5 8.0 8.0 7.5 8.0 8.0
Price S$927 S$438 S$698 S$545 S$398 S$638

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

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