From Yotaphone to Apple, almost every smartphone maker entered the Indian market this year. Not all of them could meet our expectaions though. Here's the smartphone report card for 2014. It is our choice for brands that met our expectations and those that didn't.
The following smartphone brands met our expectations and even exceeded them.
Motorola
Motorola added the finishing touches to its smartphones from last year. While the Moto E remains a worthy competitor in the budget range, the Moto G (2nd Gen) is better than its predecessor. The Moto X (2nd Gen) on the other hand is arguably the best smartphone today.
Xiaomi
No other brand exceeded our expectations like Xiaomi did. The company's Xiaomi Mi3 was an out and out performance beast, unlike any other in its range. While things weren't exactly uphill from there, Xiaomi was still one of the big winners this year.
OnePlus
OnePlus created a lot of waves all over the world before entering India. Even though the company has met with big obstacles in India, we were quite satisfied with the device we got. The OnePlus One was exactly what we thought it would be.
Asus
The Taiwanese company stormed into the smartphone market with its Zenfone series this year. Even though the specifications didn't look all that satisfying, we were quite amazed by the performance, especially of the Zenfone 5. Well done Asus, it's only uphill from here.
Micromax
Micromax gave us a pleasant surprise with the Canvas Nitro and the Yu Yureka was the icing on the cake. The company's becoming bigger by the day and taking it to the foreign competitors.
Huawei
The Huawei Honor 6 was one of the best smartphones in the 20k segment this year. We loved almost everything about it and we hope Huawei can build on that next year.
The following brands disappointed us for one or more reasons.
Microsoft/Nokia
Microsoft dissolved the Nokia name this year and even though the Lumia 730 was a pretty good device, Windows is still not the competitor it needs to be. The company more or less did what it did last year, except with 1GB RAM and Snapdragon processors.
BlackBerry
The wierd and awkwardly shaped BlackBerry Passport didn't put us off as much as its pricing did. We expected BlackBerry to price this smartphone more competitively, so as to drive sales. Alas, we were wrong.
Sony
Another of those price mishaps, Sony did a big favour to both Samsung and Motorola through its pricing. While both the Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact are amazing devices, we had to change our ratings just because of the pricing.
Apple
The iPhone 6 didn't turn out to be the revolutionary Apple device we expected it to be. In fact, Apple made mistakes in design, something that is unheard of to say the least. They're still great phones, but not as good as we expected them to be.
Samsung
While it retained the lead, Samsung in a way became the face of stagnation in the smartphone market too. While it ended on a high with the Galaxy Note 4, the Galaxy S5 was below expectations and the Galaxy Alpha was all design and not enough performance. The company's turning over a new page with metal designs though and is looking to regain its glory.