Rahul Dutta Roy,

Editor (Tech)

This season has been a witness to the launch of a variety of smartphones. Every leading brand has something to offer to different categories of customers. All the vendors are trying to aim for the top spot, which is being occupied mostly by the like of Samsung and Apple. It’s the consumer who will ultimately be the winner of this tough competition.

Samsung has started selling its newest phone (or may be we can call it a Phablet ), the Samsung Galaxy Note II. It sports a huge 5.5″display, which is one of the biggest for any phone available in the market. It is powered by 1.6 GHz quad core Cortex-A9 CPU and has a 2 GB ram. Pictures can be taken using  the 8 megapixel wide lens camera comprising of  an LED flash with face, smile and blink detection. The camera is also capable of taking videos at 1080p. With this, an NFC chip has also been thrown in. The Phablet is already available in certain markets like India for INR 39,990 ( 770$ approx).

Samsung Galaxy S III mini was revealed in Germany on October 11. It is a mid-range phone, mostly aimed at people who want a powerful phone, but in a pocketable size. With a display size of 4.0″, it packs in a 1GHz dual core CPU with 1GB RAM. A 5.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with face and smile detection is present for taking stills. Videos can be recorded at 720p and 30fps. It runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean overlaid with Samsung’s Touch wiz UI similar to the flagship Samsung Galaxy Note II. NFC chip is present for better connectivity. This phone will go on sale early November at an estimated price of $350.

HTC also refreshed its Android flagship with a few changes. The HTC One X Plus looks almost identical to its predecessor the HTC One X. It will be available in one colour combination of black and red at launch. The screen remains unchanged at 4.7″ Super LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The difference lies in the internals. The new flagship has a quad core 1.7 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor. Taking images is a speedy affair with the 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, which can also do 1080p videos at 30fps. It will come pre-loaded with Android 4.1 and HTC Sense. The battery strength has been increased from 1800 mAH to 2100 mAH. The phone is already available at markets such as the U.K at £474 for a sim-free model.

The Taiwanese company also showcased two phones running Windows Phone 8, namely the HTC 8S and HTC 8X. The 8X has a 4.3″ display and is powered by a dual core 1.5 GHz processor with a 1 GB RAM. It has a 16 GB internal memory, which cannot be expanded. An 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash has been provided for imaging, while videos can be shot at 1080p at 30fps. Price for this model is around £400. The HTC 8S fills in the space for a mid range Windows Phone 8 device. A 4.0″ screen takes care of the display, while the internals pack in a dual core 1 GHZ processor coupled with a 512GB RAM. Images can be taken using the 5 megapixel autofocus camera and videos can be taken at 720p at 30fps. It retails at about £225 in the U.K.

Motorola released its new flagship, the Motorola RAZR i. The selling point of this phone is that it packs in a 2GHz Intel Atom processor along with a 1 GB RAM. It has a 4.3″ Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen and an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, face detection, geo-tagging and video stabilization  Full HD 1080p videos can be taken at 30fps. This phone is available for around £345.

The Finnish company Nokia made two additions to the Lumia range of its Windows smartphones. The flagship Lumia 920 operates on Windows Phone 8 and packs in a 4.5″ IPS TFT capacitive touch screen. It is run by a 1.5GHz Krait processor and has a 1 GB RAM. It has an 8 megapixel camera, which can even do videos at 1080p and 30fps. It has a huge internal memory of 32 GB. The other phone is called Lumia 820, which is a mid range Windows 8 phone. It has a 4.3″ AMOLED display, but is powered by the same processor and camera as Lumia 920. It has an expandable memory slot unlike the Nokia flagship. Both these phones will be available in a range of bright colours including the regular black and white. These phones will be available by mid-November this year.

LG is not far behind and has launched the LG Optimus G. It is a fairly powerful device packed in with a quad core 1.5 GHz processor with 2 GB RAM. It also has a 4.7″ True HD+IPS LCD screen. A high end 13 megapixel camera has been thrown in, which can also shoot videos at 1080p at 30fps. It runs Android ICS but it would be upgradable to Android 4.1. This powerful phone will begin shipping in early November and will be available only in black colour.

ASUS launched the second generation of the popular Padfone. This is a unique smartphone, which can be converted into a tablet by connecting it to the docking station that also acts like a screen and comprises of a highly powered battery. This phone is suitable for people, who want their tablets to be in sync with their phone or people, who would’nt want to carry two separate devices. The Padfone 2 has 4.7″ Super IPS+LCD display, while the tablet part of it has a 10.1″ IPS display. The phone has a quad core 1.5 GHz processor and also packs in a massive 2 GB RAM. The camera can take images in 13 megapixels and videos at 1080p and 30fps. The phone has a sustainable 2140 mAH battery and the tablet has 5000 mAH battery. The Padfone 2 will be available in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Google announced its new phone, the LG Nexus 4 on October 29, following the cancellation of its press event due to Hurricane Sandy. This phone was as much awaited as the newer version of Android 4.2, which has also been named Jelly Bean. The phone sports a 4.7″ True HD IPS Plus screen at a resolution of 768 x 1280 pixels at 318ppi. The phone’s powerhouse consists of 1.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor along with a 2 GB RAM. Imaging is taken care by the 8-megapixel camera. The rear camera can also do 1080p videos at 30fps. Video chats can be done using 1.3-megapixel front facing camera. The 2100 mAH battery will provide the juice required to run the phone. The only place the phone disappoints is the non-expandable memory of either 8 GB or 16 GB. It also has the NFC. LG Nexus 4 would be the first phone to run Android 4.2 and be one of the first to receive updates for the subsequent Android versions. It has an unbelievable starting price-tag of $299 in the U.S and hits a host of Google Play stores on November 13.

With all the Androids and Windows Phones launching to combat the fast selling iPhone 5, the consumers will surely be treated to a wide range of choices this holiday season.