Android Central's 2012 Editor's Choice awards

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 2012 edition of the Android Central Editor's Choice Awards. Tomorrow is your day, when we list your picks for the year's best smartphone, tablet and apps. But right now, it's our turn. Our choices might be the same as yours. Or they might not. Either way, it's cool. That's part of what makes Android great. Diff'rent strokes and all.
So sit back, relax, and have a gander at what we think some of the best of 2012 entailed. And gear up for a bad-ass 2013.

Best phone: Samsung Galaxy S3

Theres a good reason Samsungs shifted tens of millions of Galaxy S3s worldwide -- its the best all-round Android smartphone, and its available on countless 3G and 4G carriers around the world. The recent update to Jelly Bean has also given the S3 a new lease of life, and if youre lucky, youll have gotten even more software goodies as part of the latest premium suite.
The hardware may have been eclipsed by some late 2012 offerings, but the fact remains that for most of the year, the Galaxy S3 was the top dog in terms of specs. In the U.S. youve got Qualcomms proven Snapdragon S4. Internationally, Samsungs beastly quad-core Exynos runs the show. Either way, theres plenty of power to go around. Factor in the exceptional 8MP camera, the thin, light chassis and its easy to see why the S3 is our pick of 2012.
Runner-up: LG Nexus 4. The Nexus 4s limited availability and lack of any real4G LTEsupport (so far) are the main reasons for it missing out on the top spot, but make no mistake, its still a phenomenal handset. Software purists will appreciate the silky-smooth, vanilla Android 4.2 UI, and the gapless IPS display is among the best out there. The Nexus 4s build quality is also top-notch, with a classy glass-plated back, reflective front trim and grippy soft touch area to avoid slippage. Its an incredibly well-designed phone, and if LTE isnt an issue for you, you should definitely take a look.

Best large-form phone: Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Theres still some disagreement among our editors as to whether the Galaxy Note 2 is truly a mainstream device. You could argue that a phone that sells five million units in a couple of months is anything but niche, but regardless, the Note 2 belongs in a different category. The Note series has seen little in the way of competition this past year, but Samsung pulled out all the stops regardless, and gave us a device that wasnt just exceptionally fast, but supremely useful. New software features like multi-window blur the boundaries between smartphones and traditional computers, and the improved S Pen stylus brings about new ways to interact with a touchscreen device.
We think itll be awhile before the average consumer can be convinced to pick up a 5.5-inch smartphone, but if youre in the market for a larger device, the Note 2 is unequaled.

Best small tablet: ASUS Nexus 7

You could make a very strong argument that the Nexus 7 was the first Android tablet to be met with any kind of mainstream success. The 7-inch ASUS-built slate proved that you dont have to break the bank to get hold of a top-notch tablet computer, and played its role in forcing the incumbent Apple to sit up and take notice of the small form factor tablet space. The Nexus 7 was well-built, fast enough and most importantly cheap -- so much so that millions of consumers snapped it up on Google Play and in brick-and-mortar stores in the second half of 2012. At the end of the year, the Nexus 7 remains one of the best 7-inch tablets around, and arguably the most successful Nexus device to date.
Whats more, the new 32GB and 3G-capable versions make this device even more versatile than ever. We think itll be some time before you can get a better tablet for 200 bucks.
Runner-up: Kindle Fire HD (8.9-inch). Its impossible to ignore Amazons Kindle Fire in the small tablet category. If youre locked into Amazons ecosystem then the latest version, the Kindle Fire HD has plenty to offer. Provided you live in the right place, Amazons library of music, TV and movies will have just about all your entertainment needs taken care of, despite the obvious lack of Google Play certification. Thats the other side of the Kindle Fire equation -- theres no official Google app support, as it runs a forked build of Android.
On the hardware side, the Kindle Fire HD packs a Nexus 7-beating 1920x1080 display, along with great build quality. Its a tablet thats all about content consumption, and if you pick up a Kindle Fire HD, youre buying a high-resolution window into Amazons content ecosystem.

Best large tablet: Samsung Nexus 10

A winning combination of processor horsepower, display fidelity and build quality sees Samsung and Googles Nexus 10 take the top spot in the large tablet category. But really, the 10-inch Nexus tablet is all about the specs. It incorporates a beautiful 2560x1600 PLS LCD display -- the highest resolution weve seen on any Android tablet, even sharper than the iPads retina display. Its also the first Android device to run Samsungs Exynos 5 Dual CPU, based on the ARM Cortex A15 architecture, with a beastly Mali T604 GPU to power the high-res display.
That translates into a smooth gaming experience and wonderfully crisp HD movie playback, making the Nexus 10 a better content consumption device than just about any other Android tablet. Theres also the bonus of running the latest version of vanilla Android 4.2.
Runner-up: ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity.The ASUS Transformer series was an early android tablet success story, and the latest version, the Transformer Pad Infinity, is the most refined yet. A 10-inch tablet with a keyboard dock, the Infinity improves upon earlier efforts with a high-res 1080p display, an aluminum chassis and faster Tegra 3 T33 CPU. The price closely tracks that of the Nexus 10, but the Transformer Pad Infinitys hardware configuration means its more about content creation than consumption. The full-fledged QWERTY keyboard and bundled apps make it a great little machine for browsing and blogging.
Like the Galaxy Note 2, its an unconventional device, but one that fills a particular niche well enough. It also comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, meaning youll get improved performance thanks to Project Butter.

Biggest disappointment: Google Nexus Q

Lets be honest here, the Nexus Q, as we saw it originally at Google I/O, was the wrong product at the wrong price point. You knew it, we knew it, Google knew it, and pulled it from sale almost immediately. (OK, we're still tying to convince Phil.) So if you own one, you wont have paid any money for it -- either you got it free in a Google I/O swag bag, or free for placing a pre-order on Google Play. In either case, you own what will probably soon become a collectors item.
But remember that this glowing tungsten orb was originally supposed to retail for $300, then remember that all it does is play stuff from Google Play. And glow ominously. The hardware inside the Q -- essentially a Galaxy Nexus/Pandaboard setup -- was woefully underused. There was no dedicated UI as such, and even basic functions like DLNA streaming werent supported. Too expensive for hobbyists, and too limited for the mainstream market, the Nexus Q was rightly mothballed. Hopefully well see a reimagined, more useful, less pricey Q in the new year.
Runner-up: Nexus 4/10 ordering process fustercluck.Its the morning of Nov. 13, 2012. Having followed the weeks of rumors and speculation, and the recent wave of reviews, youve got a bundle of notes ready to give to Google in exchange for a shiny new Nexus 4 or Nexus 10. But you cant. The Google Play Store keeps emptying your basket, Google Wallet times out when you try to enter payment info, and if youre lucky enough to successfully place an order, its a crapshoot as to when your new shiny will actually arrive.
On Nexus launch day, limited stock and a myriad of technical problems led to a toxic buying experience for early adopters. As we pointed out at the time, Google can handle all our music, documents, email, web searches, calendar appointments, mapping info, navigation requirements, app purchases, product price comparisons, YouTube videos and instant web page translations, but in 2012 it repeatedly failed to let customers buy a product. It can build a car that drives itself and never crashes, but it cant reliably sell you a telephone over the internet. That needs to change if Google is to compete with the likes of Apple in this area.

Best game: Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Android gaming has come into its own in 2012, thanks to the emergence of more powerful handsets, and better support from big-name publishers like EA. And it was EA that brought us one of the best-looking and most polished titles of the year -- Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Its an arcade racer thats faithful to the console original, and one of the few mobile games to really put the high-end hardware in devices like the Galaxy Note 2 and HTC One X+ to use. Theres also a ton of content to get stuck into, including dozens of tracks and over 40 vehicles.
Runners-up: Theres no shortage of awesome Android games out there, which makes it particularly difficult to pick a single runner-up in this category. Instead, here are a few of our favorites from the past twelve months --
Granny Smith, Plague Inc, Sonic CD, Angry Birds Space, or any of the excellent MMOs from Spacetime Studios.

Best Twitter app: Falcon Pro

Developing a popular Twitter app can be a thankless task. The current crop of Twitter clients for Android (and other platforms) face a hard limit of 100,000 users unless Twitter approves a higher limit. Nevertheless, weve seen more high-quality clients than ever emerge for Android in 2012, and our favorite is Falcon Pro by Joaquim Vergs. Falcon combines a simple, clean design with fast, smooth scrolling and easy access to frequently-used features like DMs, lists and settings through side-out menus. Individual tweets themselves are also easy to view with thanks to inline image and web previews.
Runner-up: Tweet Lanes.Another of our favorite Twitter clients is Chris Lacys Tweet lanes, which incorporates Androids holo design language and adheres to the Android design guidelines. Although its no longer under active development, Tweet lanes already features multiple account support, Twitter spam controls and inline image previews, making it a viable alternative to the aging official Twitter app, or any other competitor. Best of all, its available free of charge on Google Play.

Best photo app: Instagram

Despite the recent ructions over Instagrams terms of service, its still the best way to trim, tweak and filter your shots and get them out to your friends on various social networks. Instagram for Android keeps things pretty simple on the UI side, but theres something to be said for not cluttering things up too much. That simplicity is present in the photo-taking and editing process too, with twenty filters that can give photos a new lease of life. Its not going to turn you into a professional photographer, nor can it turn a crappy photo into a masterpiece, but its more than capable of turning everyday shots into something interesting and worth sharing.
Runner-up: Perfectly Clear. Easy to use, with plenty of options for toning photos on the fly.

Best travel app: Tripit

Tripit remains indispensable to any frequent traveler. And not just flyers -- it keeps track of any booking, rental or ticket purchase. Plus, Tripit's been creeping in on other applications' territory with real-time flight tracking. We travel a lot here at Android Central and can't for a minute imagine doing it without Tripit.
Runner-up: Google Now. If you travel a lot, particularly within the United States, Google Nows predictive information gathering can be indispensable. No matter how youre traveling, the new Google Search app brings in relevant information in notification and card form. On (or under) the ground, theres timely public transit information for many cities, and time to leave notifications based on local traffic conditions if youre driving. If youre flying, Google Now will pull in flight info from recent Google searches, including departure times and gate numbers. And given the expandable nature of the app, its sure to be expanded even further in 2013.

Best web browser: Google Chrome

From Googles perspective, Android is all about hooking users into its app and content ecosystems. At the heart of that effort is Google Chrome, the browser thats becoming the de facto standard for phones and tablets running Android 4.0 and above. Chrome hasnt changed a whole lot since the first beta reached us in early February, but it has improved plenty where it really counts -- performance and stability.
With Chrome, Android phones get a simple, clutter-free design; on tablets, its more or less identical to the desktop browser. Used on a modern phone, Chrome is just as fast as the stock Android browser, and it offers plenty of new tricks to make it the more attractive browser choice. Theres the standard Chrome bookmark syncing, easy tab-switching by swiping from the edge of the screen, and some really clever stuff like the pre-fetching of web pages on Wifi.

Best keyboard app: SwiftKey Flow (beta)

Though technically still in beta, weve been impressed enough by SwiftKey Flow to include it in our editors choice awards. SwiftKey Flow includes all the personalized predictive features of the previous SwiftKey 3, but expands upon this with trace-based typing. The current beta even includes the ability to type multiple words continuously, by swiping down towards the space bar in between words. SwiftKeys predictive intelligence makes its new Flow keyboard one of the fastest ways to type on Android, and thats why its our favorite keyboard for a second year running.
Runner-up: Swype Beta.While were praising SwiftKey Flow, lets not forget the original trace keyboard, Nuances Swype. Swype isnt available on Google Play, so youll have to jump through a few hoops in order to get the current beta -- or alternatively pick up a phone with it preinstalled.
In any case, the latest Swype betas have included speech input through Dragon Dictation, as well as SwiftKey-style personalization based on social network and email info. Its arguably less visible than SwiftKey, but Swype is a solid contender nonetheless.

Best podcast app: Pocket Casts

A good podcatcherneeds to do two things well: Find podcasts, and play podcasts. Pocket Casts continues to do both better than any other app, in our opinion. It has the all-important feature of syncing with your Google Reader feeds, which means our subscriptions survive from one phone or ROM to another. The app doesn't conform to strict Holo guidelines, which we'd like to see a little more of, but it's also got character of its own.
Runner-up: Beyond Pod. A longtime favorite of many an Android user, it remains a viable alternative and an extremely usable podcatcher.

Best new Google feature: Google Now

Weve already talked a bit about how Google Now can help with travel plans, and thats one of its most useful areas. But its just a small part of the predictive search picture. Google Now goes to the heart of what Google is -- an information company. A feature of the new Google Search app for Android, Google Now seeks to make sense of all the information the company has at its disposal, whether its calendar, email, location history, traffic and search history, and use it to present timely, useful information.
Whether its local transit and traffic info, friends birthdays, tracking info for an upcoming delivery, time zone and exchange rate info when traveling, sports scores or anything else, Google Now is a feature that only Google could offer. Some may see it as creepy, but its less ominous if you understand how it works.
Google Nows capabilities are being expanded all the time, and were looking forward to seeing where Google takes it in 2013.
Runner-up: Google Play. With all the growth and expansion of Google Play, its easy to forget that just ten months ago it was still a disparate collection of services -- Android Market, Google Music, Google Movies and Google Books. Play Magazines only emerged this summer at I/O, and until recently most of the cool stuff was limited to customers the U.S. Looking back over the past year, the growth of Google Play has been staggering. There are more apps than ever on the Google Play Store, which is now outpacing Apples app store. Important services like Music, Movies and Magazines are now available in Europe, and Warner artists are finally available through Google Play Music.
With strong content ecosystems on Apple and Amazon devices, not to mention Microsoft getting into the fray with its Xbox services, Google needed to step up to the plate in 2012, and thats exactly what its done with Google Play.
That's it for our 2012 Editor's Choice awards. But the new year is sure to bring even more awesome Android hardware and software. We're kicking it off with CES next week, followed by Mobile World Congress in February. Stick with us for full coverage of everything Android as it happens in 2013!

Via: Android Central's 2012 Editor's Choice awards