We’ve seen a lot of phones get announced and launched this year that were running Android. Although it was a lot less than what we saw last year or even the year before that. Now there have been plenty of great phones this year, like the LG G2, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, among many others. But there are a few phones that weren’t so great, and well we’re naming them the worst phone of the year. Last year we did a top 10 for the worst phones of the year, this year we are just rolling it into our AH Awards. Some of the worst phones this year, at least in our opinion, include the HTC First, Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, Kyocera Hydro Edge, the Pantech Perception and plenty of others.
Runner Up: Pantech Perception
On paper, the Pantech Perception looked like a great device. I mean it had a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED 720p display, 8MP camera on the back – 2MP camera on the front, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. Looks pretty good so far right? Especially seeing as its $399 full price on Verizon. But then came the kicker, Android 4.1. And it still hasn’t received an update at all. So while the Perception looked like a great device and even had somewhat passable specs, it still wasn’t all that great of a device. I’m hoping they’ll do better next year though. I’d love to see another manufacturer have a massive breakout.
Winner: Kyocera Hydro Edge
For some reason Kyocera always makes their way onto our list for the worst smartphone of the year. This year, it’s their Hydro Edge, that is available on Sprint (and Boost Mobile). For some reason Sprint likes to really market Kyocera devices, when so many users have nothing but problems with them. The Hydro Edge was a water-resistant phone as you could probably tell by the name. It also had a 4-inch 720p display, 5MP camera on the back, 1MP camera on the front, Android 4.1, 1GHz dual-core processor, and a 1600mAh processor. Just those specs alone make me feel very sorry for whoever picked up the Kyocera Hydro Edge on Sprint or Boost Mobile, not to mention all the software problems they are going to have, or have had.