This year we're doing the Smartphone Round Robin a little differently than we have in the past. Instead of limiting each site to a single representative phone, we're looking at each smartphone platform, which means that we can look at the strengths and weaknesses of multiple phones per site and help you get a better feel overall for which direction you may want to go.
Here are the phones we're looking at this year, with links to reviews that can be found at their original sites:
Android
For the Android platform this year, Android Central chose two main phones to focus on: the Motorola Droid and the Sprint Hero. The Droid, available on Verizon, is of course the flagship phone for Android right now and clearly generating more buzz than virtually any other device out there. The Sprint Hero had to make it in because it features HTC's excellent Sense UI, which makes the overall Android Experience much nicer.
BlackBerry
Despite the fact that the look and feel of BlackBerrys has changed little over the years, if you follow CrackBerry.com you know that they've relentlessly progressed the platform. No two phones represent this better than the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and the BlackBerry Storm2. Both are iterations on previous devices, which take dozens of evolutionary steps and make them feel revolutionary.
Nokia
Although Nokia smarpthones get short shrift in North America, they're still the #1 smartphone worldwide. Americans can still get their Nokia fix at Nokia Experts, though, where Matt had amongst the first and most comprehensive places to find information on Nokia's new flagship device, the Maemo-rocking N900. If you prefer traditional Nokia S60, the other entrant this year is the N97 Mini.
iPhone
Despite the fact that Apple is the sole entrant with a single device this year, The iPhone Blog has had no shortage of stuff to write about. Whether it's the innovative new features in the iPhone 3GS, any of the over 100,000 apps available for the iPhone, or even some of the apps that have been rejected from the App Store, it's been anything but a slow year for Apple.
webOS
This year marked the resurgence of Palm and what a resurgence it's been. From the unveiling of the Palm Pre to the surprisingly fresh take on smartphones found in webOS to the just-released Palm Pixi, PreCentral.net has been the number one place for all things Palm. The Palm Pre is both one of the easiest to use phones and one of the most hackable phones, making for a killer combination.
Windows Phone
Some might say it's been a slow year for Windows Mobile, but don't tell that to the guys at WMExperts. The release of Windows Mobile 6.5 has brought a fresh look to the platform, but not as fresh as the SenseUI that HTC has added in. On top of all that, we have what might be the two most incredible pieces of smartphone hardware we've ever seen: the Tilt 2 and the HTC HD2. Big screens, big processors, and big keyboards mean big productivity.