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Who was the best newcomer to the smartphone game this year? (Poll of the Week)
June 16, 2025
Last week’s poll results:Last week,we asked youwhich manufacturer had the best year in 2018. Out of over 3,800 total votes, OnePlus came out on top with 25.1 percent of all votes. HUAWEI came in at a close second with 22.7 percent of all votes, while Samsung took third with 18.2 percent of the votes.
We all tend to obsess over the seasoned veterans in the smartphone world, but 2018 saw plenty of great new brands release Android phones that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Xiaomi was quite busy this year. Not only did it launch plenty of Android phones under its own name, it also launched two new smartphone lines: Black Shark and POCOphone. The Black Shark gaming phonemade its debutin April, though it had limited availability untillater in the year. Following that launch, Black Shark released another phone, theBlack Shark Helo, in October with a massive 10GB of RAM.
In May, OPPO introduced a new sub-brand calledRealme. realme actually launched three Android phones this year — therealme 1,realme 2, andrealme 2 Pro— though the first two phones received lukewarm reviews from our own Adam Sinicki.
By far the most disruptive phone on this list is thePocophone F1, which comes from Xiaomi’s new sub-brand POCO. The upper mid-range phonechallenged the OnePlus 6for the best value of the year, which resulted in the POCOphone F1 andOnePlus 6Twinning ourBest of Android 2018: Value award.
ThePalm Phoneis the oddest smartphone on our list. Launched mid-October, this tiny device is meant to be your current smartphone’s little sibling. We didn’t give it a stellar review, but we do like seeing the Palm name back in business.
Last butnotleast, Red found out the hard way that making a smartphone is really hard. That’s why theHydrogen Onecame to marketmonths latewith an arguably gimmicky display, and oddly enough a lackluster camera. (Red is a camera company, by the way).
So what’s your pick for 2018’s newcomer? Who really knocked it out of the park: Black Shark, realme, POCO, Palm, or Red?
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