The Best Android Phones

The Best Android Phones

These days, it seems like there's a new Android phone announced every other day. Just last week, Samsung unveiled the latest handset in its successful Galaxy S line. It won't hit the U.S. until this summer, but with a quad-core processor, a 1,280-by-720 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display, an 8-megapixel camera, Android 4.0, 4G LTE support, voice control, and facial-recognition features, the Galaxy S III will likely be worth the wait. And if the Galaxy S II is any indication, a variant of the phone should be available on every major U.S. carrier.

That's one of the best things about Android: Choice. The open nature of the platform means that you can find dozens of Android phones from a variety of manufacturers on each carrier. At the time of this writing, there were more than 20 Android handsets available on Verizon Wireless alone. According to research firm NPD, Android owned 47 percent of the U.S. Smartphone market in the last quarter of 2011.

That's a lot of very similar phones to choose from. To come up with our list of top Android phones, we've chosen two to three winners for each of the four major carriers from our highest-rated phones. And for the contract-phobic, we've thrown in the best unlocked handset. If you've settled on Android as your mobile platform, and you're in the market for a new phone right now, these models are your best bets. But the way things are going, we can assure you that there's another great 'Droid right around the corner.