5 smartphones that turned our heads in 2016

Smartphones continued to be the most popular products in the electronics market this year, but only a few really turned heads.

Moto G Play, 4th Gen (White)

2016 hasn’t really been the best year for smartphone innovation, but the second half of the year was still kind to us. Companies showed intent, and even though there products weren’t perfect, they point towards the future of these devices.

We looked at a lot of smartphones this year. While we've reviewed most of them, some we used for brief periods. In all this, there were some phones that wowed us with innovation, while others that were plain old run-of-the-mill phones. This is our pick from the phones that actually made us remember them.

Moto Z

Sure, LG took first crack at modular smartphones, but Motorola did a much better job with it. The Moto Z and Moto Z Play, accompanied with the Moto Mods, did turn a lot of heads.

Lenovo got Hasselblad to make a mod for the Moto Z. The True Zoom is a good way to implement optical zoom on smartphones. Yes, the image quality wasn’t the best, but optical zoom is done much better here, than on the iPhone 7 Plus.

LG G5

Speaking of modular smartphones, the LG G5 was the phone that started it. While Google all but killed its Project Ara initiative, LG had other ideas. Its flagship device was launched with mods, or ‘Friends’ as LG calls them.

Sadly, the LG G5 didn’t do well, and LG admitted as much. The company has since said it’s giving up on the modular design, but the G5 was still the first phone to turn our heads this year.

Xiaomi Mi Mix

When a company takes a step into the future, you notice. Xiaomi didn’t do something that hasn’t been done before. It took the bezel-less design from the Sharp Aquos Crystal and made it better.

The Mi Mix isn’t the perfect bezel-less phone, but it at least shows what Xiaomi is planning for years to come. The 6.4-inch display looks pretty, and the phone is almost as fast and smooth as a Google Pixel.

Google Pixel/Pixel XL

While we’re on the topic, the world took notice when the first Google-made smartphone was announced this year. It’s Google’s first true attempt at taking on the iPhone. The Pixel and Pixel XL look like iPhones, cost like iPhones, and almost perform like iPhones. It’s the closest Android has ever come to Apple’s vertical ecosystem.

Sadly, there’s still some work to be done here. Consumers aren’t quite over the Nexus yet, so the Pixels seem far too expensive. Moreover, the phones don’t really look or feel as premium as something in this price range should. The best of Android is still far from perfect.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

The most explosive (see what we did there?) smartphone of 2016, the Note 7 turned our heads twice. In pictures the phone looks the same as the Galaxy S7 Edge, but the Note 7 blew our minds (we did it again), when we first saw it.

If it hadn’t been a ticking time bomb, the Note 7 would have been the best smartphone Samsung ever made. Oh well, let’s hope Samsung can come back with a bang (this is the last one, we promise!) next year.