Why I won't switch to Windows Phone:

Back in June, I wrote about my time with the Lumia 630, and lamented the lack of apps available in the Windows Store.

Since then, I've been using the Lumia 1320. It was a dual-purpose test: first to force myself to use a phablet - this thing is huge - and second to really use Windows Phone apps seriously. I'm going to leave the phablet experience for another time and talk here about Windows Phone again.

Much to the surprise of everyone at Tech Advisor and surely plenty of Windows Phone owners, a number of new apps have appeared over the last few months, notably Fitbit.

One of the biggest issues I had with missing apps was that I couldn't use my Fitbit One - nor any other activity tracker - with Windows Phone. Researching the problem I found that even in Windows Phone 8 the Bluetooth stack, as it's known, still wasn't up to scratch. That's fixed in Windows Phone 8.1 (about time, Microsoft), and it has meant that synching with Bluetooth LE devices such as the Fitbit is now possible.

That's no consolation for Nike FuelBand or Jawbone UP owners, though. With a bit of luck, there will be official apps soon as, amazingly, Nike finally released a FuelBand app for Android about a month ago (about time, Nike).

I was also pretty happy to discover that apps for the two banks I bank with are available on the Windows Store. In fact, we've been keeping a list of missing apps for Windows Phone and have been able to cross out about half of them over the last few months. Happy days.

Well. Not quite. The problem, dear reader, is that it isn't enough to be able to tick these apps off our list. Right from the start, Microsoft was keen to boast about numbers. At the launch of Windows Phone 8 in 2012, Joe Belfiore boasted that Windows Phone owners now had access to 46 out of the top 50 apps (he conveniently forgot to mention that it didn't apply to those who bought handsets running Windows Phone 7 because, oh, they wouldn't get the upgrade to Windows Phone 8.)

However, with apps, it's quality over quantity and that's where Windows Phone really falls down for me. I fired up the Y-cam HomeMonitor app expecting exactly the same set of features as on my iPhone. But no. Although I can view the live feed from the camera and watch recorded clips from the cloud service, that's it. There are no options to turn the camera on or off, to enable or disable motion detection, nor mute alerts.

It's a similar story in other apps. Even in the much anticipated Fitbit app, there's no way to re-order or remove the various stats on the home screen - it's a small detail, but it's a theme that seems to run through every app I've used.

It's hard to tell whether I should be blaming Microsoft or the app developers, since some of the features may not be possible due to limitations with Windows Phone 8.1, or it could be that the developers simply aren't putting in as much effort as with iOS.

The bottom line is that, for the user, the experience is inferior to an iPhone in many ways. Don't get me wrong: there are benefits to having Windows Phone 8, such as the ability to pin the London Bridge departures information to the home screen (complete with live tile) rather than merely the app itself. But, after more than two months of using Windows Phone 8.1, I'm itching to go back to iOS.

This is the perfect smartphone

There’s lots of competition to be the best smartphone around: Apple’s iPhone 5s has many fans, while others are enamoured with the Samsung Galaxy S5, the HTC One M8 and the LG G3. Each of those phones has its strengths and weaknesses – and here we're going to combine all their best points to great the best phone ever (or at least so far, until one of the phone markers or platform developers comes up with something super shiny that wows us all).

This is a bit of fun - and a benchmark to judge any new phone by, including the apparently soon-to-be-forthcoming iPhone 6 - but underpinning it is that there is no one best phone on the market, you've got to find the one whose best features appeal most to you.

Most usable: iPhone 5s

iOS 7 is the best mobile phone platform around – and it runs best on the iPhone 5s. Android is highly configurable and the best to get your nerd on with – but for the vast majority of users, iOS is the easiest to use. Apple has nailed interface design with iOS 7 – and by 'interface design’ I mean how it works and how you achieve what you want to achieve, more than how it looks. It’s simple and almost never confusing, and you always know how to navigate around the OS and use Apple’s key apps – and these design principles have been picked up by other designers of iOS apps, pushing them to use the best practice that Apple has set down.

There was a lot of hate for the design of iOS 7 when it first launched – but this was primarily about its aesthetics, not how it works. Almost a year on, even the haters have come to accept the look and feel of iOS 7 – probably because they’ve realised that how it works is more important. iOS 7’s aesthetics are a consequence of the way that it works, chosen to complement how you use the platform and make it obvious how you activate functions when you want to start or complete a task. (If you want to know about design for usability, I’d recommend reading The Design of Everyday Things by ex-Apple designer and usability guru Donald Norman – who explains how designers choose how things work and why you’re always lighting the wrong hob on your oven.

This said, I'm really quite impressed with next version of Android, still just codenamed L, which has been designed with a focus on usability (under the name of material design) – but I’ll reserve judgement until I see the finished version.
Neil Bennett

Best screen: LG G3

It’s very rare these days that a physical aspect of a phone wows us - but the LG's 'quad HD' screen is a marvel. Ignore those nerdish quibbles that it's not actually four times the resolution of HD, the first time you see photos and video on the phone, it both surprises and delights you. The level of detail is like nothing you’ve seen before.

You're probably not going to notice the difference most of the time when surfing the web until this quality of screen becomes widespread enough that websites start using 4x times images – like they offer 2x images for high-res phone screens and Retina displays – but if you take a lot of high quality photos and videos you'll be delighted by the improvement.

Best product design: HTC M8

The problem for any smartphone vendor that wants to charge a high price for its products is that cheaper low-end and mid-range devices are becoming much more sophisticated.

The use of premium materials such as metal and glass is one way of making expensive models seem worth extra investment, and HTC has taken this to the extreme with the gorgeous One M8. It comes close to the feel of a Rolex, which isn't true for any other smartphone.

To me, the all-metal unibody makes the smartphone look more luxurious than the iPhone's mixture of glass and metal. LG Electronics has made the most of what metal-looking plastic can offer with the G3, but that still can't compete with the real thing.   

If that wasn't enough, HTC has also designed the coolest looking case: the perforated Dot View Cover. HTC deserves a lot of credit for the design of the One M8, and hopefully it will be around to develop an even better successor.
Mikael Ricknäs

Best camera: Nokia Lumia 1020

The Nokia Lumia 1020's amazing camera would be an essential feature for the ultimate smartphone. It's 41Mp combined with a Xenon flash, and focus assist light, and is the most advanced and powerful camera we've seen on a smartphone to date.
Ashleigh Allsopp

Best gadgety extras: Galaxy S5

You may not use them all but the ultimate smartphone has got to have everything possible, just in case. In terms of additional features there's no-one better than Samsung for throwing extras at devices so for this section we've selected the Galaxy S5.

Since we're only selecting real-life features which you can get now and not James Bond-esque gadgets like fricking lasers and miniature rockets, the Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor and infrared transmitter will have to do.

With these you can keep your device more secure, check how hard that workout actually was and control all manner of gadgets (even prank other peoples).
Chris Martin

Best apps: Apple App Store

Steve Ballmer knew better than anyone that smartphones live and die by their app library, and that the support of third-party app developers is crucial to getting a mobile platform off the ground. And while Google Play might boast more apps, I would back Apple's iOS App Store over anyone.

Tech-savvy early-adopters will appreciate the fact that apps are almost always developed for iOS before any other platform (mainly because Apple users are more likely to spend money on software), and sometimes - including some big names, such as the Infinity Blade games - never appear anywhere else. And the quality average in Apple's app ecosystem is undoubtedly higher than on Android.

But the more stringent vetting process required to get software on the App Store really shows its value for beginner and casual users, who are far more likely to end up with dodgy apps, scams and even out-and-out malware on their phone when using Google's more porous system.