Welcome to the Coolsmartphone Award Ceremony and Podcast, coming to you, prerecorded from Coolsmartphone Towers.
Our team of experts got together yesterday and decided on the best and worst bits of 2015 in order to entertain you and reward/shame those responsible. As with all good awards ceremonies we're leaving the big awards until last, so if you just want to know the winner of the best phone award you can jump to the end, but there's some interesting stuff coming up, so don't be too hasty!
Best accessory
Winner - Android Wear

The current iterations of Android wear have not become developed enough for them to be considered as a mainstream device particularly that you can now use them on both iOS and Android now. There are some fantastic examples fitted to you budget ranging from the very expensive Huawei Watch to the Sony Smartwatch 3 (can be found for £89.99)

Best network
Winner - Three

There really wasn't much competition when voting for the best network, and that's because we're all data hungry piglets, and Three fills our troughs to the brim! Also, the roll-out of the "Feel at Home" offering for free data roaming in various countries has been a huge fan favourite over the year. Of course, if their customer service were bad, or their reception unacceptable then it would be a different story, but 2016 has been a great year for Three, and this award is well deserved. It will be interesting to see what happens next year with the impending merger with Telefonica.

Best app
Winner - Google Launcher/Search

This is one of the core roots of Android and of Google so it was only a matter of time before it appeared in or list. It is worthy of being here due to the recent improvements to the Google Now command and also that fact that we are now starting to see Google Now on Tap on devices.  Again this will be one to watch next year as Cortana on Microsoft devices is peeking her head around the corner and other services such as Alexa are starting to appear now as well.

Honorable Mention - Amazon Video

This is a fantastic option for those of us who want to make out TV's into Smart TV's without shelling out near to £400. All you need to get the app in a smartphone or tablet into it. One simple download later and you gain access to a wealth of Video on demand. I have recently been watching the much praised Man in the High Castle which is an Amazon Video exclusive and it is entirely free. Also, don't forget that the new series featuring the old "Top Gear" team will be shown first on Amazon Video in the new year. As I mentioned this will make your dumb TV smart as well with the addition of a relatively inexpensive Amazon Fire TV as well.

Nicest surprise
Winner - Blackberry Priv

This was a very unexpected surprise, Not only did Blackberry release a new phone but they released one that has been sending shockwaves across the internet. This is in part due to the fact that it runs Android 5.1.1 at its core and secondly that it is damn nice hardware. We are yet to actually have a chance to review one of these much sought after review units but rest assured we are on the list and will have a full review up in the new year.

 

Biggest disappointment
Loser - OnePlus 2

There are a few reasons why OnePlus get this award fro their OnePlus 2. The first is the main one really. It is the insistence upon the use of the Invite system to actually allow yo to buy the phone in the first place. Now I understand the reasoning behind it and they have been better this year than last time out, but come on how can you expect the buying public to trust your brand when you don't even trust it enough to put it into a full production run for launch. Secondly and slightly less importantly is the exclusion of NFC and the fingerprint reader being quite poor. In honestly wanted to love the OnePlus 2 to live up to its own hype but for me, it did not Feel free to check out the review