BlackDot mobile awards announced at CTIA Wireless 2009

1 April, 2009

Update April 2nd: The truth is that the Black Dot awards which are in the focus of this article are nothing more than a Fool's Day prank that we devised.

We are really pleased it turned out that successful and we enjoyed reading your feedback in the comments. There were quite some people that did fell for this one.

That being said, it was just an innocent joke (though quite an elaborate one) and we hope it was as entertaining to you as it was to us. Don't miss paying a visit to the comments section because the user input there is surely worth it.

The BlackDot awards committee, a US subsidiary of the popular European telecommunications award fund, officially announced the 2009 award-winning list. One of the most coveted devices this year made an appearance in the highly prestigious nominations ceremony.

The BlackDot awards are an annual event at which the best wireless devices get nominated and voted in various categories by a board of industry professionals. There are a lot of categories covering various gadgets, but we'll concentrate only on the ones that feature mobile phones.

The BlackDot best mobile imaging award surprisingly goes to the iPhone 3G. According to the John Nash, chairman of the jury, "the iPhone 3G is actually a quite capable cameraphone given there is enough light. There are some excellent examples proving its capabilities."

Apple iPhone 3G

Speaking of imaging capabilities, the Samsung Omnia ^HD has also snatched one of the awards - it heads the Creative naming category with its superscript naming, which is shared by quite a lot of the latest Samsung phones. Its first and second runner-ups are the HTC Touch Cruise 09 and HTC Touch Diamond2, which are best described as... sequels.

Samsung i8910 Omnia^HD • HTC Touch Cruise 09 • HTC Touch Diamond2

Motorola A3100 is among the winners as well, obviously displaying supreme command of the touchscreen realm, and has been picked to rule the Best touchscreen phone category. As Barry Allen, a jury member, commented "Motorola's heavily modified WinMo interface has created a true iPhone killer."

Motorola A3100

After some heavy user input, the BlackDot awards jury voted the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic the most reliable handset on the market - with the Blackberry Storm being a close runner-up. "Both devices are some fine examples of how a mobile phone should offer its users unsurpassed performance 24/7 - day-in and day-out." - said John Garlin, member of the jury.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Sony Ericsson W705 has also scored a nice one by snatching the "Original design award". "You rarely see such a nice combination of both straight lines and round design elements as in Sony Ericsson W705. The jury has been overwhelmed with the roundish control elements that seem unique to the W705." - commented another member of the jury.

Sony Ericsson W705

Toshiba TG01 has obviously been hand-picked to win the Compact design category award.It's got a notable low profile and you'd barely recognize it as a mobile phone due to its impressive size.

Toshiba TG01

And finally, the Top all-rounder award goes to Nokia 1202. "The Nokia 1202 is the pure essence of mobile telecommunications. Plus, you can rarely find a phone that cheap that has 10 features the new iPhone 3.0 software doesn't have" - commented John Nash, chairman of the jury.

Nokia 1202