GSMArena smartphone buyer's guide: November 2014

€400-€500

At €400 and above we hit a wall with the recommendations. There are great devices in this price segment to be sure, but for most of them the cost is on par with the features. You can check out our reviews for in-depth detail on the flagship you're drawn to, here we aim to list devices that stand out from similarly priced offerings.

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact is a great mini, but the Xperia Z3 Compact brings enough improvements to justify its €100+ price premium over its older sibling. For one the bezels have been shaved and now a 4.6" screen fits in the same footprint with room left over for front-facing stereo speakers.

The new Compact phone is also thinner and lighter than its predecessor, while packing a bigger battery (it's an endurance champ). Note that the sides are now covered in plastic (the chassis is still metal), which we felt was a bit of a downgrade.

While the upgrade in chipset performance isn't much, the camera can record 2160p video. If you're not the type to shoot a lot of videos or listen to music without headphones then the price premium becomes harder to justify - the Xperia Z1 Compact really has aged gracefully.

Not far off in price is another water resistant phone, the Samsung Galaxy S5. Other than the IP67 rating, the biggest improvements over last year models are the camera - a Samsung-made 16MP sensor with phase-detection autofocus and 2160p video - and the fingerprint reader.

The Snapdragon 801 chipset is faster than the original S600, but the difference melts if you look at the Snapdragon 800-powered Galaxy S4 LTE-A. That one is capped at 1080p video, plus photo quality is a generation behind and autofocus is slower.

The heart rate monitor is good for the sporty types (who will also appreciate the IP rating), but the fingerprint reader is the bigger deal - between Private mode and KNOX, the Samsung Galaxy S5 offer government-certified security similar to what BlackBerry has to offer. Though we gotta admit that using it on a daily basis is a cause of a lot of frustration - it simply doesn't work as reliably as the iPhone's and usually requires multiples swipes to recognize the fingerprint

€500 and above

With a heavy heart we had to cut many excellent devices off the list. With the LG G3 under €400, a device needs to really brings something special to earn a recommendation. A particular device may appeal to you for personal reasons - the design or another aspect - but that goes the opposite way of a blanket recommendation.

The new Nexus 6 is an imposing 6" device, but is also a match made in heaven - high quality build with pure Android. The 6" AMOLED screen with QHD resolution dwarfs even the new Galaxy Note Edge, those two some of the few Snapdragon 805 devices on the market. The Snapdragon 805 uses the latest Krait 450 processor core and Adreno 420 GPU

The Motorola-made Nexus 6 is launching with Android 5.0 Lollipop, too - Android feels mature enough to offer a full user experience without the need for vendor-made add-ons.

Both phablets have optically stabilized 2160p cameras, but the Nexus boasts a dual-LED ring flash. It also has stereo speakers on the front and basic water-proofing (it's not submersible, but will survive splashes).

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has a metal rim (just like the Nexus 6), but is more compact - as far as phablets can be compact - and has the trademark S Pen stylus. Samsung has also enabled many multitasking features (split-screen, floating apps). TouchWiz still offers some perks over pure Android, but the cost is staying on KitKat for a while longer.

Slower updates aside, the Galaxy Note 4 is available in both Snapdragon 805 and Exynos 5433 versions. The Exynos variant has a 64-bit octa-core processor and Lollipop has optimizations specifically for 64-bit platforms. That's why we listed it as a con for the Nexus - the Google line is supposed to showcase the cutting edge of Android and the ARMv8 instruction set (often reduced to a "64-bit CPU" label) is a big deal.

While video capture is on par, the Galaxy Note 4 still camera is better than the one on the Nexus, the Samsung phablet also adds expandable storage, removable battery, a fingerprint reader and a heart-rate sensor over the Google phablet.