Top Ten Best Coolest Smartphones Review of Reviews Droid Bionic, HTC ThunderBolt, LG Revolution Tops Consumer Reports VZW

Consumer Reports has made a splash lately by letting the world know how its subscribers rated carriers. The smaller carriers were top rated, while the national carrier with the best ratings was Verizon Wireless.  We have been examining how Consumer Reports rated the top smartphones of the year for T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint.  We noticed that CR rates smartphones more on the consumer experience rather than the technical details.

Update 2012 - We've rounded-up the 2012 results for best smartphone from Consumer Reports, T-Mobile, DT, HTC, Droid, Motorola, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, trends, sales figures and the best for 2012.

The Samsung Galaxy S II is rated best for all carriers except for Verizon Wireless where it is not available yet but will be coming as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus sometime in December or later.

The magazine is slightly behind the market because it takes time to go to print and be delivered.

We bought the magazine while shopping Black Weekend sales and discovered the paper version of smartphone ratings and testing did not include the top smartphone new dual-core releases of the fall the Droid Bionic, Samsung Galaxy SII,  Droid RAZR and HTC Rezound,  If you prefer the latest breaking technology the Droid RAZR and HTC Rezound are the fastest Verizon Wireless smartphones as of this writing.

The online version is updated more often and more up-to-date.  If you like the way Consumer Reports rates smartphones you should subscribe to read the full reviews.  We show a brief summary of CR review, followed by a sumary of our Review of Reviewers and the best prices we find as of this writing.  You should buy the magazine or Consumer Reports online service for full reviews.

Verizon Wireless Top Smartphones Rated by CR:

Motorola Droid Bionic (77) - Best features are the 4.3" touchscreen, email readability, ability to create/edit documents, 4G LTE data network, good photo quality and Android.  They didn't like it could be too big,  fair voice listening quality, lack of physical keypad and hard to access microSD card.  Reviewers of the Droid Bionic all agreed that it is the fastest smartphone on the Verizon network and gave it the honor of Editors' Choice. Online retailer Amazon is selling the Droid Bionic for $49.99 for new customers and $179.99 for renewing customers.

HTC ThunderBolt (73) -   Best features are the 4.3" touchscreen, email readability, ability to create/edit documents, 4G LTE data network, excellent video recording, front-facing camera good photo quality and Android.  They didn't like it could be too big,  fair voice listening quality, lack of physical keypad,  hard to access microSD card and it's heavier than other smartphones. Reviewers all praised how fast data, webpages and browsing is on the HTC ThunderBolt. It was later to discovered to have battery draining issues. Amazon Wireless reduced the price to one-cent for new customers and $99.99 for new customers.

LG Revolution (73) - The best-liked features are the outstanding 4.3" touchscreen, ease of use, good controls and 4G LTE data speeds. They didn't like that you can't edit Word documents, fair voice listening quality, lack of physical keypad,  hard to access microSD card , low quality HD video recording and  it's heavier than competitors. Every reviewer we reviewed rated the LG Revolution 3.5 and found the good points to be the bright 4.3" touchscreen, 4G LTE data speeds and Netflix. The 4G LTE LG Revolution is priced at one-cent at Amazon Wireless for new customers and renewing customers with a contract.

Samsung Droid Charge (73)- The little sister to the highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Nexus is best liked by CR for its front-facing camera, 4.3" touchscreen, ease of use, good controls and 4G LTE data speeds. They didn't like the fair voice listening quality, lack of physical keypad,  hard to access microSD card, long camera shutter lag, and larger size.  Reviewers raved about the Super AMOLED touchscreen, great camera/camcorder and fantastic 4G LTE speeds. Amazon Wireless discounts it to one-cent for new and renewing customers.

iPhone 4S (73) - CR liked its ease of use, email app, sharp screen, Siri, iOS, camera, music app and easy media buying.  They didn't like the inability to edit Word documents, lack of preset text messages, fair voice quality, lack of physical buttons and battery has to be replaced by Apple. There are no discounts available.

Read Dare to Compare of Charge/ThunderBolt & LG Revolution G LTE smartphones from Verizon Wireless.