I understand why Yahoo is ranking the phones this way. The Evo 4G is the obvious front runner since it is the first phone to support 4G coverage and as of today it is the most advanced Android hardware on the market. It's downside is that the glass screen is coming apart from the phone's frame due to a manufacturing defect. Once this is fixed, the Evo would be the leader for Android devices at this point in time minus one caveat (I'll get to that in a sec). The Incredible comes in at number two because it has the latest specs including a faster processor and more internal memory. That's great except that the Android OS hasn't been updated to take advantage of onboard memory yet. (Oh, and it comes with the same caveat as the Evo.) Next comes the Nexus One which has the dubious honor of being Google's preferred phone. The N1 is the phone that Google gave out free to all the Android developers that attended their last conference. The Droid comes in at 4th which is a fair assessment since it has now been out for about 7 months and as technology goes, it's approaching retirement age. It was the first of the "modern" Android smartphones and, like the Nexus One, runs a "plain vanilla" form of Android. As for the 5th place Garminphone, I know nothing about it and can't figure out how it got on the list. Great navigation? Sure, Garmin is great for that, but all the Android phones on the list come with Google's navigation app which is quite polished.
Now about that caveat affecting the top two phones on Yahoo's list. Their top two phones come with HTC's Sense UI, a custom interface that HTC created for most of their phones. The Incredible's version includes a bug that causes the phone to shutdown as the cache fills up more and more RAM space until the phone doesn't have enough memory to run on its own. The only fix is a manual reset which causes you to lose all your installed apps and contacts. I imagine HTC will eventually address this problem, but as of today they do not consider it a valid issue despite all the complaints on the Android forums. The other issue with Sense UI (albeit a very pretty interface) is that by adding a custom interface, any future Android updates must first be retrofitted to include the custom code. This delays the rollout of updates to your phone. The Nexus One and Droid, with their plain vanilla OS, have less "baggage" meaning they are the likely phones to get updates first. This may not be a deal breaker for the average smartphone user, but anyone with an eye on technology will most likely want the latest and greatest features as soon as possible.
Of the 5 phones listed, I would definitely lean toward the Nexus One or the Droid. The Evo would come in 3rd for me thanks to it's support for 4G and wireless-N compatibility offsetting it's poor manufacturing issues and the Sense UI. Although you asked not to include service plans, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Evo is only available on Sprint, the Nexus One on T-Mobile, and the Droid on Verizon. So choosing a preferred carrier would by default choose one of my top 3 phones for you. For me, the carrier was more important than the hardware so had the Droid not been a Verizon offering, I would not have had one.
One other thing to mention is that there are two new phones supposedly being announced this week for Verizon: the Droid X and the Droid 2. Both are upgrades to the Droid that have with new hardware specs to match the Evo and iPhone 4. If you are seriously looking at Android phones, it would probably be in your best interest to wait for these new phones to hit the market and add them for consideration.
I love my Droid. Granted, I am a tech geek who has rooted my phone to run the latest OS that hasn't even hit the newest phones yet, and overclocked the processor speed so that it's faster than the fastest Android phone on the market today. As my phone exists right now, it is better than anything stock being sold today. I also like having the hardware keyboard which none of the other phones on Yahoo's list offer. I don't use it daily, but it's nice to have it when I need it. I'm curious to see how the Droid 2 performs as it will be the true update to the phone I have while the Droid X looks to be a hybrid between a smartphone and a tablet with a mammoth screen and several tablet-like specs. Personally, I think the Droid X could be renamed the Ster-Droid as it appears to go a bit too far in upgrades making it a fantastic tech device but a poor phone. Ultimately, I need a good phone as much as a pocket computer.
Should I consider a second job as a tech reviewer? The jury's out, but in the end my recommendation still remains that a person should find the carrier they are most happy with before finding the phone they love. To do it any other way is to put the cart before the horse.
