The 20 most important phones of the decade

By Alex Choros

Last updated 12 December 2019

Ten years is a long time as it is, but it's tantamount to eternity in the world of tech.

A lot has changed in the past decade when it comes to phones. We've gone to from tiny 3.5-inch devices to massive 6.5-inch displays. We went from an industry with as many as six potential smartphone operating systems to just two. Talking to your phone has gone from a social faux pas to a societal norm. We saw 4G networks switched on, and we're now witnessing the advent of 5G. Phones are now the best camera many of us own. Hell, smartphones are the most powerful computer most of us own.

In the course of ten years, phones have gone from "just a phone" to being the centre of our lives. Here's a look at the devices that made that happen and helped shape this dying decade.

Apple iPhone 4 (2010)

The iPhone 4 is a truly iconic smartphone. It was a shifting point in smartphone design. It was arguably the first "hot" smartphone. It's angular, metal and glass finish was not only the watershed for the bulbous plastic iPhones that preceded it, but the entire industry. The iPhone 4's design is still echoed today.

But as easy as it was to love the iPhone 4, it was also surrounded with controversy. It leaked months before launch, at a time before phones really leaked. A prototype was left in a bar and promptly sold to a reporter at Gizmodo. This ultimately led to police raiding the journalist's home and a failed attempt at suing the site for extortion. Fun times!

And then there was "antennagate", the first great "scandal" of the smartphone era. If you held the iPhone 4 in a certain way, it would lose all signal. While Steve Jobs' response was "avoid holding it in that way", Apple eventually relented and offered all iPhone 4 owners a free bumper case.

Love it or hate it, there's no doubt the iPhone 4 was a true landmark in the last decade of smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy S (2010)

When it first launched, no one knew the Galaxy S would be the start of something huge. While it was the S II and S III that made everyone pay attention, the original Galaxy S was Samsung's first high-end smartphone, and more importantly, the device that would turn the company into one of the world's biggest smartphone manufacturers.

Apple iPhone 4S (2011)

While the iPhone 4S was mostly an iPhone 4 without antenna issues, it brought one key innovation to the table: Siri. While Siri was far from perfect at launch, it was a huge improvement over previous attempts at voice-driven computing. It's easy to look at Siri as the start of the voice-centric era we're now living in, with Apple almost certainly spurring on tech like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 (2011)

The Bold 9900 was arguably the last BlackBerry that was truly loved. Android and iOS were still both relatively new platforms, and the app ecosystems weren't as robust as they are today. At the same time, BlackBerry had its own lock-in effect in the form BBM. Sure the grass might have looked a bit greener, but there wasn't really a compelling reason to leave.

Samsung Galaxy Note (2011)

Remember the good old days when you could hold a phone with one hand? The Galaxy Note changed that. While it was ridiculed for what was considered a comically large 5.3-inch display (bless), the Note was ultimately be a success for Samsung. It kickstarted the "big" phone trend, introduced the world to the term "phablet", and gave Samsung the tock to the Galaxy S' tick.

Nexus 4 (2012)

Android used to suck in its early days. It felt clunky and unrefined when compared to iOS. The Nexus 4 represented a turning point for the operating system - Android could finally be considered genuinely user-friendly.

In addition, the Nexus 4 was one of the first truly great "affordable" smartphones. Despite starting at $349, the Nexus 4 still had high-end components that went toe-to-toe with every other Android flagship at the time. For comparison, the Galaxy S III launched at $899 locally, and the iPhone 5 at $799. Those were the days.

BlackBerry Z10 (2013)

The Z10 marked the beginning of the end for BlackBerry. The company threw everything it had into its BlackBerry 10 operating system, knowing it was make or break. When it failed to make a dent, we all knew it was over. Sure, BlackBerry released a couple of more phones powered by BlackBerry 10 OS, but none of them made an impact. But hey, it's never too late to pour one out.

Nokia Lumia 1020 (2013)

By 2013, most smartphones had pretty alright cameras. The Windows Phone-powered Lumia 1020, however, was arguably the first truly camera-centric handset. Packing a 41MP camera with optical image stabilisation, it outperformed its rivals at the time. Like many phones now, the Lumia 1020 really was a camera first, phone second. It's just a shame it was let down by its operating system. What's the point of a great camera on a phone that can't run Instagram?

The Lumia 1020 also marked the end for Nokia. After the lukewarm launch of the Symbian-powered N8 in 2011, Nokia hitched its wagon to Microsoft's revamped Windows Phone operating system. This led to Nokia’s mobile division being acquired by Microsoft shortly after the Lumia 1020's launch, and ultimately, written down.

By betting on the wrong horse, Nokia - as it was then - went from an industry titan to a footnote in history. But hey, it's fun to imagine an alternate reality where Nokia went with Android as its operating system of choice. Would it have avoided the same fate?

LG G Flex (2013)

By 2013, smartphone design was already becoming homogenous. There were differences in screen-size and materials, but in the end, they were all a rectangle with a glass screen. The LG G Flex offered something different - a bendable display. The curved screen had enough give to resist being flattened without affecting its physical shape.

LG claims this made the G Flex more drop-resistant than your typical smartphone, but otherwise, the curved screen was essentially a gimmick. Despite this, it's easy to look at the G Flex as a predecessor to smartphones like the Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X. Without a bendable phone leading the way, actual foldables would have never happened.

Motorola Moto G (2013)

The Moto G was one of the first great budget smartphones. Despite being priced under $300, it boasted a slick design, snappy performance, and a high definition screen. Notably, the Moto G also ran an unadulterated version of Android, free from bloatware, at a time when most competing handsets were anything but. Motorola' G series has endured throughout the decade, and have consistently been a reliable pick for anyone after an affordable smartphone that doesn't make too many compromises.

Apple iPhone 6 (2014)

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were mostly a case of Apple playing catch-up. The company relented, and finally gave the people what they wanted: bigger iPhones. While the iPhone 6 sold like hotcakes, it's real legacy is bendgate. Shortly after the phones launched, customers alleged the phones would buckle in their pockets. This in turn led to much greater scrutiny of phone durability, and it's now rare to see a smartphone torture test that doesn't answer the question "will it bend?"

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge (2014)

Samsung sure knows how to keep it weird. Cut from the same cloth as the Galaxy Note 4, the Note Edge was an odd-ball sibling, determined to be different at a time when phones were starting to look samey. The Note Edge kickstarted the curved display trend, but not in the way it exists today. Only one side of the screen tapered off, while the other remained flat. It was funky as hell, and didn’t really do much other than provide visual flair.

Nonetheless, the curved display trend endured, albeit on both sides of the display, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to die anytime soon, with Samsung, Huawei, OPPO and more all still loving on tapered edges.

Samsung Galaxy S6 (2015)

The Galaxy S6 was the start of a new era for Samsung. It eschewed the textured plastic finishes that dominated its smartphone for years, replacing them with a glass front and back joined by a metal chamfer. It felt genuinely high-end. Premium. It finally felt like Samsung cared about design. Not only has Samsung been refining on the same aesthetic ever since, the Galaxy S6 caused a shift in the industry, with many manufacturers moving to an all-glass build in the following the years.

Microsoft Lumia 950 (2015)

As ambitious as the Lumia 950 was, it would ultimately prove to be a death knell for Windows Phone, Microsoft's mobile operating system. The Lumia 950 was a fairly standard smartphone for the most part, but it had a rather unique twist: you could plug it into a monitor (via a docking station) and use it like a desktop computer. While the idea was novel, the execution wasn't great. The phone was too sluggish in "computer mode" and the number of accessories required made it far too circumstantial. Fortunately we've seen manufacturers like Samsung pick up where Microsoft left of and keep iterating on the concept with tech like DeX.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (2016)

The Galaxy Note 7 was as close as you get to a perfect smartphone at the time. It had a great camera, felt amazing, it wasn't too big, and lasted forever. While most devices at the time had a trade-off or two, the Note 7 was free from them. Other than the fact it exploded. Shortly after the Note 7 hit shelves, there were a few too many reports of the phone overheating and catching fire. Two recalls later, Samsung ultimately killed off the Note 7, leaving behind just a cautionary tale.

Nokia 3310 3G (2017)

While it's easy to look at the Nokia 3310 3G as a cynical nostalgia play, it was also an acknowledgement that smartphones had become problematic. In developed markets, the revamped 3310 3G was pitched a detox device - a phone with just the bare essentials for you when you didn't want to be distracted by the ensnaring behemoth that modern technology had become. Sure, no one would have cared about it if wasn't for the name. Sure, T9 texting is awful. Sure, it's actually is hard to live without certain apps. But nonetheless, the Nokia 3310 3G was a precursor to the digital wellbeing conversation tech giants are now starting to engage with.

Google Pixel 2 (2017)

The original Pixel had an excellent camera, but it was the Pixel 2 that put Google on the map as a force to reckoned with when it comes to smartphone photography. The Pixel 2 ushered in a new era of AI-powered computational photography with a single-camera portrait mode, augmented reality effects, and tech that stitched together multiple brief images to get a more dynamic and detailed photos. At a time when everyone was starting to add more and more cameras to their smartphones, the Pixel 2 truly wowed us with what you could do with just one.

Apple iPhone X (2017)

With the launch of the iPhone X, Apple cast a stone that would ripple across the entire industry. Suddenly, rival manufacturers were all implementing facial recognition, they were trimming bezel anywhere and everywhere, they were bragging about how their notch was smaller than Apple's. For a while, every second smartphone looked like an iPhone X. Once again, everyone was copying Apple.

Huawei P20 Pro (2018)

Coming almost out of nowhere, the Huawei P20 Pro represented a generational leap forward in smartphone photography. Huawei smartphones had progressively gotten better over the course of the decade, but no one expected the P20 Pro. While camera quality was all-round excellent, it was its night mode that shocked us.

The P20 Pro was the first smartphone to feature a "night mode", a photography setting where it took multiple photos at different exposures of a short period of time. These were then stitched together to create a brighter, more detailed image. There was nothing else like it at the time.

Since then, night modes have started to become ubiquitous. Google and Samsung were quick to follow suit, OPPO and Motorola added the tech to their low-end phones, and even Apple added a night mode to the iPhone 11 family this year.

Samsung Galaxy Fold (2019)

The Galaxy Fold is undeniable proof that foldable phones can be good. It's a genuinely new smartphone form-factor that doesn't just feel new for the sake of being new. It's meaningful innovation. It's a little bit magic. While the Galaxy Fold isn't the kind of smartphone you should rush out and buy, it's better than it has any right to be as a first-of-its-kind product. It's akin to a blueprint for the next generation of mobile devices. The Galaxy Fold may end this decade, but it will almost certainly shape the next.