Smartphone Ratings - Consumer Reports
The January 2009 issue of Consumer Reports is out now, and it features several articles on cell phones and cell phone deals.

On page 38, CR ranks available Smartphones.  The phones were rated on 17 criteria, including voice quality, ease of use and talk time, and features like GPS navigation, camera and stereo Bluetooth. (The report is available online to subscribers.) The conclusions were reached by a formula that gives more points for certain features than others.

It's a surprizing list.  You may or may not agree with it.  Skipping many details...here's what you'll see:

1. Samsung Blackjack II (AT&T) - score: 69 (out of 100)
2. T-Mobile Wing - score: 66
3. Motorola Q 9c (Verizon) - score: 65
4. T-Mobile Shadow - score: 65
5. Pantech Duo (AT&T) - score: 63
6. AT&T Tilt - score: 62
7. Palm Centro 685 (AT&T) - score: 61
8. Palm Treo 800 (Sprint-Nextel) - score: 61
9. Palm Treo 577P (Sprint-Nextel) - score: 61
10 Apple iPhone 3G (8GB) (AT&T) - score: 61
11. T-Mobile G-1 - score: 61
12. T-Mobile Sidekick LX - score: 59
13. Blackberry Pearl 8120 (T-Mobile) - score: 58
14. Palm Treo 750 WX (Sprint-Nextel) - score: 58
15. T-Mobile Dash - score 58
16. Blackberry Curve 8330 (Sprint Nextel) - score: 56
17. Palm Centro 690 (Sprint Nextel) - score: 65
18. HTC Touch Diamond (Sprint Nextel) - score: 56
19. HTC Touch (Sprint Nextel) - score: 56
20. Blackberry Pearl 8130 (Sprint Nextel) - score: 52
21 Blackberry 8830 (Verizon) - score 52

So, a somewhat surprizing list, right? 

Considering this device ranked #1 with Consumer Reports does this make those $49 refurbished / $79 new blowout pricing look any nicer for the Blackjack II?
 
One thing to keep in mind: I would assume this article, while placed in the January 2009 issue, was written before a number of recently available devices came on the market, including Samsung's  Omnia and EPIX and Blackberry's Storm and Bold.

Where does your phone rank?

Thanks for posting the list, Undude. I think a lot of people agree that the BlackJack II has been a great workhorse of a phone. However, I've definitely seen a lot of criticism around the net about the rest of the rankings. What does everyone think?

In my opinion, I would agree with Undude - it appears they limited the testing to what was available sometime last year, when they probably began what was a multi-month process of evaluating and writing the article.

[Edit] I mean, limited the testing to phones that were available earlier this year.

Magazines cannot keep up with the quick changes of the industry.  This is part of the reason that Smartphone and Pocket PC Mag went under....the information was at least 2 months old, and it had to be to make publishing deadlines.