T3 Gadget Awards 2013: HTC One wins Phone of the Year

HTC's Android wonder phone holds off strong competition from Apple, Sony and Samsung

The HTC One has been crowned Phone of the Year at the T3 Gadget Awards 2013.

The phone beat off stiff competition from the likes of Apple, Sony, Samsung, Nokia and BlackBerry.

The last 12 months have seen some truly amazing phones vying for your money. However, it was the HTC's stunning smartphone the HTC One that walked away with the walked away with the award after impressing both T3's readers and the judges.

The HTC One is a product designed to save a company in financial trouble – and it seems HTC's design and engineering team work well with their backs against the wall.

Read more: T3 Gadget Awards 2013: Felix Baumgartner wins Moment of the Year

It also seems that having their backs against the wall helped them create the best phone of the last 12 months.

This Android phone the best product HTC has ever built and now it is the has officially been crowned phone of the year at the T3 Awards sponsored by Ford SYNC.

The HTC One has a gorgeously thin, reassuringly rigid aluminium body bonded to the 4.7-inch screen by a technique that doesn't leave a single gap. And speaking of the screen, it's eyeball-piercingly sharp, with a 1080p full HD resolution and Retina display-spanking pixel density of 468ppi.

Read more: T3 Gadget Awards 2013: Jason Bradbury walks away with Gadget Personality of the Year

It's one of a handful of phones that can be mentioned in the same breath as the iPhone when it comes to looks and build quality.

Performance is no less impressive, with the quad-core processor blazing through tasks with nary a trace of lag and the 4MP Ultrapixel camera serving up some of the finest snaps we've ever seen from a smartphone.

However, the HTC One didn't win because of weak competition. The phone held off the competition in a year when Apple launched the new, larger iPhone 5, Sony unveiled the amazing Xperia Z and Samsung pulled out all the stops with its Android super phone, the Galaxy S4.

Ben Furfie is a former freelance writer for T3.com who produced daily news stories for the site on tech and gadgets. He also live-managed the T3 Award websites during the 2013 and 2014 T3 Awards. Ben later moved into web development and is now a Technical Development Manager leading a team of developers.