HTC

In previous years manufacturers have used Mobile World Congress to announce their big new products, but many of the surprises were spoiled by the time MWC opened its doors because they’d been revealed in the weeks leading up to the show. 

That was a little disappointing, but while bereft of ground-shaking announcements there were still many smartphones being demonstrated so we were never short of things to see.

Almost every company had at several handsets up and running (some with a mind-boggling selection) so this is set to be an extremely busy year, particularly for Android. To help narrow down the choice if you’re in the market for an upgrade, here’s our pick of the five best smartphones at MWC 2013.

HTC One

Announced a week before MWC, the HTC One was unusually the only handset being demoed by the firm at the conference, which will give you some idea of this device’s importance to HTC.

They’ve gone all out here. The beautiful unibody aluminium shell puts the plastic Galaxy S3 to shame, feels more like a premium product than the Sony Xperia Z and reaches Apple levels of build quality and attention to detail.

Also nice to see that HTC resisted the temptation to slap on a 5-inch-plus display. The One uses a large, but not cumbersome, 4.7-inch screen and doesn’t skimp on quality; it’s a Full HD 1080p LCD with razor-sharp 468 ppi pixel depth.