Now, to clarify, I'm not necessarily ranking devices by good design, although quite often good design and good build quality are linked at the hip. Some of the phones listed below aren't beautiful (though, again, some are) - but all of them are built like tanks and pretty much guaranteed to survive numerous drops, scrapes and even drenchings, without missing a beat.
So, with a hefty dose of first hand experience, a dollop of anecdotal evidence and a tinge of humour, here are the Dozen Best Built Symbian OS-powered smartphones EVER. And, yes, I did do something similar a year ago - guess this chart is becoming an annual event!
[Honorary mention to the Nokia 7650, which is just about built to mil-spec. It would have been no. 1 but it was disqualified by me by being so early and so primitive that it couldn't really do anything!]
1. Nokia E51. My wife has one of these. It's sleek, it's metal-backed and it's indestructible. We've tried. It has been submersed in water at least twice now. It has been dropped, stepped on, abused in the bottom of more shopping bags that you've had hot dinners, and it just refuses to die. Apart from the smallish screen it's in many ways the perfect smartphone.
2. Nokia E61. This is what you get if you basically build a candy bar phone out of aluminium. The E61 is incredibly robust and my early example has survived being played with by 4 years of my daughter's friends. And has come out still looking like new (after a dust down with some detergent!) and working perfectly. Amazing. And the battery goes on for a week.
3. Nokia E61i. Essentially the E61 but thinner and with a camera, the E61i is almost as robust and mine was sold as-new after a year of use. Still a great find on eBay if you're looking for something that will just keep on going.
4. Nokia N73. No metal here, this early Nseries camera-centric candybar was all plastic - but the number of people who've abused it and seen it shrug everything off is impressive. A worthy inclusion here.
5. Nokia N82. Again Nseries, again candybar and again all plastic. And, famously, the subject of one of my own real world robustness tests - what a trouper. Again, will go and go and go....
6. Samsung G810. One of the forgotten S60 devices, this is chunky but built like a Terminator. It's what the Nokia N95 would have looked like if it had been designed by 1960s USSR in their fight against the capitalist Americans. It's a mean camera phone too, with 5mp camera with Xenon flash and optical zoom. I'm proud of mine and no, I'm not going to sell it to you on eBay!
7. Samsung i8910 HD. Ah yes, the current smartphone of choice for the real Symbian zealot. But there's no denying the solid hardware. And the one piece design is beautiful too, in a way - and not just when you turn that big OLED screen on!
8. Nokia E71. The slimmed down, smaller-screened version of the E61, and with GPS on board this time. And build quality's almost up to the same standard, every second hand E71 I see looks almost as good as it did new out of the box. The one piece design makes this another great bet for buying second-hand.
9-. Nokia N86. A device rather out of its time, this is the dual-slider par excellence that doesn't really fit in the 2009 smartphone world. Yet there's no denying that it's both beautiful and solid, with a metal chassis and sliding mechanism - and the tempered glass front and discrete buttons make it a joy to hold.
10. Nokia N97 mini. The metal backed redesign of the infamous N97. Of course, it's still a bit early to decree that it's a robust champion, but let's just say it's looking good so far!
11. Sony Ericsson P900. The original P800 was an outstanding physical design, I reckon - but was let down by everything being so plasticky. The P900 was a step backwards in terms of design elegance, but was three steps forward in terms of materials used, style and build quality, and so the P900 gets the nod here.
12. Nokia E90. A device set apart in terms of form factor, the use of lashings of metal and industrial strength hinges make the E90 also a long-live competitor.
With only a handful of current devices in the top 12, it's tempting to bemoan the lack of industrial design flair in 2009. Are more fashionable materials winning out over long-term-better-choices? But, as the N86, N97 mini and i8910 HD prove, it is possible to produce something both stylish and well-built, so the current generation of designers aren't totally without flair.
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 22 Nov 2009